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Messages - JohnSielaff

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US Lookup Requests / Re: San Francisco Census Look up please
« on: Friday 31 August 12 04:49 BST (UK)  »
Mary,
Thanks so much for finding that obituary of Thomas Gibney.  I am adding the information to my map of workers on the Minnesota State Capitol.  http://www.communitywalk.com/capitol_construction_workers_189818991900/map/1523681 
Details like this do much to help us understand what life was like for these workers.  Six men died in the construction of the Capitol - five in falls similar to Thomas Gibney's.

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US Lookup Requests / Re: San Francisco Census Look up please
« on: Monday 20 August 12 15:18 BST (UK)  »
Stellamarie,
I came across Thomas Gibney in the course of my research on the construction of the Minnesota State Capitol.  It's a project, called "Who Built the Capitol," that has several facets, one of which is to make an educational video with interviews of descendants of some of the workers.  Believe it or not we've found a few who knew about their great grandfather working there.  We will also be making a web site to display our findings.  I'm working on a map to show where the workers lived in St. Paul and it can be viewed here: http://www.communitywalk.com/capitol_construction_workers_18981899/map/1523681
Looking at worldcat the best collection of Stone Cutter's Journal magazines seem to be at either Stanford or the New York Public Library.  Not too convenient for me but I will get to one of those locations someday! 
Do you, or any or your relatives, have any tools that belonged to Thomas?  Or anything he wrote down - letters etc.?  We're just trying to get an idea what the life of the itinerant stone cutters was like.  Thanks much, John   

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US Lookup Requests / Re: San Francisco Census Look up please
« on: Friday 17 August 12 19:27 BST (UK)  »
Thomas Gibney lived in St. Paul. Minnesota in 1898-9 and worked on the construction of the Minnesota State Capitol.  According to the St. Paul City Directory of 1898 he was boarding at 193 Fuller along with John Gibney and several other stone cutters including William J. Harvey, Daniel King and William White.  All these men were itinerant stone cutters and they are very difficult to trace.  There is a picture of Thomas Gibney in the St. Paul Globe newspaper of 27 Feb. 1899 on p.8.  He was a Union activist, like many stone cutters, and there are some other references to him in the Globe.  I can't figure out how to post the picture here but you can get it on the Library of Congress newspaper website. 
I, and several others, are working on a project researching the construction workers on the Minnesota Capitol.  If anyone has actually found any of those old Stone Cutter Journals (other than the few on Google Books) please let me know!

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