San Francisco Census Look up please

[Alicat84]

Lisa, that's fantastic!

Firstly, I must tell you, my name is Alison and the friend that I am helping is Gráinne. We are both work colleagues of Ellie that you helped last week finding her granduncle in New York! So you are held in very high regard here and we really appreciate all the effort you've gone to!

The 1907 Directory for Thomas seems correct. We know he married Josephine in about 1904, and the first record we have of him being in Lisbon Street is 1910.

Thomas did apparently die in 1933, maybe around March 18th? Gráinne has a letter written by Josephine, saying that Thomas had been in an accident, something about falling from scaffolding. She also says that it was reported in a newspaper called the "Stonecutters Journal" but we can't find any record or reference to this. Any chance you might know where we might find this?...

Thanks so much

[Lisa in California]

Your friend has had very good results on this thread, hasn't she.     I think it is much easier to find things when we all add pieces of information.

Besides receiving assistance from this site and one other site, searching the internet is how I find my information about my ancestors.  Living in California, with Canadian, English and Irish rellies/ancestors, I've had to figure out how to try different searches to find results.

Another result for your friend is:
the Journeyman Stonecutters Association of North America had a union newspaper named the Stonecutters Journal.  However, they apparently seem to only be found in some libraries or archives.
http://www.stonecarver.com/union.html

Perhaps we might be lucky and find out more about the journal.

[Lisa in California]

Your friend could try writing to the San Francisco Public Library, Ask A Librarian service.  They do not do searches.  However, they might be able to advise where copies could be located, and perhaps if copies are found, someone could have a look for Thomas.
http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/sfplonline/asklibrarian.htm

He also might be listed in the San Francisco Chronicle, either in an article about his death, or in an obituary.

[Lisa in California]

Perhaps if we try to find other members of Josephine's family, we might find clues about Josephine and/or Thomas after 1930?

Could this be Josephine's mother, in 1910?
Catherine Bushay, age 60, widowed, mother of 7 children, 5 still living.  Living with her cousin, Mary McAbee and Mary's son, Edward.

Catherine and Mary were born in Canada French.  Edward was born in New York.

They were living in San Jose, Santa Clara County, California.

[nickgc]

Great work finding them and mother Catherine in 1920 Lisa, and Catherine in 1910.

Ali, what more is required on this?  We have Josephine and her famiy back to at least 1870 in New York, and Thomas back to 1900 pre-marriage.  Also there are indications that Josie's father Oliver joined the 48th NY Infantry in 1865 (US Civil War) and deserted a few months later.

Do you want to try and pursue this family back to marriage, probable births in Canada, etc?

Nick

[Alicat84]

Thank you all again so much for helping!

It really would be very interesting to track the family back. As this is my friend Grainne's great-uncle, she hadn't expected to be going far back with him, and at such a fast pace! She mainly wanted to find out about him going to San Fran and find out about his death. Her main interest is to track down blood relatives and ancestors, but she finds this a fascinating side story she hadn't counted on and would like to find out more.

So yes, she would like to go further as long as it wasn't unnecessarily difficult 

[SherryRoes]

Hi further to a query that everyone help sourcing information on my late great uncle Thomas Gibney (San Francisco) last year.  Can someone help me with a further query and help locate information on a paper called "The Stonecutters Journal".  When Thomas Gibney fell off scaffolding on 18th March 1933, an article appeared in the above paper on this accident.   Would anyone be ale to check if this paper is archived and if so, can articles be copied from it.  Many thanks for all previous information and any further help that you may give.

[shellyesq]

There are a few volumes of Stone Cutters Journal (note that Stone Cutters was separated into 2 words) on Google Books, but I don't see a 1933 one. 

If you search on www.worldcat.org, you can find what libraries have this journal.

[JohnSielaff]

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!