Out of Place

I am participating in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, a writing challenge encouraging genealogy researchers to write about their ancestors. The challenge is hosted by genealogist, blogger and podcaster Amy Johnson Crow.

Here's my post for Amy's Week Sixteen prompt: Out of Place

By Nancy Gilbride Casey

People can turn up in the most unlikely of places when you're working through your family tree. The best example I have in my own research was trying to find the whereabouts of my great, great grandmother Catharine Ryan Gilbride in 1880.

When searching the United States Census in 1880, I would have expected her to be with her husband Michael Gilbride, who she married in 1875 in Providence, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania and their son, my great grandfather John Joseph Gilbride, who was born in 1876. But she wasn't.

Instead, what I found was this:

Michael was listed as living with his parents James and Bridget Gilbride, with assorted siblings and son John, then 4, and a niece Bridget Mulherin. Not only was Catherine not living with them, but Michael was listed as "single." What happened? Where was Catherine? This was a mystery which took several months to investigate.

While reading a genealogy manual, I learned about a document I had not heard of before: the Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Schedule of the 1880 Unites States Census. This special "schedule" of the census enumerated all those people not living in the general population at the time, such as in prisons, hospitals, etc.

Given that this was the same time that I lose track of Catherine, I thought I would look this census up on Ancestry.com and see what it was all about. And on a whim, I entered Catherine's name and look what I found:

There was "Gilbride, Catherine." She was definitely out of place - in a place so unexpected that I did a double take when reading it. Danville Insane Asylum? I could not have imagined that when she was not with her family that she was in an institution; I would more likely have thought she died.

The truth, I came to discover, was so much more complex and tragic than I could have imagined. You can read more about what happened in my post "What Would You Tell Me Catherine?" Or, to read more about the 1880 Defective, Dependent and Delinquent schedule, click here to read Amy Johnson Crow's blog post.

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Until next time...