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An Intriguing Immigration Theory for Joseph Becker

I've been asking the question, "What could have drawn my great-great-great-grandfather Joseph Becker and his family to Port Dalhousie from Sheldon, New York?" I heard back from one Ontario repository that I had inquired with regarding my question.  The Mayholme Foundation staff answered me this week with a simple answer and an interesting theory. The short answer was "employment opportunities." The theory involved a man named Owen McMahon.  Mayholme staff noticed that McMahon lived two doors down from my Joseph Becker in the first Canadian census in which he appears in 1871 in Port Dalhousie. The staff reported that this was significant as apparently Owen McMahon was known to have advertised to bring workers to Port Dalhousie to work in the various businesses in this growing port city. I found that McMahon was named one of the first city councillors in Port Dalhousie when it was incorporated in 1862 . Perhaps McMahon was facilitating immigration to the area in
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GENEALOGY CHALLENGE 2021 - Marriage Record


 

GENEALOGY CHALLENGE 2021

Marriage Record - January 9th entry of a 31-day challenge to post a document, photo or artifact on social media every day in January.

by Nancy Gilbride Casey 


One very important lesson for genealogy researches to learn is to always look at the pages before and after digitized images online. For me, this practice uncovered an additional document attached to the marriage record of my husband's great grandparents Stephen Henry Casey and Nellie Frances Taylor (pictured shortly after their wedding in 1909, above).1

Their marriage record was found easily enough on Ancestry; it shows that Stephen, then aged 20 and Nellie, aged 19, applied for a license in Muskogee, Oklahoma and were married on 14 July 1909 by Rev. A.N. Hall, Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Muskogee.2 It seemed pretty clear cut. 


 

I didn't notice immediately the letter folded over to the left side of the book...


 

...eventually I noticed the Thos. B. Casey signature.

Paging back one image, I found attached to the marriage record was a letter from Stephen's father, Thomas Benton Casey:


Pryor Creek, Oklahoma

July 12, 1909

Clerk of the Court, Muskogee County

Dear Sirs, 

This is the certify that I am 

satisfied and perfectly willing for my son S.H. Casey

and Miss Nellie F. Taylor to unite in marriage 

on July 14, 1909 and as I cannot be present with him I am sending 

you this letter & ask that the license be granted

him and all courtesy be shown him possible the 

same will be appreciated by me.

His father, Thos. B. Casey

Pryor Creek, Oklahoma

July 12, '09

State of Oklahoma

County of Mayes

Subscribed and Sworn to before

me this 14th day of July 1909.

J.C. Chandler 

Justice of the Peace


Stephen was not yet 21, and according to Oklahoma law at the time, was under the legal age to marry:

"Any unmarried male of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, and any unmarried female of the age of eighteen years or upwards and not otherwise disqualified, is capable of contracting and consenting to marriage; but no female under the age of eighteen years, and no male under the age of twenty-one years shall enter into the marriage relation, nor any license issued whereof, except upon the consent and authority given either in person or in writing, by a parent or guardian..." 3



 

One can picture Stephen hand-carrying the precious letter to Muskogee to claim his bride.

Thomas Casey's letter helped begin a relationship which was to last over six decades; Stephen and Nellie Casey were married for over 62 years, until Stephen's death in 1972.


NEXT UP: Census Record

 

1 Nellie F. (Taylor) Casey and Stephen H. Casey photograph, ca. 1909; digital image; Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/34074975/person/18860988756/media/06b9817b-df22-4dde-a204-29ed832cfe00 : accessed 9 Jan. 2021), originally shared by mcasey316, 2002.
2Marriage Record, Vol. 3, Muskogee County, July 5, 1909-May 14, 1910, p. 17, marriage of Stephen H. Casey and Nellie F. Taylor (1909); digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9392-9F3W-86 : accessed 9 January 2021); citing FHL Film 004708239, image 255-256/696.
3 John T. Hays, John Robert Thomas, William R. Brownlee, J.H. Sutherlin, The Revised Laws of the State of Oklahoma Embracing All Laws from 1890 to 1910, Inclusive, Now in Force (Columbia: E. W. Stephens Publishing Company, 1911), p. 1562; digital image, Google Books (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Revised_Laws_of_the_State_of_Oklahom/7Xo0AQAAMAAJ : accessed 8 January 2021).

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