Central New York Genealogical Society: Barbara Granato

Showing posts with label Barbara Granato. Show all posts

Friday, June 26, 2015

The Telephone Call from Neiffer

by Barbara Leiger Granato

Note: This blog is a continuation of my earlier one entitled “Excuse Me, Can You Tell Me Where Neiffer Is?” If you are confused, please re-read that blog and that will explain it all.

It was one of those beautiful sunny summer days in 1992 in Whitesboro, New York. Anyone who resides in this area and who works the typical Monday-Friday daytime job can truly appreciate how rare those sunny summer days on a weekend can be! To heck with the housework – my husband and I opted to lounge on our deck, bask in the sun, and play a few games of Backgammon while the children were playing with friends.

1992 was a time when we didn’t have cell phones; we didn’t have computers. We still pretty much relied on the good old U.S. Postal Service to send and receive letters, and we had to deal with long-distance telephone calls and pay for each one we made.

The ringing of the telephone interrupted our Backgammon game, and my husband Joe went in the house to answer the phone. And then, he called out to me – “Hey Barbie (he’s the only one I allow to call me that name), there’s a man on the phone who wants to speak to you. He said his name is Fred Neiffer.”

WHAT???? I made it to the telephone in record time. When I returned from our trip to find Neiffer, Pennsylvania, I wrote letters to all of the Neiffer families whose names I had found in the telephone book in that area. But – I never included my telephone number; I had only included an SASE (for those who may not remember that term – a “self-addressed-stamped-envelope”). I was hoping to get a reply from at least one of the Neiffer families.

I picked up the phone and nervously said, “Hello?” Was this person calling to yell at me for sending him a letter? And I never even gave him my telephone number! He had to call directory assistance to look it up. Yup – that’s another thing we could do back in the early 1990’s.

“Is this Barbara Granato?” the man asked.

“Yes, it is,” I replied.

“Barbara, this is Fred Neiffer. I just received a letter from you regarding information for your great-grandmother, Sarah Neiffer.”

“Um…I hope you don’t mind me sending you that letter,” I replied. “I really don’t know very much about her, and I was wondering if you might have some information.”

Not only did Fred have information – but the next thing I knew, we were talking like old friends. Well, after all, we were related! Fred told me that Sarah was the oldest of 11 children. Fred was a descendant of one of Sarah’s siblings. It seems that Fred was quite the family historian, and I hit the jackpot! He was able to tell me the names of Sarah’s parents, and even more information about the family. Before our telephone call ended, I got my calendar, and the next thing I knew, we were invited back down to the Neiffer area to meet the Neiffer family in person!

I not only received a telephone call from Fred, but I also received one from George Neiffer shortly after that! And so, just two weeks later, we returned to the area of Neiffer and met both families.

I have the George Neiffer family to thank for making copies of family photographs for me, which I placed in a beautiful collage. Among their family possessions of honor is a 50th Anniversary of the Civil War banner which had belonged to my great-grandmother Sarah’s father – Augustus Neiffer. I learned about the Civil War stories for Augustus – but that’s a whole other blog to be written.

I have the Fred Neiffer family to thank for inviting us to share a fabulous dinner with them, and then for a spectacular car ride through Neiffer territory and surrounding areas – and then learning exactly how far back some of our family went in that area (but again – that’s another blog to be written).

There was just one thing that was still unanswered, though. Is, or was, there ever a town called Neiffer? And what happened to it???

Well, the story about that is that my great grandmother Sarah Neiffer’s father was Augustus Neiffer. He had a brother named Samuel Neiffer. They lived in a very rural area. While Augustus was a carpenter and was well-known for making wooden pumps in the area, his brother Samuel owned a General Store on the four corners in a very rural area on Neiffer Road. That general store also served as a post office. When the U.S. Postal Service began to use zip codes, the Town of Neiffer was given the zip code of 19468. Today, the General Store is no longer there, but as far as I know, the zip code still remains.

I learned so much information about that branch (and other branches of those branches) from this trip. I remained in touch with the Neiffer family for several years, and one year attended a Neiffer family reunion. Although the years have gone by and we have lost touch with each other, I have many fond memories of that trip. I look at the photos that were given to me that I carefully placed into the framed collage, and it brings a smile to myself. One of those photos is priceless. It is a picture of my 2nd great-grandfather Augustus (the Civil War soldier) petting a cow. But this wasn’t just any cow – this was Rosie the cow! Yes – the Neiffer family even knew the name of the cow in the photograph!

And to think this wealth of information all began with a letter and a phone call!

Lessons Learned –

Sometimes a good old-fashioned letter can lead to new family discoveries.
Sometimes it is good to remember that people who are alive can give you more information than the ones we find in the cemeteries.
Write down questions that you are trying to answer; sometimes the people you meet have information and family artifacts that have been passed down through the generations…information that could never be found elsewhere.

After retiring from her job as a secretary at Mohawk Valley Community College, Barbara Granato had more time to pursue her love of genealogy. She is a member of the Oneida Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, currently serving as the chapter Registrar and Vice-Chair of NYS Lineage Research for DAR. In addition to teaching Beginning Genealogy classes, she is a Board member of the Central New York Genealogical Society, as well as a Board Member for the Oneida County Historical Society. She also is a member of the Landmarks Society of Greater Utica and serves as a tour docent to the mansions on Rutger Street in Utica, and writes murder mysteries which are performed at one of the historic mansions once a year. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists as well as the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.

Friday, May 15, 2015

Where is Neiffer?

by Barbara Leiger Granato

My previous two blogs on this site were about discovering the true story of my 2nd great-grandfather, Sylvester Spare. During our trip to the area northeast of Pennsylvania in 1992, I not only discovered the story of Sylvester’s life and demise, but I also discovered a little more about another branch of my family from that area.

My mother’s father was named Amos Milton Spare. His father was John Spare, and John was married to a woman named Sarah Neiffer. Nobody in my family seemed to know too much about Sarah’s family history, but my mother and her sisters did tell me a lot of stories about her. She and John had a farm in a tiny town named Royersford, Pennsylvania, and together they had four children – my grandfather Amos being the third child born to them.

Sarah was remembered as being a very strict, stern woman who loved to instill fear into others. Quite by contrast, she also was a mid-wife and delivered several of the babies in that small town. She had to do something to raise money; her husband John had a silo fall on him when the children were young, and he had to be institutionalized after that for the rest of his life.

But this blog is not supposed to be about John – it is supposed to be about Sarah. Nobody in my mother’s family seemed to agree on the spelling of her maiden name. Everyone knew how to pronounce it, but was it “Knifer?” Or was it “Nifer?” Or was it “Neiffer?”

When I was studying a map (yes – in 1992 they did not have GPS systems!), I focused in on an enlarged detailed image of the area in which the Spare family lived. And then, I did a double-take! I suddenly knew how to spell Sarah’s maiden name. There was a little dot on the map that said “Neiffer.” OH MY GOSH!!!! Well, Sarah’s family must have been important if there was a town named after her family! Upon closer examination of the map, there was not only a “dot” named Neiffer, but there was also a “Neiffer Road!”

And so, after we had learned all we did about Sarah’s father-in-law, Sylvester, we decided to pursue learning more about Sarah Neiffer. My 10 & 12 year-old children were suddenly interested again. It was almost like exploring a map to find buried treasure (no pun intended!).

We drove down the “main” road until we saw a street sign that said “Neiffer Road.” “Take a left,” I told my husband, and then I told him to stop so I could get out of the car and take a picture of the road sign. After that we drove up the road until we reached the end, and we were in town called “Obelisk.” Somehow, we missed the little dot on the map that said there was a town named “Neiffer.”

But, at the end of that road when we got into Obelisk, there was a church on the right-hand corner with a large cemetery next to it. And right there, very visible to passersby on the road, stood some very large tombstones with NEIFFER on them. I took photos and tried to make notes about the writing on the tombstones, but it was difficult because they were written in German.

We not only found several tombstones with the name of Neiffer on them, but we also found Sarah (Neiffer) Spare buried next to her husband, John Spare. Thankfully, their tombstones were written in English. After making note of exactly where their graves were located and photographing them, we returned to the car. We drove back down Neiffer Road again, but this time we were a bit more cautious. We came to a small intersection, but there really wasn’t anything of significance there. We were so confused.

There just HAD to be a town somewhere. After discovering Neiffer on the map, I also learned that Neiffer even had its own zip code – 19468! We had apparently gone right through that zip-coded area without realizing it!

It was such a hot, humid day that we decided to return to the hotel so that the kids could go swimming in the pool. I had to contemplate this puzzle a bit more to find out if my great grandmother Sarah was connected somehow to the 19468 area and Neiffer Road. It was 1992 – we did not have the Internet.

So, I did the next best thing – I consulted the telephone directory in the hotel room. I looked for the name “Neiffer” and sure enough, there were about eight families listed with that name. I wrote down every name, address, and phone number, and when we returned home, I wrote a letter to every single one of them, explaining who I was and that my great-grandmother was Sarah Neiffer. Did they know anything about this woman? I also included a self-addressed stamped envelope in each letter that I mailed.

And then my wait for a response began….

To be continued…..

Lessons Learned:

Never discount the value of a good old-fashioned map.

Don't assume that tombstones in this country are written in English.

Phone books can be very good resources.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Learning the Truth

by Barbara Leiger Granato

NOTE: This is a continuation of my previous post entitled "We Must Be Famous!" In this blog entry, I learn the truth about our family "hero" - Sylvester Spare.

We had traveled from Whitesboro, New York to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania to try to learn more about the life of my second great-grandfather, Sylvester Spare. It was the summer of 1992, and I thought this would be a great learning opportunity for our family. My husband Joe was a schoolteacher and our two children were 12 and 10. Montgomery County, Pennsylvania is full of history – and just to think that our family was a part of that history was pretty darned exciting to me.

We had found Sylvester’s grave at Augustus Lutheran Church in Trappe, Pennsylvania, and from that we learned that he was born on June 10, 1828 and died on February 14, 1867. Wow… Valentine’s Day! How strange. Maybe there was a story behind that???

Today was the day we would learn the truth.

We proudly walked into the Historical Society of Montgomery County in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and were immediately greeted by a very knowledgeable staff member. When she asked how she could be of assistance, I proudly told her about the family story of Sylvester. I knew his birth date and I knew his death date and I knew where he was buried.

“I want to find out more about my second great-grandfather,” I told the staff member. “My family told me that he supposedly was a bodyguard for Abraham Lincoln. I’m also thinking that he may have been in the Civil War.”

The kind woman brought us into a room full of books with the names of Civil War soldiers from the area. Ta-da! We searched, and we searched some more…but Sylvester was not among those listed. Not only that, we couldn’t find any substantiation that Sylvester ever had anything to do with Abraham Lincoln!

Hmmmm…. Well, maybe if we found his obituary we could learn more about him. So, the staff member took us to a microfilm machine and brought us the microfilm for the time period during which he died. But…there was no obituary listed for him around the time period of February 14, 1867.

I was beginning to get frustrated and my family was bored to tears. The staff member told me she wanted to look one more place, and then she would be back.

When she returned, there was a big smile on her face. “I think I found something that may be of interest to you,” she said. She handed me an Inquest that was done on the 20th day of April 1867. I could not believe the words I was reading:

“An Inquisition indented and taken at Perkiomen Bridge in the county of Montgomery, on the 20th day of April A.D. 1867 before J.C. Beyer, Esq., Coroner of the county aforesaid, upon the view of the body of Sylvester Spare then and there lying dead, upon the oaths and affirmations of Jackson Bevan, John J. Dettra, W. H. Gumbes, Henry Snider, Isaac Weaver, Jehu Munshower…

“Six good and lawful men of the county aforesaid being sworn and affirmed, and charged to inquire on the part of the Commonwealth, when, where, how, and after what manner the said Sylvester Spare came to his death, do say, upon their oaths and affirmations aforesaid, that the said Sylvester Spare came to his death by…

“drowning by accidentally falling from a boat while engaged in setting his traps while under the influence of liquor received at the Hotel of Davis Longnecker.”

Oh my… this was definitely not the truth I was seeking. This is the man who was our family hero??? Seriously??? But all of a sudden, the scandal of a family member who met his demise because he was intoxicated made this somehow pretty interesting.

The staff member then took us to a big map of the Perkiomen River and actually showed us the path that Sylvester’s body had traveled before it was found two months after that fateful Valentine’s Day. Wow.

But there was one more surprise in store for us as we got up to leave. “The hotel where Sylvester had his last drink and fell from his boat is still standing today and is located just down the road in Collegeville. It is now called The Perkiomen Bridge Hotel and it has recently reopened.”

My family just stood there and looked at each other. We were all thinking the same thing. And a few minutes later, there we were, sitting at The Perkiomen Bridge Hotel, enjoying our beverages as we made a toast to Sylvester.

Lessons learned –

Visit Historical Societies in the area where your ancestors lived.

Learn to use microfilm machines.

Don’t give up if you cannot find an obituary.

Try to find maps of the area during the time period your ancestors lived there.

Don’t believe everything your family members tell you about your ancestors.