What happened to my great-grandfather after 1924?
Greetings,
I hope this question is appropriate for this group. I've been researching my family's history for 20+ years. My uncle, dad’s brother, was interested in genealogy and did a lot of research after he retired, but he couldn’t find out what happened to his maternal grandfather after around 1907. His brick wall is now mine, in that I can’t seem to find out when and where my paternal great-grandfather died.
My great-grandpa’s name was John NEE. He has an entry on the FS tree: L1LK-VLY. He was an Irish immigrant in a family from Inishnee Craobh, Connemara, County Galway. John and his family arrived in the US between 1880-1885 (depending on which census you read), initially settled in Superior, Wisconsin, and later in St. Paul, Minnesota. I haven’t located any records that suggest they lived anywhere other than those two states.
John and some of his family occasionally went by the surname NEEDHAM. Nee is the surname they left Ireland with though. I don’t think he had a middle name.
John Nee was born in on June 29, 1873. I have a copy of the parish baptismal register from the Catholic Church of Roundstone, County Galway, Archdiocese of Tuam.
He married my great grandmother, Margaret CLAUGHERTY, in Superior in 1896. I have a copy of the marriage register from that Catholic parish.
According to my uncle, John and Margaret had eight kids. Four of them of them died in infancy and four survived to adulthood. The only one I knew was my grandmother Mary.
John Nee left his family in December 1905. Incidentally, this was a few months after his younger brother was killed in a terrible accident.
Margaret divorced John in 1908. I have a news article that discusses it. Thereafter, Margaret moved to St. Paul and eventually remarried.
Here is John in the 1900 US Federal Census: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MMK6-F18?from=lynx1UIV8&treeref=L1LK-VLY
Here John is in the 1905 Wisconsin state census, going by the last name “Needham”: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MMSB-M6B?from=lynx1UIV8&treeref=L1LK-VLY
I’ve searched the 1910 Federal census, but I can’t locate someone named John Nee/Needham with relationships that match anything close to him. Odd.
A strange fact emerges in the 1920 census - John Nee is once again living with his family, in St. Paul, Minnesota: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XRLH-7MP?from=lynx1UIV8&treeref=L1LK-VLY
The last verified record I have of him alive is from the 1924 St. Paul City Directory, which lists him living at an address where I know he lived with some of his family.
The problem is that from that point on, I cannot locate anything else on him. I cannot locate a record for him in the 1930 census; I have not found an obituary or death notice, nothing in any local newspaper archives or online archives, and I cannot locate a death certificate for him in either Minnesota or Wisconsin.
I've checked the obituaries that I could locate for John's siblings - none of them mention him at all.
I've checked, in detail, every death certificate at the Minnesota History Center and at the Wisconsin Historical Society for every person named John Nee or John Needham, and lots of alternate spellings of those names, but none of them match up with the details I know about my great-grandfather.
His parents and younger brother are buried in Calvary Cemetery in Superior, Wisconsin, but John Nee is not, nor is he buried in any other Superior cemetery - I've checked with all of them. I requested cemetery records for him through the local Catholic Archdiocese, but they did not have a death or burial records for him.
In June 2019, I went to the Douglas County Historical Society in Superior and asked them to search for any death/burial records for John Nee, but they couldn’t find anything I don’t already have (state census, city directory entries).
I’ve looked at the death certificates of his kids - my great-aunts and uncles, none of whom I knew; my grandmother never spoke of any of them - but none of their death certificates listed any details about John Nee/Needham other than he was born in Ireland.
I did a DNA test through Ancestry (and uploaded it to GEDMATCH) but other than cousins I already know about and have chatted with, I don’t have any matches with others who share that surname.
All my relatives on that side are deceased, so there's no one left to ask any details of, and none of the people I'm connected with on Ancestry or Family Search have any more information on John Nee than I do.
He seems to fall off the face of the Earth, and none of his family apparently cared enough to keep track of where he went. Given the divorce in 1908, he likely was estranged from his family for some time, but it’s very strange to see him back with the family in 1920. Where did John Nee go after 1924?
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Jackie, I love that you map out the trail that you have been following. I hope that this information will prove to be tempting for someone that wants to help solve your mystery. Aren't we all arm chair sleuths that are looking to find answers? Man, I love the thrill of the hunt!
As far as DNA, I think that you need to branch out besides looking for people that share the surnames that you know. Do you have any close matches that you can't explain how they connect to the family? Is it possible that your great-grandfather changed his name again and is sliding below the radar? You might want to look closely at any unexplained matches and see if they hold the key to solving this mystery.
Who else has a suggestion for how to find out what happened to Jackie's great grandfather?
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Thanks, Carolyn. As for close DNA matches (up through the fourth cousin level) there are no unexplained matches or surnames I can't account for at this point, except for one lady whose name I don't recognize (and that might be her husband's anyway) and she has not responded to my messages. I haven't really dug through the 5th-8th cousin level at this point because there are literally thousands of them. The folks I know who connect to me through DNA and have his surname are accounted for and I've been able to connect to them, but none of them know any more than I do.
It is certainly possible he changed his name. He also could have moved to another state, or died of an accident and was never found. I've considered that I might never be able to find out what happened to him but any more eyes on the puzzle would certainly be appreciated!
Thanks again for considering my puzzle. 😃
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You shouldn't need to search the more distant cousins. The descendants of your second great grandparent would be second cousins. You are looking for a closer match than that. Obviously, you would want to look at the centiMorgan tools found at DNApainter.com and see how many centiMorgan's a potential match would need to have. It does sound like you have searched the pertinent individuals though.
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Jackie, there is a John Needham in the 1940 Census. Does he connect to your known family in any way?
Age 42, born abt 1898
Birthplace Minnesota
GenderMale
Race Indian
Home in 1940
Red Lake Village
Township 151 Range 34,
Beltrami, Minnesota
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Well... I would say probably not, unless my great-grandfather decided to fudge his stats and move to the Red Lake Indian Reservation. My great-grandfather would've been 67 in 1940 and he was 100% Irish... I will check that census entry and see if anything else looks pertinent, but at first glance I would say it'd be hard for a 67 year old Irish guy to redo his identity to that degree... I suppose stranger things have happened!
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Oh yes, I've already done the Leeds method and have used DNA Painter, which is a great tool, with the closer group and their descendants to the degree I can and just nothing stuck out as odd.
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Just for fun.....What if he took up with the Indians and this guy (or someone else in the household) is one of his descendants?
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I love it when people have used these tools. Would you be willing to share how to use these tools with others that ask about them? This group needs more people sharing DNA skills.
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Could be! There were sure a lot of people in his household (I read the census entry). Apparently this John Needham was a mixed blood as well so he could have looked more Irish than Ojibwe. Hard to say...
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Some times you just have to research people and prove that they are or are not the person that you are interested in. It helps to have an understanding of the popularity of the name. How common is this name?
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Not common in my area at all. There are way more of them on the East Coast, which makes sense because they were Irish and far more Irish immigrants settled there. It was fairly unusual to see an Irish immigrant family go from Ireland directly to northwestern Wisconsin in the 1880s - that area saw way more Nordic immigration compared to other ethnic groups in that time period.
Nee and Needham are uncommon enough around here that I've researched the John Nee's that show up in and around Minnesota and Wisconsin, the Needhams too but I generally don't concentrate on the ones who are obviously way older or younger than my John Nee. I've ruled the most obvious ones out via a variety of records, including death certificates and by studying the birth/death certs of his children and their children.
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Hi, just seeing your question now. We share common ancestors as my great grandmother was Barbara Ellen (Helen) Claugherty, Margaret's sister. Perhaps John Nee/Needham was incarcerated and a search of Minnesota and/or Wisconsin prison roster records would help. What did the news article related to Margaret's and John's divorce say?
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The news article didn't give any details. I do know that John abandoned the family in 1905 after his brother was killed in a terrible accident. I do not know where he went in 1905, but I have done a search in Minnesota for prison records and did not turn up anything for him there. I haven't searched Wisconsin prison records yet but should probably do that to cover all the bases. Not really sure where to start there but will probably begin with the Wisconsin Historical Society.
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Not sure if anyone is still following this thread, BUT... after 25 years of searching, I finally found out what happened to my great-grandfather! It took a lucky close DNA match on Family Tree DNA with a second cousin, whose great-grandfather was also my great-grandfather, and she was able to fill me in on where he went after 1924. If anyone's still following this thread and is interested to know how I broke down the brick wall, post a reply and I will share.
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How wonderful for you! Thanks for posting this.
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