Thursday, June 4, 2015

Citizen of Yet Another Country


Tracking down what became of Edward Ryan—husband of great grandfather John Tully’s sister Johanna—started morphing into the genealogical equivalent of Where’s Waldo? (or, for you geeky homeschooling aficionados, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?) when he disappeared from Ontario after the 1881 Canadian census.

Showing up, coincidentally, nearly twenty years later in the 1900 census in the United States might not have been such a stretch if, say, he had hopped the border and taken up residence in much-nearer Buffalo or Detroit. Incremental changes are so much more believable. But in this case, we find Edward Ryan in faraway Grafton, North Dakota.

Having to puzzle out what became of the family in those frustrating in-between years, during the time of the missing United States census for 1890, could have been a challenge—if, that is, we had no local resources with which to complete our search.

Fortunately, there was a way to corroborate the assertion of a helpful distant cousin (and direct descendant of Edward and Johanna Ryan) and confirm that Edward did indeed become a citizen of the United States. The July 10, 1882, certificate of citizenship now held by this cousin had indicated it was issued by the “Territory of Dakota, County of Grand Forks.”

That the issuing body for this 1882 certificate would be the Territory of Dakota is easily confirmed: North Dakota did not become a state until 1889. Fortunately, the North Dakota State University has long been in the process of digitizing archives of such matters. Thankfully, their collection does include a record of Edward Ryan’s naturalization—with his first papers dated, as his great grandson had indicated, on July 10, 1882. The issuing county? Grand Forks, just as this cousin’s records claimed.

Dakota Territory naturalization records for various names containing the string Edward Ryan

A second entry for an Edward Ryan in nearby Walsh County, dated October 6, 1890, may well have contained the file of our Edward’s follow-up paperwork. How would I know? That is the county where he and his wife Johanna were listed in the 1900 U.S. Census—along with their children and grandchildren.

Amend that: along with some of their children. As to which ones, I can’t yet say. Thanks to write-overs by long-gone census enumerators, I can’t be sure which of the Ryans’ two daughters was the surviving one. Barring the appearance of yet another distant cousin with convenient proof documents, we’ll have to muddle through this particular mystery by other means.



Above: Dakota Territory Coat of Arms, 1876; courtesy Wikipedia; artwork now in the public domain.

8 comments:

  1. It feels good to be making some headway rather quickly on this trek through the family history. I'm assuming you will be ordering both records and will be sharing - yes?

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    1. Of course! And I couldn't have accomplished the "rather quickly" without the guidance of a distant cousin--who just happens to be a direct descendant in this line!

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  2. Think this is someone else - but it is a neat read...

    "Edward Ryan, son of David and Netta Ryan; born at Caledonia, On-
    tario, Canada, April 1st, 1839. Came to the United States in 1859. Place
    of departure for Montana, Denver, Colorado ; route traveled, across the
    plains via Black Hills and Soda Springs; arrived at Virginia City, July 3d,
    1864. Occupation, miner and stock raiser. Residence, Boulder Valley. "

    https://archive.org/stream/societyofmontana01soci/societyofmontana01soci_djvu.txt

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    1. It's wonderful to read these local finds, such as the one you mentioned, Iggy. In this case, it was especially interesting to read the route taken to arrive at the western destination. These are things we never would have known, from our vantage point, if they hadn't been passed down and preserved by local interest groups.

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  3. Yeah NDSU....that is where I went to school as an older than average student back in 1996. Sure hope you find more info:)

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    1. I've been thinking of you while researching this part of the story, Far Side. I think I remember you mentioning being within driving distance of Fargo. That's roughly in the neighborhood of the territory where the Ryans settled, I think.

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  4. http://www.walshhistory.org/walsh-heritage-vol-1-4/
    Here is a free book you can look at about Walsh County:)

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    1. Perfect! Thanks so much for finding this and mentioning it, Far Side. Looks like something that would be fun, just to browse through. I'm so grateful for local contributions such as this Historical Society project.

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