How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Mr GeniAus rarely takes to the dance floor but last night found him waltzing down our hallway to pay a visit to my study. He could barely contain his excitement.

The GeniAuses last whirl round the dance floor

We've had over a week of wet weather so Mr G. hasn't been able to get out into the garden and play on his tractor. Co-incidentally he had volunteered my services to help a couple of friends solve some geneamysteries. I didn't want to be distracted so I showed him how to use Ancestry and a few other tools to help these folk out. Once he had done this I suggested that he look for articles about his grandfather  in Trove, that has kept him amused and satisfied for hours as there are lots of snippets about Ern's trotting horses. Mr GeniAus doesn't 'do' genealogy!

Last night Mr GeniAus was very quiet until he came dancing down the hall. He had been on Ancestry (I hope it's ok for there to be two concurrent users on a personal account from the same house) trying to demolish a brick wall that had been bothering us for some years. It wasn't for a close relation but it was a case of someone disappearing into thin air that had us baffled. We could find no trace of Maria Gowans, daughter of Mr GeniAus' 3xGreat Uncle John Gowans, we still can't find her on the 1920, 1930 or 1940 US Censuses.

Why the excitement? He had found this death record from North Carolina:

Name:	Marie Gowans Grosvenor
Gender:	Female
Race:	White
Age:	88
Birth Date:	27 Oct 1867
Birth Place:	New Jersey, United States
Death Date:	10 Dec 1955
Death Location:	Asheville, Buncombe
Father's Name:	Unobtainable
Mother's name:	Unobtainable
Residence:	Asheville, Buncombe, North Carolina

I tried to calm him down but he was convinced, we knew Maria was born in NYC around October 1867 but still..... Off he went down the hallway again, after a while he returned with a marriage to a Charles A Grossenor (transcription error?) from the New York Marriage Indexes and a burial record for Green-Wood Cemetery, New York where Maria's siblings are buried. I checked the grave number for Maria's burial to see if she was near her parents. 

BINGO - she is interred in the same plot. It's the grave we visited in New York last year, it is a fine grave with a substantial memorial but Maria's name is not etched upon it. We were standing at her grave and didn't know it. When we asked at the Green-Wood Office for information on the grave they would not tell us anything, we had to write in and hire a genealogist to get further info, I would have happily paid a small fee on the spot for someone to pull the record. Wouldn't have been nice if they had given some assistance to two Aussies who had travelled halfway around the world in search of their ancestors. I need to purchase the marriage certificate, find a probate record and see what I can dig up on her husband but I am fairly sure that we have found Maria. She married late in life and probably had no offspring so there are no living Gowans cousins for us to find from that branch. 

Mr GeniAus at the Gowans grave April 2013

Back to the dance floor, I think that Mr GeniAus now understands why we genies get so excited when break down a brick wall. He certainly enjoyed his first Genealogy Happy Dance.

Surrogate's Court

A couple of months before setting off on our holiday I sent an email to the Surrogate's Court in New York, the body responsible for maintaining probate files, as their website advised that old files may take up to three weeks to provide. We were anxious to follow up on the probate for Mr Geniaus' Great-great-aunt, Anna Regina Gowans (nee Bouton/Bouten) in the hope it would give us clues to find living relatives.

When we didn't hear from the Court after a few weeks we wrote again; this message also went unanswered. Ten days out from our proposed visit we went back to the website and decided to try emailing another address. What a contrast! We received an almost immediate reply from Ms Suzan Tell explaining that, due to time constraints, we would not be able to see the probate file on our visit but that we would be able to consult the Liber (a book used for keeping a record of specific documents or events having legal effect) for the record).

NY Surrogates Court

When we arrived in New York City our first destination was 31 Chambers Street, the site of the Court. We  found our way to the Records Department where Ms Tell was on the desk. She remembered our email, apologised profusely for her colleagues' lack of attention to our query and procured the Liber for us to peruse. She helped us with photocopying and the application to view the probate file. She promised to scan and email the file to us once it was available.  While we were in the building we also took the opportunity to visit the New York Municipal Archives in the same building in the hope to find some clues on our elusive ancestor, Maria Gowans. Unfortunately we had no luck there.

Ms Tell was as good as her word. A couple of days ago the probate file arrived in the form of several attachments to an email. We are so grateful to Ms Tell for her kind, considerate and prompt attention to our issue. 

The Surrogate's Court is housed in a magnificent old building