Marriage of Thomas Barnes to Barbara Woods – 1920

This past week I’ve been looking in the new records that FamilySearch added for New York City, and I found this marriage record, for one of our Irish Barnes clan. Thomas Barnes was born in the townland of Aghadouglass, in Kings County, Ireland on October 11th, 1884. He was the youngest of the twelve children of John and Mary Ryan Barnes, that lived to maturity.

Source: Irish Midlands Ancestry, Tullamore, Offaly, Ireland. Date: 12 May 2005 – Report on The Barnes family, of Kilcolman, County Offaly, Ireland.

Barbara Woods was born in Largydonnell, County Leitrim, Ireland to Patrick and Catherine Higgins Woods, on 2 March 1893. I found her application for a US Passport on ancestry.com and she had traveled back to Ireland, to see her mother, in 1923. At that time, Thomas and Barbara were living at 820 Third Avenue, in Manhattan. Below is her photo from her passport application.

Ancestry.com. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007.

My father-in-law, Thomas Barnes, was named for this uncle Tom from his mother’s side, and also for his paternal grandfather, Tom Barnes, of Wayne County, North Carolina. I had heard stories that Uncle Tom Barnes was a captain on a tugboat in the New York harbor. When I checked with my husband’s aunt Helen a few years back, she corrected me, saying that he was only a fireman on the boats working in the boiler room. Aunt Helen said that Uncle Tom was a great favorite of her, and her siblings, because he was lots of fun and brought them candy.

When Thomas Barnes emigrated from Ireland in 1909, he listed that he was coming to his brother, Patrick Barnes, living at 223 East 36th Ave., Manhattan, New York. He left from Queenstown, County Cork, on the ship Majestic, arriving at Ellis Island on October 14th. Barbara Woods emigrated from Londonderry, Northern Ireland on the ship Cameronia, arriving at Ellis Island on 6 October 1912 [Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010].

From an old postcard. “RMS Majestic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Majestic_%281914%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Cameronia_%281911%29

From the 1910 Federal Census, Thomas was living at 223 East 36th Avenue, in Manhattan,  along with his brother, Patrick, at what was actually the home of his sister, Maria, and her husband, Martin Gleason. Many of our Irish Barnes family first lived with the Gleason family on their arrival to New York City. Thomas was working as a laborer in a building, and was listed as 21 years old. On Thomas Barnes’ World War One registration card, he listed October 14, 1887 as his birthday, but most likely this was the day he was baptized.

From looking at the Federal Census records from 1930 and 1940, Thomas Barnes was listed as a water tender for New York City. The water tender was often also called the stoker, or fireman, on the boats. In 1940 he was listed as 48 years old. From the records that I’ve found, Tom seems to be hazy about the year of his birth – always making himself younger. He and his wife, Barbara, lived on Staten Island, in Richmond County. No children were listed in 1930 and 1940, and this seems consistent with family research, that since they were childless, they enjoyed spoiling their many nephews and nieces.

Many thanks to Randy Seaver, of Genea-Musings, for bringing these records to my attention! From his Tuesday’s Tips: the URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/03/tuesdays-tip-familysearch-has-added-new.html

 New York City Marriage Records from 1866-1938

Good luck searching your family marriage records!