I went back to Troy in 1997 and using the directories and censuses, I tried to figure out the year of his death. I knew my ggrandmother had died in 1892 and through the censuses I found he remarried a Catherine. I found them together in the 1900 census but not the 1910 census, where I found her living with a nephew and listed as a widow. Same with the city directories. However, like many other entries, the directories did not give his date of death. I also checked the NYS state census for 1905 found Catherine by herself, with the nephew. From there I went over to the Troy City Clerks office and asked for a search for the death cert for 1900-1905. Well, they couldn't/wouldn't do it while I waited and I received a message from them when I got back to CA that if was not found! I called the office and they said if he died, somewhere other than Troy, they wouldn't have the record. BTW, there were no cemetery records in St Joseph's for his burial. Back in Troy the following year, 2000, I went over to the Albany archives and searched the death records. They have a room (actually part of the state health department) where they have all the death, marriage and births on fiche by year and alphabet. The info given is name, event date, place and state cert number. Well, it was a fruitless search. I searched from before 1890 through 1915 and came up empty. Did he die out of state? Did he died in NYC? In the meantime, I started searching my grandfather's brothers and the Timothy O'Connor who I thought might be my gggrandfather. I found Timothy's naturalization papers, born in Co Limerick, with same year of emigration as on the censuses for my James. I obtained his death cert and while it only gave Ireland as his place of birth, it gave his parents names...Bryan O'Connor, Ann Gallagher. I also found a naturalization record for James Connors, emigrated as a minor, no age given or year of emigration. All fit nicely with my scheme. The brothers Michael and John took another three years to completely find their wives' names and their children's names. John was particularly difficult because he moved to NYC, took back the O'Connor name and then moved to Albany NY. I had located them in all federal and state censuses, so could estimate years of death. In 2001, I started searching obituaries when in the Albany/Troy area. I now did most of my researching in the state archives in Albany because I had gleamed most of the available info the Troy Library had to offer. The State archives had newspapers from all over the area. In 2002, I had Michael's death date and death cert and found his obituary...well, he died in 1907 and there in his obituary it said his father was alive!!! My head was buzzing since I had him dead by 1905. So, when I got home, I was back to the censuses. Where was he? Well, like I said, I had written down all O'Connor/Connors in searching the censuses so looking at my notes in 1910, the only James Connors I could find that fit his age, was in St Joseph's Poor House in Troy! Yes, that was him alright, he and Catherine had a parting of ways. He stayed in the poor house till I found him in 1920 and 1925 in the Sister of Mercy's Home for the Aged. He no longer appeared in 1930. So, now I am sitting in CA in the fall of 2002, knowing I wouldn't be in NY for almost another year busting with this new information, so I wrote a friend who went to the archives regularly and asked if when she got the time could she check the death fiches for his death date between 1925 and 1930. Well, she not only found his death in 1928 but found his obituary which gave my grandfather and my aunt's name plus a sister's name! So this was definitely my man. I sent to Troy for his death cert and sure enough, his parents were Timothy O'Connor and Catherine Flanagan and he was born in Tipperary, Ireland! Bingo. To check the info, I researched his sister, found her death date and when in Albany this past summer got her death cert which had the very same info! The object of these two posts, is to show some of the exercises I had to go through to get the info I needed to get back to the county in Ireland. I have since paid for research and found James' sister, Catherine's baptism record with the exact date of birth as is listed on her death certificate. James' wasn't found (what else is new?) but I did find they came from Tipperary Parish, no townland mentioned so probably Tipperary Town, and found some of their siblings. I also paid for research and have come up Catherine's parents but Timothy is still up in the air and requires a whole new set of posts to explain him. However, I am happy to know where they emigrated from and will finally put this family aside and work on some of my other families... -- Pat Connors, Sacramento CA http://www.connorsgenealogy.com All outgoing mail virus free, scanned by Norton