A Murdering Rogue in My Family Tree

August 5, 1895 in Buffalo, New York was a typically hot summer day. George Greenless, my 1st cousin 3 times removed, was estranged at this time from his wife, Ella 'Nellie' Misener. Hoping to find her at home with her parents, he entered their home and a shouting match ensued.

George then pulled a pistol and shot and killed his mother-in-law. Next he shot and wounded his sister-in-law's fiance Walter Flewell. Flewell later died of his injuries.

George's story is a convoluted one. He was sentenced to life in prison for second degree murder in 1898 and sent to Auburn Prison in New York.

During his trial he became friendly with the warden of the jail where he was held. Later George's Canadian relatives came to New York to testify, and more lurid stories of George's erratic behaviour and mistreatment of his wife came out. A family witness stated that there was a great deal of insanity in the Greenlees family.

In 1909 he was sent to Sing-Sing Prison but was released on parole and married Rachel Roach in 1918 in Buffalo. In 1924 the courts granted George a pardon. He and Rachel had six children before his death in 1928.

His widow Rachel married another Sing-Sing inmate in 1932. William Leonard, her new husband, was sent to prison in 1903, served a short term before release but was back in Sing-Sing in 1904. Another short term resulted but once again he returned to Sing-Sing in 1908 sentenced to 2 to 4 years. I cannot read his crime in the records as the writing is challenging.

Newspapers are amazing, full of genealogy gold! You can try a 14 day free trial at Ancestry to search newspaper records.

Murder Most Foul - George Greenlees

August 5, 1895 in Buffalo, New York was a typically hot summer day. George Greenless, my 1st cousin 3 times removed, was estranged at this time from his wife, Ella 'Nellie' Misener. Hoping to find her at home with her parents, he entered their home and a shouting match ensued.

George then pulled a pistol and shot and killed his mother-in-law. Next he shot and wounded his sister-in-law's fiance Walter Flewell. Flewell later died of his injuries.

George's story is a convoluted one. He was sentenced to life in prison for second degree murder in 1898 and sent to Auburn Prison in New York.

During his trial he became friendly with the warden of the jail where he was held. Later George's Canadian relatives came to New York to testify, and more lurid stories of George's erratic behaviour and mis-treatment of his wife came out. At one point a witness stated that there was a great deal of insanity in the Greenlees family.

In 1909 he was sent to Sing-Sing Prison but was released on parole and married Rachel Roach in 1918 in Buffalo. In 1924 the courts granted George a parden. He and Rachel had six children before his death in 1928.

His widow Rachel married another Sing-Sing inmate in 1932. William Leonard, her new husband, was sent to prison in 1903, served a short term before release but was back in Sing-Sing in 1904. Another short term resulted but once again he returned to Sing-Sing in 1908 sentenced to 2 to 4 years. I cannot read his crime in the records as the writing is challenging.

Newspapers are amazing, full of genealogy gold! I found dozens of newspaper articles about George on a Free Trial Newspaper Site

Crowdsourcing for Genealogy - What Does the Record Say?

Today I am crowdsourcing from other genealogists. An 1805 record for my ancestor John Greenlees has me stumped. There is one word I cannot figure out. My husband and I have spent hours going over it and comparing it to other words on the record page in hopes of understanding the clerk's letter formations.

Now it's time to ask for help. Here is the cropped image. My ancestor is John Greenlees from Fermangh Ireland. The word I cannot read is the top line. It is the word after Fermangh and it is in the column heading "Where Born: Parish"

I have looked at the parishes and townlands in Fermanagh - and there are a lot! I still cannot figure out what that word says.  We think, after much deliberation, that the first letter might be "A".

To compare the letter formations, here is the complete record page. I hope someone more familiar with the places in Fermanagh or with a better eye than I have, will be able to help. You can also view  a larger image here. You can enlarge it with the magnifier when it loads. Thank you for any ideas!

Searching Ontario Canada Land Records, eh?

1826 Land Petition John Greenlees

Last night I stumbled on two land petitions for my 3rd great grandfather John Greenlees. That's right, I said "stumbled on". Yes it's a bit embarrassing to admit my finding these petitions from 1826 and 1833 was not an act of brilliant genealogy sleuthing. 

Finding land petitions may not sound exciting but not only do they add details to an ancestor's life, they often contain clues to other records or facts that were not previously known. In this specific instance the 1826 petition gave John's year of immigration from Ireland to Ontario Canada. It also provided the number of children he had in 1826.

Last night I went to a lookup service site I use sometimes and entered GREENLEES into the site search engine. I’ve searched for my Greenlees family before on this site but the owner often adds new indexes so since I was bored with TV I figured what the heck. Bingo! Up popped two index entries for my ancestor in the Upper Canada Land Petitions (UCLP). That puzzled me because the UCLP have been online as a searchable index at Library & Archives Canada (LAC) since 2010, and the actual images have been online for at least a year.  I’ve searched them dozens if not hundreds of times but I’ve never seen a petition for John Greenlees. 
 
My next stop was the online UCLP indexes at LAC. It’s a bit tricky finding the petitions there because the searchable indexes are on one spot on the site and the actual digitized images are on another – and there is no link from one to the other. First you head to the Indexto Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763-1865) to search the indexes. But here’s the important part of searching this index. When you search for an ancestor, take advantage of the wildcards that LAC allows. 

For example, searching for GREENLEES does not bring up my ancestor John. But searching for GREEN* brings him up for both those petition entries I found on the other website. For those his name is rendered as GREENLESS.   Here’s the embarrassing bit – I know to use wildcards. I do use wildcards. But apparently I never used them when searching for my Greenlees family! Either that or I somehow overlooked searching for them in the UCLP. Once your name of interest is found you must click on the link for each name. 

Clicking on the index entry for John Greenlees 1826 provides me with the information I need to find the digitized image(s) online. 

Name:  Greenless, John

Place:  Nelson

Year:  1826

Volume:  208A

Bundle:  G 14

Petition: 142

Microfilm:  C-2032

Reference: RG 1 L3

It would be nice if LAC had an easily found link to the digitized images but unless you then go back to your results, click on SEARCH HELP, then choose HOW TO OBTAIN COPIES you will be lost as to what to do next. Choosing HOW TO OBTAIN COPIES takes you to an explanation and buried in it is a sentence saying you can view the digitized images for the UCLP online. The word “online” is linked. 

But guess what! Clicking on that link takes you to another page of information about LAC’s digitization projects. Buried within this page is an explanation that “some” items from LAC’s “numerous collections” have been digitized and you can search for what you want by going to a BROWSE BY TITLE or BROWSE BY TOPIC page. Phew! Nowhere will you find a link that specifies you can search the UCLP digitized images. That's a major fail in my mind.

But the workaround is that you can go directly to the digitized UCLP images with the link I have provided here. I suggest you open a second browser window for the actual images so that you have your first window still open to the information you need (Microfilm #, Volume #, Bundle and Petition #) You'll be jumping back and forth to doublecheck that you are in the right volume and bundle as you search for the petition you want.

Using John Greenlees 1826 petition, I’ll show you how you find the image you want on the digitized microfilm. I need Microfilm:  C-2032 so I must go page by page until I find the film number I need.  It is on the 3^rd page of film numbers. I click on the film number and the first image of 749 appears. The first page won’t help me so I usually enter 50 in the box so I go to image 50. 

Source details at bottom of digitized image

 Scroll right to the bottom until you can see Upper Canada Land Petitions and the source detail including the Volume, Bundle, Years and more. We need Volume 208A for John Greenlees. But a look at the info on image 50 shows we are in Volume 208. So we have to jump ahead. There is no way of knowing how far ahead you need to go so I just usually go by 50 at a time. Sometimes I go head a few hundred because you can always go back. So I jumped to image 100 (still not the right volume) and then 200. Image 200 shows me I am in Volume 208A, Bundle 14.  We can also see it is for letter “G”. Now we check what Bundle we needed for John Greenlees and it is G14. So we are in the right Volume and Bundle. 

Next is the all-important petition number. We need #142. So now we scroll UP on the image we are on (200) and check the top of the actual petition.   The petition number is usually on the right top but sometimes on the left. In this case Image 200 shows the petition number on the top left is 120a

The petition we want (142) is ahead on the reel. You might do the math and think you only need to go head by 22 but most petitions have at least 2 pages, sometimes dozens. So I would go ahead 50. I’m not worried because if I jump past #142 I can always go back.

Going ahead 50 takes me to image 250 and I can see that it is Petition 131a. I’ll go ahead another 25 and see where I am. That brings me to Petition 139. Finally I hit on image 302 which shows me the petition #142 for John Greenlees. If you happen to get to your desired petition # but it has a letter after it (such as 142b) then you have gone too far. The petitions are numbered in sequence and always start with a number. Each page of the same individual’s petition is given a letter so if John Greenlees has a 4 page petition they will be numbered 142, 142a, 142b and 142c.

Be sure to save every page including the “envelope” as it has important information on it. I’ll explain how to interpret the information on the "envelope" in another blog post. Meantime you may want to read about other land records in Ontario - where to find them and how to search the databases. It is found at Finding Ancestors in Ontario Land Records