BREAKTHROUGH !

Thanks to familysearch.org, I have an extract of the marriage certificate of Kristian Danielsen and Mary E. Reynolds, listing her parents' names.  [The marriage date does match the index entry I'd found online some time ago: 30 Oct 1898, Bronx NY.]  Mary's father was NOT John Reynolds [per her death certificate] - it was Edward Reynolds.  Her mother's name was Mary Dolan [or Dulan], daughter of Patrick and Mary Dolan [Dulan].  Thus Mary Reynolds Danielsen named her second son, Edward, for her father.

I've found a few census entries for these families.  Patrick Dolan emigrated from Ireland between 1840-1845, and resided Westchester, New York from at least 1850 through 1870.  He and his wife Mary had 3 daughters, the older two born Ireland, the youngest, Mary Dolan, born New York.  His occupation was always listed as "laborer" in the federal censuses, but he also showed assets of $1000 to $1500.  He died probably between 1870-1880.  

Patrick's daughter Mary Dolan married Edward Reynolds about 1868-1870; they lived with her father [who was probably widowed] in Westchester as of the 1870 census.  Edward Reynolds was born in Ireland; nothing has been found on his family or immigration as of yet.  At 1880 he and Mary had 3 sons [another son having died young] and a daughter, Mary Reynolds who would grow up to marry Kristian Danielsen.  Cannot locate Edward Reynolds or his wife Mary in the 1900 census; they may have been deceased by then.  [I have found possible entries for two of their sons in 1900.]

This also answers the question as to where Mary Reynolds and Kristian Danielsen met:  he worked in Westchester as a waiter as of the early 1890's, and she was born and raised in Westchester.  Their 1898 marriage took place in the Bronx although a 1903 City directory showed their residence still in Westchester.  It's possible the nearest courthouse was in the Bronx.

Again - thank you familysearch.org !


P.S.  The Sullivan connection remains up in the air, as Mary Reynolds had no sisters!

One other unrelated Sullivan family...

According to Raymond Danielsen [son of Christian Jr. / grandson of Kristian Sr. and Mary [Reynolds] Danielsen], he had Sullivan cousins on his mother's side of the family.  It's possible my father met these Sullivan cousins through his uncle Christian [Jr.]'s family, but they would not have been blood relatives. 


Nothing but dead ends so far trying to connect Sullivan to Reynolds!

IT IS RARE...

...that I have absolutely no info on an ancestor--yet this is the case with Mary Reynolds.  Family history did pass down her maiden name.  The censuses indicate both she and her mother were born in New York.  Her father's place of birth [per censuses] is shown as "Ireland" and "Irish Free State".   She is also named on her son Edward's marriage certificate:  Mary Reynolds.  She died the year before her husband at the age of 79 years; he was the informant, and he named her father but not her mother ["unknown"].  From this I would guess - but it's only a guess! - that Mary's father outlived her mother by enough years that Christian Danielsen could not remember her name--if he ever knew it.

Finding the marriage certificate of Christian Danielsen and Mary Reynolds would probably solve the mystery of her mother's name - but of course I have been unable to locate it thus far.  Probably married 1897-1899 in either the Bronx, NY or Westchester, NY [probably the same place in those years].  Their first son was born in the Bronx September, 1899.

The only other info I ever heard about this family was from my father before his death.  He recalled getting together and playing with some cousins by the name of Sullivan, probably between the ages of 10-15, or during the 1930s.  In trying to determine who those cousins might be:

• My father's maternal aunt, Elizabeth Anderson, married Marty Regan; I know these children [all boys] were playmates, but their surname would have been Regan.  One of Elizabeth's sons married a Sullivan, somewhere around the mid to late 1940s.  Kay Sullivan was born in NY City around 1920 or later; it's possible she had siblings and that they knew the Danielsens.  [Will take a quick look at federal censuses for this family.]
• His mother had 2 other sisters:  Lillie died unmarried the year my father was born, while the oldest sister, Mary [or "Minnie"] married an Adams.
• His mother had 2 brothers; neither married a Sullivan.
• His father had one brother and one sister; neither married a Sullivan.
• The other possibility was that the Sullivans were related to Mary Reynolds, my father's grandmother.  Mary was born 1873; if she had a sister born even about 1880 who later married a Sullivan [say the early 1900s], the resulting progeny would be too old to be playing with my father in the 1930s.  So I guess this is the worst possible guess of all. :-))

ANOTHER PHOTO...

Kristian & Mary [Reynolds] Danielsen & nephew Olaf Olsen, ca. 1920s