Record Losses and Genealogy

The words, record losses, are not what a researcher wants to find. 

Fires and natural causes destroy precious historic documents forever. So after days of researching, changing spellings of names, etc. I accidently learned why my hours of research were not providing me information about two ancestors - John Monath and his sister Marie Dorothea Monath.

In 1911 fire destroyed precious documents and recordings held in the library of the New York Capitol building. The 4 May 2018 blog link, https://www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/blog/fire-new-york-state-library, details the event. [Image left: The New York State Capitol building is currently the seat of New York's state government, but in 1911 it also housed the State Library. Image via Wikimedia Commons.] 

Having learned about the fire I had one nugget of information about my Monath family. It is said that one of my great great grandfather's siblings, John Monath, stayed behind in New York after arriving to America in 1852. His youngest sibling, Marie Dorothea, is another story. She was about 4 years old in 1852. The 1860 Maryland U.S. Federal Population Census does not show Marie living with her parents. So I thought that maybe she lived with John in New York. I repeatedly tried to find census reports for both John and Marie. That is when I learned about the record losses. This left me knowing a little about Marie and less of John. I will settle for what I did learn about the Monaths.

Marie married twice, was widowed once, and lived what seemed to be a comfortable life in Washington, DC until 1895. The life of Marie/Mary/Maria D. Monath prior to marriage will remain a mystery to me.