Can’t decipher crappy handwriting a new puzzle to solve circa 1899

Remember the "Riker" name up above that I posted on Feb 20th?  I found a family member in the 1930 census, same age, but named Michael.  Maybe Riker is a very sloppily written Mike?

No mystery here since I know the name is Powers. But take a look at that. If I hadn’t already had a ton of documentation on this I would be at a loss to figure out that first letter.  The state archives has it filed under Towers since they couldn’t make it out either. 

oddly looks like a corrected Dewey. 

can you post a bigger shot of the page?  Also, presume this is NJ?

If you're referring to the last one I posted above, it is a surname, not a street name.  Catherine Powers, or as NJ lists her, Catherine Towers       But that one is known, as we have other family members on file, and have also found their cemetery plots at Holy Sepulcher in East Orange. 

If you meant the one from the previous pic that I posted Aug 11 at 6:04pm, that is from Paterson NJ from 1873.  I'll try to get a larger picture of that one that shows more

I also love how Ancestry.com gets all excited.  We found someone who may be your ancestor!!!  Yeah, you found a Bridget Casey in Ireland.  Gee, what are the chances of you finding a Bridget Casey in Ireland.  I could throw a dart at a map of 1850 Ireland and have a 1 in 5 chance of landing on a Bridget Casey.  Even here in the last century it takes a lot of weeding out, I often find a John and Bridget with a common last name (Casey, Reilly, Buckley, etc) living with daughters Mary, Kate, and Margaret, repeat 10x per city.  Not a single Siobhan or Niamh to be found   

Sometimes they're right.  I found a Philip Caffrey in New York State who was born in Paterson NJ, and was living with his sister Margaret.  It is a common name, and I figured too likely to be a coincidence, so I disregarded it.  I mentioned Philip Caffrey to my father without bringing up the location, and he mentioned how he remembered he had an Uncle Philip up in Schenectady NY and how back in the 50's it was a haul to get up there.  I asked his he knew if he lived with a Margaret, and he said yes, that was his Aunt Margaget who also lived in Schenectady.  I went back to the Ancestry hint, and yes, Philip and his sister Margaret were indeed living in Schenectady, so they did get it right on that one.  

But the amount of hints Ancesty throws my way that look close, but have nothing to back them up, is astounding and I wonder how many people just click "yes" and follow false leads based on that.  This is NOT to say that Ancestry.com is useless, I love it, it makes searching multiple sources simultaneously very easy.  I'm just saying don't get all excited if you have a name match, especially if they're Irish, since we were so poor back then we had to all share the same five names and couldn't afford any new ones. 

Add in name changes, like one ancestor who was born Frederick Heiman, then became Hayman, then Heyman, then eventually settled on Herman (dude, it is still obviously a German surname, you aren't fooling anyone by switching from Heiman to Herman).  I still haven't found where he is buried, I just know he disappeared after 1920.  One of the Caffrey's also alternates between Caffrey and McCaffrey, though that seems to be somewhat consistent, Caffrey for government paperwork, McCaffrey for Church records.  Possibly due to wanting to appear less ethnic in legal paperwork, but in a Church where they're likely surrounded by other Irish they're more comfortable using the Mc

One that was eating away at me for over a decade was Louis Praml.  I'd spent over ten years looking for him in Ellis Island records.  I knew he came through there, but he was just not showing up on the Ellis Island website.  I tried first initial L, variations on spelling Praml, nothing.  Ancestry.com actually helped me find that one.  He was listed as Ludvig Pramel.  Makes sense, he changed Ludvig to Louis after arriving, and whoever did the intake in 1902 accidentally wrote Praml as Pramel, easy to understand how that happened, and I would have found that years ago on Ellis Island if they had the same information.   But they didn't.  The reason I couldn't find him in the Ellis Island records was that they had transcribed Ludvig Pramel as Lasfrig Prasnel.  Same crappy handwriting, same records, but the Ancestry people had done a better job of deciphering it.  I submitted a correction to Ellis Island (I've done this in the past with another relative and they corrected it) but I haven't heard back this time.

I did luck out on the Italian side.  Italy doesn't have much at all online.  But a distant cousin who I've never met when to Italy and spent a month in the town our ancestors came from, and did nothing but spend all day, every day, at churches and town hall getting copies of records, and not just for their direct line, but for the whole family tree, cousins, aunts, uncles, the dog sitter, everyone.  Thanks to that persistent researcher I now have records and dates,with accompanying documentation, going back to the mid 1600's.  

I have a larger version on my desktop, but that file is too large to upload. I hope this one is legible 

Could the street name start with "J"? Maybe Jersey? (Based on the look of the first letter and the similarity of it to some of the "J" names on the same page?)

sis2157! said:
Could the street name start with "J"? Maybe Jersey? (Based on the look of the first letter and the similarity of it to some of the "J" names on the same page?)

 This could be it.  There IS a Jersey St in Paterson, and it is also only two blocks from Marshall St, which is a confirmed residence for them seven years later.  

The house is gone, replaced by an exit ramp for Route 80   

The Jersey one is the one I was referencing, and I’d agree that’s what it is.  The old block/lot numbers are online, and Paterson has a very good historical society, so I’m sure you can go exploring there for further info if needed. 

Looking up the street names is more out of curiosity.  I find that in general back then my family either moved far (like out of state) or the moved only a few blocks.  I don't find a lot of family moving from one side of the city to the other.  I also like to see if the buildings they lived in are still there.  For some odd reason, a LOT of the buildings my husband's family lived in are still standing, but for my family most are gone.  I did find a picture on a Newark history site of the house my grandfather was born in in Newark, also long gone.  The picture is listed as 9-13 Spring St.  My grandfather was born at 9 1/2 Spring St.  I can only guess that the 1/2 either means the second floor, or a back apartment.  They weren't there for long though, as the 1920 census shows a different family living at 9 1/2 Spring St