Ancestry Magazine

I had been researching my family’s roots for ten years when I decided to create a photo essay on my hometown of Kearny, New Jersey. My first introduction to the town’s history came during its centennial year when the town historian entered my fourth grade classroom. I was mesmerized by what the woman told us. I visited the main building of the town’s public library, and spent hours in the Kearny Room, which was named after resident General Philip Kearny, a military hero, who was killed during the Battle of Chantilly in 1862. The interest remained with me over the years and finally, in 1999, I contacted Arcadia Publishing in New Hampshire to pitch my book , Images of America: Kearny, New Jersey.

You might be asking yourself about the relevance of town history to family history. I learned that by researching my town, I was also researching my family’s community. I was adding context to my family’s history.

There were additional benefits as well. As a result of my book’s publication, I had become the de facto town historian. I had spent many months documenting the town’s history: its Dutch beginnings, its participation in civic and national events, its schools, places of recreation, shops, and houses of worship.

I thought I knew it all. But I was very wrong. I could not hold a candle to the senior gentlemen who oversee the town museum. I could not hold a candle to members of local societies and organizations. It was from them that I learned about the local dance marathons in the 1930s; that the town hall once sported a spire that was hit by lightning in 1914, stunning the mayor and town clerk; that General John J. Pershing visited a personal friend in town and served as marshal for a World War I memorial parade in 1922, which was attended by 25,000 people. I learned that the town was once home to Civil War and other veterans in the New Jersey Home for Disabled Soldiers until 1932.

The book sold well and became a best-seller for the publisher. I was invited to visit the grammar schools and present the town’s history to enthusiastic groups of kids, who were fascinated by what their neighborhoods looked like 100 years ago. As I presented, I learned more about Kearny from the teachers. They had lived in different neighborhoods than I, and they had had different experiences. One taught me how to properly pronounce Tantaqua.

I learned that my history was missing a key ingredient: people. As with genealogy, a town’s history is much more than a collection of names, places, and dates. It’s about the social, economic, and even political context in which our famili es lived. I decided it was time to get personal. I was going to tell the story of the people of Kearny.

I began a new book project—a photo essay on Kearny’s immigrant heritage. It was to be a 128-page volume with some 200 photos and captions that would illustrate the town’s Scottish, Irish, Swedish, German, Lithuanian, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Latin American, Japanese, and Jewish roots.

I began new research applying the skills I have learned through genealogy. I accessed the Ancestry.com 1920 and 1930 online census data to get an understanding of how the town’s different ethnic groups lived among each other. I scoured pages across a representative sample of its streets across its nine-mile radius. I included the street I grew up on.

The census was just one of the sources I used to compile the essay. Other sources included numerous interviews with current and former residents as well as visits and calls to local restaurants, churches, shops, and schools. I used the Ellis Island database to help fill information gaps. Several of my contributors had done considerable work on their own family histories, and I consulted with them as well.

My goal was to document an unwritten history. That meant focusing on the people of Kearny and learning how and why their families came to town. Doing so helped me learn my family’s community context. You can do the same. Here’s how.

Get the Big Picture
It’s a good idea to first get a general idea of your hometown’s history. A visit to the local library and the town museum or historical society is a must. During Kearny’s centennial period, the town historian documented a great deal of the town’s history.

I found a book of local landmarks and their histories as well as an 1895 book of photos published to entice commuters to settle in Kearny. I also leafed through a few local chamber of commerce booklets from the 1940s, a boom tim e for the town. In fact, several of the town’s manufacturing and shipbuilding companies were awarded an Army-Navy “E” for Excellence for service to the war effort.

Through the museum, I found local residents whose hobby had become the town history. One of these took me on a tour of the old copper mines and showed me an old stone wall in Arlington Cemetery that dated back to the Revolutionary War. I discovered that several celebrities had visited the town (including HBO’s The Sopranos cast, who filmed there—the next time you see Satriale’s Pork Store or Pizzaland, think Kearny). There was also a common thread of soccer, beginning with the Irish and Scottish immigrants and continuing today. In fact, Kearny was home to three of the eleven U.S. World Cup Soccer Team members in 1990.

I learned that Kearny began as a piece of property known to the local Lenni Lenape people as Mighgecticok. It was sold by Chief Tantaqua to Captain William Sandford of Barbados in 1688. The 9.33-square mile area was wedged between the Pasawack (now Passaic) and Hackensack Rivers. The Schuyler family settled in what is now known as New Barbadoes Neck and built a plantation. One of their slaves allegedly discovered copper and mining began. The town was officially named Kearny in 1867.

In 1958, my family moved from a neighboring area to a thirty-year-old home in the section of town called Fairlawn Manor on the site of the former Schuyler mansion. A volunteer at the town museum gave me a copy of the real estate development promotional flyer for Fairlawn Manor from the mid-20s. I researched my street in the 1920 and 1930 censuses to get a feel for the families who lived there, including the original owners of my family’s home.

Kearny became a bustling town, providing a perfect site for New York City commuters. Further, because it was situated between Jersey City and Newark with access to major roadways, waterways, and railroads, it became an ideal l ocation for industry and commerce. Beginning in the 1870s and 1880s, immigrants from the British Isles arrived to work at the textile and floor covering mills and plants and brought with them a heritage that’s still evident in the town. You may even be familiar with some of the brands: Clark Thread and Congoleum floor coverings.

Kearny was home to other immigrants as well. The first Swedish immigrant, Louis Lindblom, came to town in 1879 and invited friends and family to join him. Eventually, there were three Swedish churches in town. Lithuanians have called Kearny home since at least 1895. Greek immigrants Alexandros Golematis and his sister arrived under the Orphan Law in 1952 and opened the local diner in 1958. Takeji Kusanobu, an importer, came to America in 1894 and was the first Japanese immigrant to settle in Kearny.

When and why did your family settle in your hometown? Who were their neighbors? Where did they worship? Be sure you visit the library and town museum, if they exist. Consult the census, if applicable, and find out who once lived on your street and in your house. Search for photos at the library, museum, and local newspaper office that show your street, your school, your church, as well as where you played, where your family shopped, and where you ate.

Establish Municipal Ties
The mayor’s office and a local chamber of commerce can help you access more information. For instance, you might want to know the current demographics of your town and who the largest employers were. I contacted the mayor’s office to enlist his staff’s assistance. I could not have asked for a more supportive team. They provided me with census and employment data as well as contacts for local ethnic organizations.

The most recent census data I received from the mayor’s office gave the town’s ethnic distribution, which includes Irish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, German, and Scottish ethnicities, among oth ers. I also received a list of ethnic organizations and houses of worship. Later in the process, when I was having trouble getting content to represent Polish and Latin American heritages, the mayor’s staff sent me some helpful names and contact information.

Reach Out to Alumni
There’s more to alumni than the proverbial reunion. Each person has a story to tell. I began by consulting Kearny High School’s alumni directory and website. On the website, I sorted the database by graduation year, and clicked on any ethnic name I could find, particularly Swedish, German, Italian, and anything Slavic. I sent e-mail after e-mail to request help with my book project. A select few, representing Irish, Swedish, Italian, and Lithuanian heritages, replied and provided me with wonderful photos and stories. I began to learn more about the town I had previously known from a skewed geographic perspective. (I lived on the extreme northwest section of town, bordering another town and county.)

I also tried Classmates.com and met with some success there. Further, I thought about all the kids I went to school with and the ethnicities they represented: Italian, Greek, Portuguese, among others. One classmate and I met at a local restaurant for dinner and she gave me the history of the Greek community in town, including the story of her own emigration. Another classmate shared photos of her Italian immigrant grandfather who owned a shoe repair shop. I had known these women since grade school and yet we had never talked about our different heritages.

I remembered my sister telling me that her high school history teacher always showed his slides of Scotland. When I saw on the Internet that he was on the planning committee for his high school reunion, I contacted him. He was a great source of photos and family history. He had a unique perspective because he had immigrated as a child after World War II.

The results of alumni correspondence provided me with other perspectives on my hometown—experiences within other neighborhoods, identification of important landmarks and milestones, etc. And all of them gave me perspective from different periods of time. Think about your classmates, both those you knew well and those who graduated before and after you.

Maybe, like me, you’ll remember the girl who performed the Highland Fling during school assemblies or the family who ate raw fish with seaweed, or even the boy with the thick German accent and the boy whose name was so long you couldn’t pronounce it. Contact them and ask them about their memories of events, places, and people. You might be surprised what you find out; undoubtedly, you’ll find yourself reconnected with your past in ways you couldn’t have imagined.

Have a Bite to Eat
Eating and shopping may provide more than a respite from research. How many times have you gone into a restaurant and seen photos on the wall of what the place used to look like or read its history on the back of a menu?

I focused on Kearny’s Scottish restaurants and also visited a fairly new Cuban café and a well-known shoe store. You’ll want to plan stops at old neighborhood haunts and even those you’re not familiar with. See how the town has changed in addition to researching history.

While visiting your hometown, stop into these places and ask questions. Arrange to meet old friends there.

Join the Crowd
Your family may have belonged to an ethnic or fraternal organization. I found many of them in Kearny, yet some were well-hidden. For instance, several townspeople mentioned the Scots-American Club, yet I couldn’t find it in any town directory or phone listing. It was purely a word-of-mouth thing. I had to call one of the local Scottish restaurants and ask the owners. When I walked into the tartan-wallpapered club, I found the owner and told him what I was looking for. I even mentioned a few names, including his brother who works at one of the Scottish restaurants. He seemed enthusiastic and said he would pull photos together. I also visited the Irish American Club and walked away with a large panoramic photo of the club’s annual picnic.

If you don’t find the group you’re looking for in a phone directory, you’ll have to ask around and rely on word of mouth. You may also find ethnic monuments that name the societies. In Kearny, there were monuments to both the Scottish and Irish heritages. You may even find that the group you want to contact is associated with a church.

I knew Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church had close ties to the Lithuanian community. A call there resulted in meeting Elena, a woman active in the community who also worked at Schuyler Savings Bank, a savings and loan institution started by Lithuanians in the early 1920s. Elena provided me with a fiftieth anniversary volume on the church and its school as well as a history of the community and the bank.

I wondered, how many people in Kearny who weren’t Lithuanian knew about this history? Further conversations and visits provided even more depth and breadth—the two community centers, a dance troupe, local dignitaries, and politicians. Around 1970, Elena had organized a dance troupe. She showed me a photo and named each child in it. One of the names I hadn’t heard in thirty years was the neighbor of one of my childhood playmates. I had never associated her with a specific heritage.

Be aware that some information may not be housed locally. For example, ephemera and photos for the Jewish community were donated to the Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest in Whippany. Finding knowledgeable people, including community leaders, in your hometown will help you find the hiding places. Networking your sources is a necessary ingredient to successful town research. Begin with those who might re member you and your family. Be ready to show a photo to jog a memory.

Visit the Church Attic
I had to rely on networking to visit a church. While I was visiting Tada and Seiko Yamaguchi, the aunts of one of my classmates, I mentioned I hadn’t been able to learn more about the beautifully architectured Swedish church across the street. Fortunately, they knew the caretakers well and gave me the phone number.

One hot Friday afternoon, I spent two hours in the church attic. I uncovered all sorts of photos: confirmation classes, ministers, group outings, Christmas activities, and families. When I remembered that my eighth grade social studies teacher’s maiden name had been Peterson, the caretakers took me into a general room to see a display of all the confirmation class photos. There, in the class of 1923, was my teacher, Hazel Peterson. I felt very proud. I wanted to include the photo in the book as a tribute, but we couldn’t pry the photo off the poster board.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
When hometown people share photos, ask for the story behind the pictures. What was going on the day the photo was taken? When was it taken?

As a friend reviewed my book galleys, I was able to tell him the intriguing stories I had learned about the events shown in the photos: a young girl rides a Harley in 1916 through the town park, probably shocking her immigrant parents; two Japanese American soldiers stand in front of the American Red Cross during World War II, while their father, who settled in town in 1917 and was not a naturalized citizen, was interned at Ellis Island; the adolescent Greek American girl, who was so proud of the purse she bought that day that she held it up for all to see; the Jewish couple who escaped Nazi Germany through Portugal and opened up a shoe franchise because of the town’s proximity to New York City; the elderly Lithuanian woman who ran a speak easy out of the front of her home.

The Bottom Line
A town’s history is more than documenting when buildings were erected and who was mayor. It’s about the people who lived there—why they settled there, what neighborhoods they formed, what lives they built for themselves.

Consider sharing your findings with the town itself. I found the community supportive and appreciative of my new written history. It had never before been shared this widely, or shared between ethnicities.

The next time you visit your hometown, remember the people beyond your family—the friends, neighbors, merchants, community leaders—and what made your hometown your hometown. In the process, you’ll gain a new understanding of your family’s community life and role.

Barbara Krasner-Khait writes frequently for several genealogy publications and is the author of Images of America: Kearny, New Jersey and Images of America: Kearny’s Immigrant Heritage (Arcadia) as well as Discovering Your Jewish Ancestors (Heritage Quest).