Ancestral Profile # 2: Dennis Joseph McHugh

Ancestor Name:                  Dennis Joseph McHugh       AKA's:Mac, Denny, Dennis the Menace
Relationship to Me:           Father
Date of Birth:                      17 Jan 1937                      Place:  Nanticoke, Luzerne County, PA
Parents:                               Joseph Dennis McHugh
                                            Mary Hodick

Date of Marriage:                 6 Jun 1959                       Spouse:  Regina "Jean" Ann O'Rourke
Number of Children:                  3                                 Date Widowed: 13  Nov 1988    
Number of Grandchildren:        3
Number of Great-Grandchildren: 4; 1 in Heaven, a fifth due in February 2012

Date of Marriage:   Mar 1992                                      Spouse: Frances Smith
Number of Step-Children: 2                                          Date Widowed: 21 Jul 2007  
Number of Step-Grandchildren:5


Date of Death:                    15 Feb 2010      Place: Tucson, Pima County, Arizona
Buried:                                27 Feb 2010       Place:  Queen of Heaven, Mesa, Maricopa County, Arizona

Schools:   

Trott Vocational School, Niagara Falls, Niagara County, NY

Employers:
Carborundum  (Niagara Falls, Niagara County, NY)
Countryside Disposal    (Niagara Falls, Niagara County, NY)
Schlitz (Phoenix, Maricopa County, AZ)
Brown Tire (Phoenix, Maricopa County, AZ)


Special Interests:
Bowling into young adulthood.
Volunteer Firefighter for Lewiston #2 Fire Co., Niagara Falls, Niagara County, NY
Camping
CB Radio User (hence the "nickname"/"handle" Dennis the Menace" listed above)

Notable Notes:

•  Dennis survived childhood polio

• Dennis spent many years as a volunteer firefighter and served as captain in 1969.

• Dennis also spent many years coaching his children's football teams for the  Niagara Wheatfield Athletic Association (NWAA).

• Dennis was once a member of a CB Radio Club known as "the Buzzards".  One of his CB contacts was partially responsible for our family settling in Tempe, Az after moving from Niagara Falls in 1977.

• Dennis and a buddy in Tempe once started their own solar water heating company -- called Valley Solar -- long before the Green movement began.

• Contrary to his obituary, Dennis died 15 Feb 2010 in Tucson, Az  His last days (as well as his wives') were a testament to the blessings that Hospice can bring to a family in crisis.

Photo Gallery:

Ancestor Profile #1: Regina "Jean" O'Rourke

Ancestor Name:                  Regina Ann O'Rourke       AKA's: Jean, Jeannie, Jean Ann
Relationship to Me:            Mother
Date of Birth:                      18 Jan 1938                      Place:  Niagara Falls, Niagara, New York
Parents:                                James O'Rourke
                                              Regina "Jean" Doyle

Date of Marriage:                 6 Jun 1959                       Spouse:  Dennis Joseph McHugh
Number of Children:                  3
Number of Grandchildren:        3
Date of Death:                         13 Nov 1988                 Place: Tempe, Maricopa, Arizona
Buried:                                      16 Nov 1988                  Place:  Queen of Heaven, Mesa, Arizona

Schools:   

Catholic School for Elementary
North Junior High School, Niagara Falls, NY
Niagara Falls High School

Employers:
Colato's, now known as Regal Tip by Colato; Niagara Falls, NY  http://www.regaltip.com/
Greyhound Exposition Services, Phoenix, Az

Special Interests:
Bowling into young adulthood. Even bowled with a broken right thumb at one point.
Tap dancing
Sewing, crocheting and macrame
Gardening
Drawing (a talent I first learned about only a few years before her death)

Notable Notes:

• Jean was an excellent writer, and could argue her point very effectively. This was shown in one example in a Letter to the Editor she'd written, defending the role volunteer firefighters played in fighting the Grief Bros. fire in Niagara Falls, NY in 1968. (Article can be found via http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html and searching the terms 5951 Garlow Road). 

• Jean hated Catholic school. She told tales of being thought "dumb" when she asked why 2 + 2 = 4, and walking in the front door and right out the back door of the school when dropped off in the morning.

• Jean wasn't always a practicing Catholic, but she always valued the Catholic Church and its teachings. 

• While she loved the guitar and once tried to learn to play one, she was less than thrilled when she first  heard a guitar played in Mass as part of the regular Sunday Choir at Holy Spirit Church in Tempe, Az.

• Jean once fell asleep while floating on water. She suffered a severe sunburn.

• Later, in Arizona, Jean would sit poolside with a sweater on when it was 90° outside.

• Jean was a leadfoot behind the wheel, and was the primary reason we once drove from Buffalo, NY to Des Moines, IA in ONE DAY.

• Jean refused to wear a seatbelt unless mandated by law, and she never locked her car door if she was inside it. 

• Jean knew how to dress to the nines. She was stylin'!

• Jean was an excellent cook, though she never seemed to really enjoy it.

Photo Gallery: (all photos in the collection of Colleen McHugh).

 

What is Ancestral Profiling?

Ancestral Profiling is the term I use to describe the process I use in my research to learn more about my ancestors as people. Information may be factual, documented, deducible, speculative, or missing, and will be identified as such in the text. The delineations of these terms, as I use them here, are:

1. Factual: 

• Information from an acceptable documented source or known first-hand by myself.
• "Acceptable" sources can be various, but examples would include vital records, obituaries, and marriage licenses, as well as my own personal experiences with more recent ancestors.. I take a little liberty with this blog that I may not necessarily take when entering information into my genealogy database. Readers are encouraged to keep this in mind (in other words, *I* may know of a certain fact about an ancestor based on my interaction(s) with them, but others who did not know them would not gather that information simply by searching for demographic information).

     2.  Documented:

• Information that has been documented in a credible source but may still contain errors. Examples of "documented" information would include information from Census Records, Newspaper Articles, or information found in a Family Bible that belonged to the person being profiled (or his/her immediate family members). This information -- and the source of it -- is information that would be in my RootsMagic4 database.

     3.  Deducible:

• This is information that might be deduced given the information at hand. For example, a profile might deduce that an uncle was brave because of his service in the armed forces. Deducible information will often relate to potential personality traits based on the ancestor's occupation, hobbies, or other lifestyle choices.

     4.  Speculative:

• Speculative information is more varied than Deducible information. This delineation will be used to express wonderment, as in "I wonder if this person was related to that person" and, while there will be reasons to make the speculation, is not to be used as admission criteria into a database of known information (i.e., I would not put this information into my RootsMagic4 database, but the idea has to be considered). 

     5.  Missing:

• This category of information is quite obvious: The information is not in my collections, whether that be my database, my current holdings, or my knowledge base. When information is missing, I encourage my cousins and other relatives who may have the missing information to email it to me along with the source of that information (including their own first-hand knowledge) and a statement as to how they wish to be credited with that information. They can also comment on that profile via the "Comment" link following each post.

 I hope the information contained in this blog helps me and my family members learn more about our ancestors and by extension, about ourselves. I also hope it helps other genealogists consider another method by which to organize our information as it pertains to genealogical research.