Cheesy Grits: To the Caribbean and Beyond!

As if Savannah and Charleston were not sufficiently exotic in our family tree, we'd turned up a line—Jane's maternal great-grandmother, Dagmar McCabe—that appeared to lead to the West Indies. And not only the West Indies: Dagmar told the 1930 census taker that while her mother was West Indian, her father was Danish!

And here I thought that with Augustus Walbus/John Anderson (Remember him? The Dane who converted to Amish and married the bishop's daughter?), my side of the family had the corner on Danish ancestry. Not to mention that I wasn't completely sure which of the West Indies we were talking about.

The first task was to try to track Dagmar McCabe and her McCabe family back through the federal census. Nothing in the 1920 census, but a hit in the 1910 census:

Dagmar McCabe and family in the 1910 federal census

The image is small here, but it's a treasure trove: Dagmar McCabe, age 41, who in 1930 gave her place of birth generically as the "West Indies," here states specifically that she was born on the island of St. Thomas, which is in the Virgin Islands—at that time, still "owned" by Denmark and called, accordingly, the Danish West Indies. And guess what: Dagmar's father's nationality is given again as Danish! Her mother's birthplace is the same as Dagmar's: St. Thomas.

Dagmar's husband, Frank McCabe, was born on St. Croix, another of the Danish West Indies. His father, however, wasn't Danish, but Irish(!). His mother was also born on St. Croix.

And there are two daughters: one is Jane's grandmother, Audrey, and the other is slightly younger and appears to be named the same as her mother: Dagmar.

The 1900 census was back to generics again: Frank and Dagmar were both simply from the "West Indies."

But there are other vital records of interest, e.g., birth certificates, marriage licenses, and so on. What do they tell us?

Well, Audrey McCabe was born in New York City in 1898 to Frank and Dagmar McCabe, and here is her birth certificate:

Female McCabe born 7 Dec 1898 to
Frank and Dagmar McCabe

Although there is no given name recorded here, we know that it's Jane's grandmother because the month of birth is confirmed in the 1900 census and elsewhere.

But look what else the birth certificate gives us: Dagmar McCabe's maiden name—or at least a scrawled version of it. It definitely starts out "CHRIST..." but then the handwriting veers off and the ending is blotched. "Christean"?

Gee, if only we could find Frank and Dagmar's marriage license. Um, you mean this marriage license?

Frank McCabe and Mathilda D. Christensen's marriage license
Issued in New York City,19 Dec 1897

Ah yes, that marriage license. Great-grandmother McCabe went by Dagmar, but it appears that her given name was Mathilda Dagmar—and mirabile dictu—her maiden name is legible: it's Christensen. (Not to mention that "Mathilda" is the more Continental spelling for the name that the English spell "Matilda.")

And there are still more riches in the marriage license: Frank's Irish father's name is John McCabe and his Cruzan mother's name is Susanna Ellis. And Frank himself was born in St. Croix.

Mathilda Dagmar's Danish father's name is illegible to these eyes: it clearly starts with a "Jo" and ends with an "en" and has two syllables; beyond that, I can't really make much out. His last name is of course Christensen. Her Cruzan mother's name is Adeline Deguizee. Mathilda Dagmar also gives her mother's birthplace as St. Croix.

And there was one last, quite wonderful find:

Dagmar Christensen, passenger on the S.S. Madiana, 26 Aug 1893

This image is from a passenger list from the New York Customs Office in New York City. It records the passengers arriving in New York City on the S.S. Madiana, a small vessel that made the rounds of various Caribbean Islands, with its U.S. terminus in New York City. The name "Christensen, D." a 24 year-old female departing from St. Croix, appears at the bottom of the screen grab. It seems that our Mathilda Dagmar Christensen entered the United States through Ellis Island in 1893.

Does this mean that we were going to have to go to St. Croix to find out more about Mathilda Dagmar Christensen? Apparently so!

N.B. About ten years after delivering Jane's great-grandmother to Ellis Island, the S.S. Madiana hit a reef off Bermuda and sank. The wreck is still a popular site for divers.