Edie Falco's roots are not where she thought they were... | FULL EPISODE

his office was invaded many times by infuriated citizens the victims of his sarcasm but they usually left in better humor without doing the editor bodily harm Brown went from here to Duluth where he held a position of night editor on one of the daily papers for a number of years he died at that place while still in the prime of life all right his son was baptized in 1876 and here it is 1885 there is not a single reference made to a family of any kind wife or son in a completely different town too and a different entirely different place holy mackerel [Music] acclaimed actress Edie Falco is best known for her TV film and stage portrayals of tough female characters her performance is Carmella on the hit series The Sopranos earned 83 Emmys two Golden Globes and five Screen Actors Guild Awards her current starring role in Nurse Jackie garnered Edie yet another Emmy making her the first ever to win an Emmy for Outstanding lead actress in both a comedy and a drama Edie was born in Brooklyn New York and grew up on Long Island she currently lives in Manhattan with her son Anderson and daughter Macy family is very important to me and it's happened more over time I spent a lot of years on my own trying to make a career for myself and sort of as a singular person and I never thought about getting married is something I needed to do and my parents had split up so you know it wasn't a good argument for you know go out and get married kid um so it's taken it's a bit of a roundabout Journey as far as my my own idea of family is concerned I did give a lot of thought to my children who are adopted my first thought was do I tell them I'm going on a journey to discover my lineage you know is it about bloodline um and I actually I looked up the word family it's a group of people living Under One Roof with common morals with usually a head of household I have that I grew up with an Italian father and and we spent a good deal of time at my dad's family's place doing what they had always done Sunday dinners and holidays together and family big extended family stuff and we would occasionally go to my mom's side of the family but my mom's parents died a long time ago so there was less cohesion um it's definitely one of the reasons I am interested in taking this journey I would certainly love to know some more information about where where Mom comes from [Music] so I am headed to my mom's house on Long Island to have a conversation with her about what she knows about my family I'm hoping she may have some information to get me started on this journey so I am wanting to know more about your side of the family than I do well there is a bit to know and the truth is I don't know as much as I might but perhaps you could see something from this this is something my cousin Linda made oh the family tree uh okay this is my mother and my grandmother okay her husband my grandfather we called him pop-up his name was George McGrath as a matter of fact I have a picture no way yeah I never see this that's really how I remember him but I barely remember him I learned recently he comes from Wales wow really did you know that no and here's the little blurb about George oh I see Florence Nana married a widower George McGrath McGrath was his mother's maiden name let me figure that out McGrath was his mother's maiden name curious his father's name was Brown so George McGrath's father sounds interesting his mother left his father in Wales and she went to America with her young son George wowza that's uh a ton more than I knew I'm wondering why George's mother left yeah there's I don't imagine that was the kind of thing that went on certainly not then no I you know with these little tidbits of information about your side of the family but I don't know I remember hearing about whales I'm assuming he was born there I mean I'm pretty sure he was born there but of course I have no proof of anything but we know at some point George and his mom were in New York yes I think so that might be a good place to start that was a very helpful visit my mother doesn't know much more than I do but she knows enough to get the beginning of a story my great-grandfather George took his mother's maiden name McGrath instead of his father's surname Brown so who is this Mr Brown is he really from Wales and do I have any further family history there since my mom thinks that George was living in New York at some point I am going to go to the New York Public Library to begin my search welcome to the Stephen a schwartzmann library thank you I know that my mother's grandfather's name was George McGrath he came over from Wales that's what I know so let's go specifically into the census collection okay [Music] George McGrath great this is the 1920 census okay George McGrath Florence is his wife so it looks like during this time George was 43 in 1920. he was born in 1877. this is wild wait a second um I see birth he was born in Wisconsin that doesn't seem right I'm confused he was born in Wisconsin I just he was born in Wisconsin and you didn't know that about George no I know I thought they said that they came from Wales together but maybe she came here before he was born well let's keep going across uh-huh because the next column here is where his mother was born New York so his mother was born in New York his father what what is this wait a second George's father was born in England is that what that says that's what it says and that's a separate country from Wales right yeah that's right this is very surprising so my mom's family tree was wrong there's there's nobody from Wales this is not at all what I expected all right let's see what else I can find on ancestry.com George McGrath born in Wisconsin about 1877 oh wow George McGrath death 1946 it says there's a story attached here okay so what do we do let's open this up yeah George McGrath died suddenly at hospital oh my goodness Mr McGrath who was 70 years of age was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin and had been an electrician during his active years he is survived by his wife Mrs Florence McGrath so this looks like from what you know of your family that this is the right mcgraph right wow seems like what you have is the stories that are passed down from generation to generation it's like the game of Telephone by the time it gets to being written on a family tree a hundred years later you're gonna have a lot of details that are skewed thank you so much oh you're very welcome but George was not born in Wales he was born in Wisconsin and this Mysterious Mr Brown whose name George seemingly didn't want to have did not come from Wales either but from next door in England well I hope that Milwaukee where George was born will give me some more clues [Music] I never thought I would find myself in Milwaukee Wisconsin especially when searching for my roots lo and behold here we are [Music] Myra suggested that I visit Milwaukee's All Saints Cathedral because it holds a lot of the city's baptismal records for the late 1800s so if they have George's record there I'm hoping it could give me some more information about his English father good morning good morning I'm Christy hi Christy Eady nice to meet you likewise what can I do for you I am trying to figure out where my great grandfather was born um thinking 18 70s let me go have a look I'll go see if I can get my hands on the right book and we'll get you started great great thank you thanks [Music] well I've got the book from the range of years you're thinking oh my goodness and I've set a marker where the baptism star wow okay foreign they were pretty diligent about writing in most of the information so let's see George McGrath George McGrath you've got it that's it Edie Falco is in Milwaukee Wisconsin looking into her mother's side of the family she just found her great-grandfather George McGrath's baptismal record from 1876 and is hoping it will give her more clues about George's father a man she knows only as Mr Brown George McGrath born in Milwaukee Wisconsin oh wow March 21st 1876. surname Brown so according to this he did take the name Brown at least at baptism and according to my family tree the name was not really attached to him in any way but his dad Charles Brown Mary McGrath Brown Charles Brown up until now he's been this sort of a shadowy figure that we didn't know much about except that maybe his wife left him well in fact it says sponsors or Witnesses and it looks like Charles C brown brown the parent is listed it looks like he was actually present oh you're kidding wow we that is trippy George's father it's obviously here so now I actually have a name of George's father this Charles Childs Brown was at least at this point still a part of George's life which is uh fills in a little piece of the mystery but why would George stop using his father's surname it seems strange and I want to know what could possibly cause such a rift between my ancestors to find out more information about Charles Christie suggested that I go to the Milwaukee County Historical Center they have an extensive collection of historical records as well as Community documents hi hi uh I'm wondering if you can help me I'm trying to track down a relative and I know that he was here in 1876 attending the baptism of his son his name is Charles Childs Brown well a great resource is Milwaukee city directories those were produced every year from 1847 to present so if you want I can pull those for you great thanks foreign so here are some City directories for you to look through see if you can find them anywhere in there while you're doing that I'll go ahead and look and see if I can find him on a census record oh great thanks yep [Music] 1869 70 Charles a Charles C Apprentice Milwaukee news hmm so six or seven years before his son George was born Charles was here in Milwaukee working at a local paper okay I went through and searched the Census records and I didn't find Charles Brown anywhere in Wisconsin after 1870 at all wow okay nowhere but so I thought to myself well maybe surrounding states you never know so I found a cc Brown in an 1885 census in Little Falls Minnesota CC Brown 32 year old male from England there does not appear to be anyone else living in the household with him as he is the only one with the brown last name here and he's from England so that is certainly compelling we don't know for sure that this is him though right yeah I mean you can't always tell so what I did is I did some searching and what I found is a reference to a historical sketch of Royalton Minnesota and Royalton was only 10 miles away from Little Falls historical sketch what does that mean even it could just be basically a description of a city a town maybe list some of the people that were there Royalton's first newspaper in the year 1885 Royalton felt the need of a newspaper Charles C Brown oh my goodness who at the time was working at Little Falls came down to look the town over working at Little Falls so that is indeed The Cece brown right on the census wow CeCe Brown the founder of Royalton's first paper was a man of wide experience in both country and city papers he was not only an expert printer but a brilliant writer he had the reputation of making news where there was no news he delighted in a battle of words with other country papers wrote many scathing articles directed to contemporary editors his office was invaded many times by infuriated citizens the victims of his sarcasm but they usually left in better humor without doing the editor bodily harm Brown went from here to Duluth where he held a position of night editor on one of the daily papers for a number of years he died at that place while still in the prime of life oh all right his son was baptized in 1876 and here it is 1885 there is not a single reference made to a family of any kind wife or son in a completely different town too and a different entirely different place holy mackerel CeCe Brown was quite an interesting character okay thank you I am very curious about where Mary and George are in his own personal history did he have other wives and other kids that he also left behind a lot of questions about this man and as more things are answered more questions appear Edie Falco is in Milwaukee Wisconsin following the trail of her great-great-grandfather Charles Brown a newspaper man from the late 19th century I just read a historical sketch about Charles's life and it's sad to see that there was no mention of his wife or of his son seems like Charles was written out of the family tree that my mother had and now it appears that Mary and George were written out of Charles's life as well and I want to know why Amanda put me in touch with historian Dr James Mueller who's been researching Charles Brown so I'm meeting him back at the Milwaukee County Historical Center I'm going to see if I can shed some light on this disconnect in my family so I'm trying to track down information about my great great grandfather Charles Brown as I'm getting a little bit of a picture of the professional life of this man I'm still very curious about his family life and I was wondering if you found anything yeah I've been doing some reading about him and I have an article here from the Duluth daily news about his son and it's down here at the bottom wow CeCe Brown the well-known newspaper man received a dispatch yesterday announcing the sad death of his son George McGrath Brown at or near Albany New York yesterday the young man was struck by a surface car it was between 16 and 17 years old so let me see this is 1892. um how could that be that can't be true I have actually seen a photograph of George McGrath Brown in his 70s or 80s it's very unusual that this would be printed here and it's his own paper and newspapers often jump the gun sure enough news I mean even Mark Twain there was a obituary published about him and that's when he said the famous line reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated so okay all right his death was exaggerated and he says he's 16 years old and died it would never occur to me that he made it up I don't know I don't know it's a kind of a mystery but we know from this story that his son was living near Albany New York okay yes I have an article here from the Albany evening Journal I have the May shed some light on this and it's this story here that says heirs found in Albany in 1905 airs found for supposed intestate sister Catherine Brown sounds like a nun died intestate at Saint Margaret's home in Troy January 25 1902. it was supposed at the time of her death that she left no heirs Charles C Browns the son of sister Catherine Brown he died at Duluth in 1899 leaving a widow oh Charles's mother my three times great-grandmother was sister Catherine Brown she died in 1902 about three years after her son Charles died and although they thought she had no heirs Charles son George showed up to claim the estate the article also reveals a lot more about Charles Brown's first wife obtained a divorce from him in Minnesota that's George's mother Mary okay afterwards Charles C Brown married again and by his second wife had two children both of whom are now living in Chicago this wife also obtained a divorce from him and Charles C Brown married his third wife the third wife also obtained a divorce from Chelsea Brown and he again married in Minnesota Wow first wife obtained a divorce from him in 1878 in Minnesota that's got to be Mary two years after George was born so he was a two-year-old wow divorce was pretty common among newspaper men back in those days the life was really hard they worked really long hours and they drank heavily tended to they believed in those days that it was a stimulant that would help them keep working those long hours and I keep doing it myself like is he a good man or a bad man and I have sort of uh he was probably a regular man with a little bit of both yeah having gone through my my own parents divorce um you know ask any kid who went through it it really does shake you to your core George was too makes me um feel for him and it's hard to say if the article saying that George had died was the moment of sort of estrangement between George and his dad CeCe brown but on some level the emotional image I get of this man sort of makes me sad a little bit because nobody really quite wants to put their Roots into him and to say that he's a part of their family Edie Falco is in Milwaukee Wisconsin researching her mother's side of the family she just discovered the name of her three times great-grandmother sister Catherine Brown which takes Edie back yet another generation so the sister Catherine Brown is a new name the mother of Charles C Brown I when she died in 1902 and the Census records have been a big part of helping to find people so maybe I could track her down in uh Troy New York maybe in 1900. let me see 1900 United States federal census first and middle name would be sister Catherine sister Catherine yeah oh my goodness okay sister Catherine yeah sister Catherine Troy birthplace at sea [Music] what Mother's birthplace England that's incredible so at Sea we don't know where at sea or from where to where it was fairly unusual mother's birthplace England and Charles born in England um I think I have to go to England to find out some more thank you so much for your help you're welcome good luck with your search thank you the idea that Catherine was born at Sea is very unusual and sort of dramatic kind of seeming and how traumatizing I guess for the mother to be that pregnant and heading overseas it puts to mind a whole sense of tumult and anxiety it's opened up a whole new set of questions that I have about my family further back in England I have a lot more I want to know about uh about where it all started there so I found a family historian who's asked me to meet her in London thank you all I have is sister Catherine Brown's birthplace as at Sea and I don't know her maiden name so I'm hoping I can find out more information about her through her son my great-great-grandfather Charles Brown hello yes hey nice to meet you thank you sure thank you I'm at Fulham town hall to meet with Joe Foster who's managed to track down Charles's birth to this part of London so this is one of the Registries that's held here at Fulham and we'll see if you can find your great great grandfather oh my goodness all right oh will you look at this births 1853 okay June July August [Music] ah got him Charles childs born August 16 1853 name and Maiden surname of Mother Catherine Brown formerly kindly I had a census that says that she was born at sea right okay very interesting to me so now I know that Charles's mother sister Catherine Brown was born Catherine kindly so now I want to find out more about Mom what I would suggest is this birth is in 1853. what we should do is look in the 1841 census to see if we can find her as a girl okay first name is Catherine no wait they had her as a c-a-th yeah okay nothing I'm going to suggest that you try the name Kate as a variant of Catherine oh wow foreign [Music] Kate kindly born in Cornwall England wow they said she was born at sea have a look on the um view record the right person or not [Music] so up top is the name of the town puronsense oh as in the Pirates of sorry um no no that's that's what I want uh let's see that Kate age and sex 10 years old and can you see who she's living with okay so oh wow Jane Childs who is 69 perhaps a grandmother because it's Charles Childs Brown that started this whole um search here seems pretty clear that this is all part of the same history family history but Kate's the only kindly huh so it seems uh nobody on on this census is a parent of hers um it does seem unusual that she's not living with her parents it's obviously not what you would expect to see necessarily a 10 year olds will be living with uh someone the people who aren't her parents that's huh that's it makes it interesting yes for sure so to find out more about Kate and where she was actually born what would you suggest I do where should I go well I think the best place for you to go is pen dance in Cornwall and do some local research there and dig into some records that aren't held centrally great good luck in the next bit struggling with luggage today could you please safely Stow that using the overhead racks wherever possible we are going to oh my gosh all the way the very very very very very very tip it's incredibly exciting and somehow unnerving to actually be able to track down the records of family members these people actually existed makes it much more real it's hard not to feel emotional about it [Music] I cannot imagine leaving my own kids so why is little Kate kindly living without her parents at 10 years old and is there any truth to the story that she was born at sea Edie Falco was in Penzance England trying to find out why her three times great-grandmother Kate kindly was living here without her parents at just 10 years old she is meeting with archivist Chloe Phillips at the local library Chloe hi hi hi I'm Edie hi nice to meet you nice to meet you as well I'm trying to track down some information about uh Kate Kinley I know she was 10 years old in 1841 okay if she was baptized in Penzance we should have a record of that so I'll go and get that and we'll see if we're in luck great okay thank you let's take a seat thank you thank you [Music] okay we've got this one just get a cushion with some gloves if you want to pop them on ah if you want to have a look through see if you can find uh Catherine okay okay the best way to look is down the surnames I see yeah kindly oh there we go Catherine what does it say daughter daughter of Ralph and Dorothy kindly Wowie lives in Penzance Master Mariner yeah so he was quite a good job in the states there was a census I think it was that said that that she was born at Sea okay anyway finding any more about that certainly not from this record okay um but the fact that her father was a master Mariner interesting could have could have been with him right his you know his wife could have been pregnant and how much a master Mariner is the captain of an ocean-going commercial ship and Ralph kindly sailed during the British Imperial Century a time in which England was thriving and boasted the largest Merchant Fleet in the world British vessels brought manufactured goods to her colonies and other foreign ports and then sailed home with valuable raw materials and exotic Imports for master Mariners like Ralph kindly it was a lifestyle as well as a career and often meant spending most of their lives at sea I saw um on a census in London that uh Kate kindly was living with what appeared to be her grandmother was Jane Childs and she was 69 when Kate was 10. there's no reference made to her parents is there any way of finding out more about them um well we've got a newspaper archive here um so I can go and have a look because if anything had happened to them and that would record day-to-day events if you want to wait here around in the basement that'd be great thank you okay Ralph and Dorothy kindly all right kindly Ralph kindly was a master Mariner hey I found something that might answer part of your question this is a bound volume of newspapers so they're all original from the date they were published so this is our local newspaper that still runs really today West Britain and Cornwall Advertiser March 8 1833 that's unbelievable um if you turn over the next next page okay foreign died lately at devonport aged 28 years Mrs kindly wife of Captain Kinley of Penzance and daughter of the late Mr Childs she was the most amiable woman truly beloved by her friends and connections and respected by all who knew her well that explains why Mom wasn't living with them this is only two years after after the baptisms but then there's still Captain kindly Still Still The Mystery of yeah of Dad the whole Kate Kinley story just breaks my heart I mean the connection you make to your mom is huge and huge and to have that taken from you as a young kid I just don't know if you ever get over it but I would like to know what became of her father what connection they may have had after the death of her mother Dorothy or if there was any um yeah still still a lot of questions I have [Music] so I've contacted a historian Named Sam Willis he has asked me to meet him in Charleston so that's where I'm headed thank you so much for meeting me that's all right I couldn't think of a better place than here to tell you about the life of a master Mariner okay great ready to come aboard I can tell you about him oh you bet sure we're going to be going out there oh my gosh it's absolutely spectacular [Music] [Music] wow well welcome aboard the Earl of Pembroke she's a three-masted bark and typical of the vessel your four times great grandfather would have been captured that's right holy mackerel oh my gosh [Music] this is eerily familiar to me this sort of atmosphere I grew up on it in a town on Long Island which has a harbor and the sound of the gulls and the feeling of the the air is actually very familiar to me what you want to go for sale yes yes come on guys let's take her out [Music] thank you [Music] so captain Ralph had a daughter named Kate I saw on a 1900 census it said she was born at sea you know would such a thing be possible very much so rather depended on instead of the moral code of the captain about whether he would allow women on board as he was the captain he was the captain that suggests that he didn't have a problem with it and it means that if Dorothy was on board with him which obviously was giving birth to Kate it's likely there may have been other women on board as well you can think about it two ways one is that she was pregnant for sure and he decided to bring her on board so he could be with her during the birth that's one way thinking about it but I think that's unlikely if she was not used to it being on board a ship to then bring her on a very pregnant lady on board of you know a heaving ship so it's much more likely the fact that she gave birth for the ship I think is that she was used to being on board the ship I think she's actually chosen to spend her life at Sea with her husband wow interesting so do we have an idea of roughly when Catherine was born I know she was baptized in October of 1831. well what we can do is by looking at the records of where Captain kindly was we can get a sense of where he might have been at the time oh wow Lloyd's list 1831 okay Lord Cochran Cochran kindly New Orleans so Captain kindly is on a ship called the Lord Cochrane I see he is sailed from London and he has arrived in New Orleans uh it's called on that Voyage oh my God my head Wowzer so the census that I saw when Kate was 10 she was living with a 69 year old woman we are I'm assuming is her grandmother we know that her mother passed away when she was two captain Ralph was not on not living in that in that home in Penzance either where was he and I wonder how his his wife died in searching through these documents to try and find Ralph kindly's ships and the dates that he sailed on them I came across his name in the list which was held by the New York public administrator and this is what they sent through in the matter of the administration of Ralph s kindly Ralph s kindly Mariner dead oh no Edie Falco is in County Cornwall England sailing on a ship very similar to one her four times great-grandfather Ralph kindly once captained in the 19th century [Music] she's just read that Ralph died suddenly leaving his young daughter Kate kindly behind Ralph s kindly Mariner dead oh my goodness I feel like it just happened 18 40 October 1840 so she lost both of her parents before the age of 10. Ralph s kindly died on her about the 20th day of July on the voyage from the coast of Africa to this port of New York that said intestate was Master of and died on board the Schooner Africanus of fever he was a native of England has no relative or next of kin residing in this state oh that's so awful the coast of Africa was renowned for fever so Mariners knew it was a dangerous place to go right likely he was buried at Sea usually it was the captain who would have held the service but oh he was the captain so someone had to step up and probably take charge of a funeral service and then would have said a few words and slipped him into the sea unbelievable so being buried at Sea sort of not quite of any particular land or something or well it was his home as well you know he's actually very apt for someone who spent their entire in some way it is it is the ship [Music] there's so many dimensions of the picture have come together now it feels like reading a good book and then to discover that he was my great great great great great grandfather captaining a ship not unlike the one I'm standing on right now it's very intense part that really does get to me is a little Kate she only had one parent at that point waiting for him to come back and that he would die on route to a place so far from home it knocks the wind out of me um how sad that is that uh a man she probably missed most of her life was gone forever and she had nothing to remember him by his very it's very disheartening makes me very sad for the girl that was Kate I sort of wished I could have been there for her I have a lot to give and she had a lot that she needed I tend to believe that so much of family is about nurture George having seen the way his mother struggled I'm sure had some impact on the way he treated women and little Kate Kinley was an orphan and that may have impacted her ability to connect to people it really clarified for me what family really means which has very little to do with what country your great great great great grandfather lived in and more about what emotional clouds you were surrounded in as you grew up and that meant a great deal to me it made me feel so much more solid about having adopted kids and it really is more about the people who have loved you and cared for you

Channel: Who Do You Think You Are?

Views: 366,527

Keywords: who do you think you are, wdytya, who do you think you are uk, who do you think you are BBC

Id: mSZOz4YwaK4

Length: 40min 4sec (2404 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 14 2023