Small Treasures Found in a Big Package

It was a lovely day for a visit to the Main Branch of the Enoch Pratt today. I visited the Maryland Room, which was quite crowded. My goals were to find when the Irish Matriarch arrived from Ireland, using the clues I have gathered, and see if I could figure out when she moved to Homestead with her family. I spent two hours or so glued to the microfilm viewer, beginning with the Soundex film that contains passenger lists for those arriving in Baltimore. My particular film covered 1820-1897, with everyone whose Soundex number was 500. This is the number given to those with last names beginning with a K, and having an N somewhere in the middle. There were some Kenneys, but none that matched up by first name or arrival date to those who I know something about.

There is a small room there that contains lots of rolls of microfilm, and among them are City Directories, beginning in the 1820's. The Burgan family I am researching lived in the surrounding farmlands at least through 1877, but I would like to know when they moved further in. The earliest listing I found was in 1884, where Agnes' husband is listed as living at 19 Getz Avenue. A little research showed this as a small street near the intersection of East Eager and St. Paul Streets. He was a "hostler", or stable man. 1885's listing includes John J. Burgan as a grocer, living in Homestead; no street address was given. I assumed that there was no street address because the neighborhood was actually in Baltimore County at the time, and this was their way of noting that. However, the 1887 listing states that they were living on Madison Street, in Homestead. John J. Jr. was 15 years old by then, and is listed as a canmaker.

There were four Burgan families in the small neighborhood, so I suspect that this was a popular destination for the Burgans to move to once their farm land was sold to developers.