Possibilities

I’ve adapted Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.
Each week I follow my children’s ahnentafel numbering to select the featured ancestor, ensuring no one through the mid–sixth generation is left behind.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2026 Week 24: Possibilities

Introduction

My Week 24 ancestor is Michael Joseph Anderson.

My Irish-born, US-emigrated ancestors seem to have a common thread: the possibilities in front of them. There were no streets of gold for them, but each generation had a better time of it than the last.

Discussion

Michael Joseph Anderson was born in 1874 in Staten Island, New York, as the second child to Irish immigrants Michael Anderson and Theresa Kilkenny. The children came every two years or so, as was common in families of the time, and Mom was pregnant with her seventh when Dad, a laborer, died at 31 of “Congestion of the Brain.”  

The younger Michael’s mom worked hard to keep the family together, and she apparently succeeded. In the 1900 census she was a laundress, living with her younger children and with or next to a married daughter. When she died, the funeral home records note that her son paid her funeral expenses. Clearly the family remained tight-knit, and Theresa was successful in endowing her children with the gift of possibilities.

Michael married and had three children, working on the docks. His wife Anna Driskol died of kidney disease when the youngest child was 10, and with family help, Michael was able to keep the family together, until his own death two years later, just as his mother had done. He saw the possibility of stable family life despite challenges, and grabbed it.  

Two of the three children, and probably all three, lived what might be considered a lower middle class life. It may not sound dramatic on paper. But after early deaths, dock work, laundry work, and immigrant uncertainty, even a modestly stable life represented something real: a widening of the road for the next generation. So it took a few generations, but the possibilities envisioned by our first generation ancestors were realized.

Challenge

It is harder these days to “work your way up in the world.” What can we do to help others along their journey? My chosen assistance is in education.  But for you, the – excuse me – possibilities – are endless.

Michael Joseph Anderson and his three children: Frances, Edward, and Theresa, 1917.

AI Disclosure

This post was created by me with the help of AI tools. While AI helps organize research, the storytelling and discoveries are my own.

Next Week’s Topic: The Ancestor Who Stays With Me