The Collins Y DNA Project

We actually do have documentation for Harry's life between June 5, 1917 (WWI draft registration) and the day he disappeared (10/12/1929), including censuses, but we know nothing before or after.

Documentation of his birth is via his 1920 marriage certificate; it was a church wedding and the church confirmed recently that the only way the marriage would have ensued is if they checked his birth/baptismal certificate. We, however, have yet to locate that birth/baptismal certificate. The only Brooklyn addresses we have for Harry come to us by way of the war documents, and my latest theory is that those addresses were non-relatives (meaning he had no remaining family there by that time).

Harry disembarked from WWI in Long Island, then very shortly afterward went to Boston to pick up a medal. He met up with a friend there who helped him get work and the two boarded together in a rooming house (we knew this anecdotally, and the 1920 census, record attached, confirms it).

He learned on the job to operate a steam shovel, and the two worked various projects together. He was working in RI when he met my grandmother after hours; she worked in a lace factory. She and Harry were married later that same year (1920). My grandfather bought a steamshovel, and they worked their way, job by job, to the Bronx, where my grandfather went into business with another friend. That's where they lived and worked when he vanished.

My grandmother went to the police and insisted on filing a missing persons report. I have a FOIA request pending to try to retrieve it, but I am not optimistic that it still exists, and it may never have been officially filed. The man above who boarded with my grandfather in Boston (Cox) was still friends with the family at the time my grandfather disappeared, and he went with my grandmother to the precinct. In the VA file, he describes what happened in his deposition. When my grandmother went alone, the cops on duty joked that he was on a bender or with another woman. When she went with Cox, they openly asked for financial incentives. For many years, she went and insisted she be showed John Doe photos. This blows my mind. She had four kids at home and it was the Depression.

Harry Collins
b. BDU m. Susan Bruce MDU, l. New York
- Harry Bruce Collins
  b. 16 Sep 1886 Brooklyn, NY, USA d. possibly Bronx m. Rose Marie Albina Guibeau b. 21 Dec 1895 Canada l. Rhode Island d. 20 Jan 1988 Uxbridge, MA. Daughters Rose Louise Collins Kilham (1921-2006); Evelyn Collins McNamara.
  - Harry William Collins
    b. 26 Mar 1925 Bronx, NY d. 24 Jan 1998 Hammond, Tangipahoa, LA, USA m. Renata Bergman had children
  - Tester

Collins at FTDNA	DNA Portal	Pedigrees
See ABOUT for website information.
Copyright © 2015 - 2025 collins.dnagen.org. All rights reserved.