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Help Deciphering a USMC Name


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Can anyone make out this name? It's not Declaim, Decleim, Declain, or Declein...seems it would be odd enough to have a hit on the Rolls but nothing yet

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I could find no similar first names on the rolls, no Declan, and O'Brien wasn't exactly an uncommon name...even in the late 1800s...36,992 hits for "O'Brien" on the USMC rolls. Between 1875 and 1900, the only D O'Briens on the rolls are a David and a Daniel...unless he enlisted under another name

 

Looks like a distinct dot of an 'i' in the first name, which is throwing me off

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I could find no similar first names on the rolls, no Declan, and O'Brien wasn't exactly an uncommon name...even in the late 1800s...36,992 hits for "O'Brien" on the USMC rolls. Between 1875 and 1900, the only D O'Briens on the rolls are a David and a Daniel...unless he enlisted under another name

 

Looks like a distinct dot of an 'i' in the first name, which is throwing me off

 

O'Brien is unquestionably of Irish decent and interestingly enough so is Declan....Is Declain a variation of the same name?....It's possible he is listed under a different first name....How complete are the rosters you are searching?....We can only speculate....Bodes

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No Declein. Declain stood out to me, as well. It was not uncommon in the era for people to enlist under different names

 

The rosters are known to have gaps, I imagine more so the further back one goes. I have seen 1800s career Marines with only a half dozen entries. Unfortunately this guy might remain a mystery

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I'm not a researcher so............ :)

 

United States Census, 1880

 

First Name, Last Name Birth Year Age Census Year State County City/Township

Declan O'Brien 1856 24 1880 New York Queens Long Island

 

United States Naval Enlistment Rendezvous, 1855-1891

Declan O'Brien Military Service, 1865, age 22

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Interesting...the first one is possible, since the photo's earliest date would have to be 1875 because of the uniform. The portrait was taken in a New York Studio. Possible he enlisted under a different name, or his rolls are missing

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I did a wild card search of ancestry.com: you type in the first few letters of a name and then follow that with *** - it will show every name that starts with those letters. The closest thing I found was a Civi War sailor.

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Three * required? I didn't know that, tried with 1 and didn't get a hit

 

I use three *'s and i think you need at least 3 letters in front of those. Here's a sample using just the last name entry (and I check "Exact").

 

Screen Shot 2016-06-12 at 12.23.20 PM.png

 

Screen Shot 2016-06-12 at 12.25.39 PM.png

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How about this one? Appears to be Orvin L Burke, however nothing on the rolls. Also not Rurke, Buike, Ruike

003.jpg

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