Harry Mayer

Life

References for this account: [1][2]

Where they lived

Use the place list first. The map below is optional.

The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 2 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.

Historical context

These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.

What we still don't know

• Dates, places, occupations and relationships imported from the 1 August 2026 Geni export require verification against original records.
• His burial, and the cause of his death. Both would be on a New York City death certificate of October 1889.
• [CANDIDATE REJECTED] The only Harry Meyer born at Manhattan in 1889 — certificate 1603, born 3 January at 1927 Second Avenue — is not this child. His father was Hermann Meyer, a German-born saloon keeper, and his mother Annie née Kropf. The Manhattan birth index for 1889 is complete and online (39,479 records) and contains no Harry Mayer at all, which is consistent with the family tree's statement that this Harry was born in New Jersey. His birth remains unrecorded, and it matters more than his own short life does: he was born in the month his mother died, and if that is right she died within weeks of bearing him.
• [CONTROLLED — HIS BIRTH IS NOT IN ANY FREE INDEX] Searched on 13 August 2026 and the result is a clean nothing, which is worth more than it sounds because the corpus was measured first. New York City. The Municipal Archives index covers all five boroughs. There are five Harry Mayers in the whole of it — born 1881, 1898, 1902, 1906 and 1907 — and none in 1888 or 1889. Under the Meyer spelling there are twenty-seven, and the two that fall in the window were both opened and both rejected on their own faces: Manhattan 1889 no. 1603 is the son of Hermann Meyer, a German saloon keeper, and Annie née Kropf; Brooklyn 1889 no. 9346 is Harry L. Meyer, son of Jacob Meyer, a conductor, and Sophia — and he was born on 13 November 1889, nine months after Leah Adelaine Stillwell was dead. New Jersey, where the family tree places the birth, cannot be searched at all: the free state birth index prised out by Reclaim The Records runs 1901 to 1903 only. So his birth rests entirely on an unsourced family tree, and the January 1889 date with it. That date is the whole of the reason to think his mother died in childbirth — see her page. It is not evidence, and the search that would make it evidence does not exist for free.
• [NEGATIVE, CONTROLLED — AND NOW ACROSS ALL FIVE BOROUGHS] The previous session searched the Manhattan birth index for 1889 and found no Harry Mayer among 39 Mayer births. On 21 August 2026 the same question was put to the New York City birth index for all five boroughs, 1888–1890. There is no Harry Mayer born anywhere in New York City in those three years. What exists is one Henry Mayer (Manhattan, 5 June 1888), six Harry Meyers, fourteen Henry Meyers, and one Harry A. Mayers (Kings, 2 February 1889) — which is three days after Leah Adelaine Stillwell died and so cannot be her son. The childbirth reading of her death is neither advanced nor disproved. Control: a given-name wildcard returns zero from this index even where it holds matches, so every run here used exact given names. Finding 150.
• [NEGATIVE, CONTROLLED — HE IS ABSENT FROM NEW YORK AT BOTH ENDS] Finding 150 established that no Harry Mayer was born anywhere in New York City in 1888-1890. The death this page carries — 16 October 1889 — had never been tested, and on 21 August 2026 it was. The city's death index for 1889-1890, all five boroughs, under Mayer, Meyer, Myer and Mayers, holds two Harrys and neither can be him: one died at five hours old on 13 September 1889 (Manhattan, 29651), the other was two at death in June 1890 (Kings, 8631). Controls: 36 Mayer and 94 Meyer deaths in 1889 alone. So both ends of his short life are missing from New York. The tree places his birth in New Jersey, which is now the only reading the records leave room for — and it is unreachable: New Jersey's free birth index runs 1901-1903 and its death index begins in 1901. Neither end of an 1889 New Jersey life can be searched for free. Finding 159.

References

1. [1] New York City Birth Index, all five boroughs 1888–1890 — controlled search for Harry Mayer, 21 August 2026Back to citation 1
2. [2] NYC death index 1889-1890 — controlled search for Harry Mayer, 21 August 2026Back to citation 2

See also

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