Tracing the Irish Side of the Family

The difficult thing about doing genealogy, if you are an American, is that you are likely to find yourself heading off in half a dozen different directions, to half a dozen countries where your ancestors once lived.  To trace my husband's family I must look to Croatia, Czechoslvakia, Switzerland and England.  To trace my family I must access records from Germany, Belgium, England, and Ireland.

I have done fairly well with English ancestors, who have been in America the longest - since colonial days.  And I have found a book with the genealogy already completed for the Swiss branch of my husband's family.  I have hired a Croatian researcher, have the name of a Czech genealogist, and am starting to look at the German branch of my family.  And while I have had information on my Irish relatives going back to my 2nd great grandparents, I've hit a dead end on anything in Ireland before that, which has been quite frustrating. 

In some respects, however, I've been lucky with the resources I already had. In my father's files were several aides to my quest.  There was a story of my great great grandparents, Ned and Mary Brennan, and their migration to America,  and a book with the title Irish Diary.  Both were written by Ned and Mary's grandson, a Catholic priest who has often visited Ireland.  There was also the local newspaper of the town in Ohio where my great great grandparents settled, giving me much information on their descendants.  And there were the notes and records my father kept, including a family tree.

Still, I knew nothing of my great great grandparents' families who had once lived in Ireland, or the remnants of the Brennan family who currently live in Ireland. Most of the census records were destroyed by the Irish government or burned in a fire in 1922.  However, I did have the name and address of a man who was a distant relation and who lived in County Laois (formerly Queen's County), the area where the Brennans, Faheys and Finns were from.  So I wrote to him and asked him to tell me about the family, specifically about his branch, which went back to the sister of my great great grandfather, Ned Brennan.

He wrote back, telling me about Mary Brennan, Ned's sister, who was his great grandmother.  He gave me names of Mary's children, and some of their spouses, though he had no names of their children and only a few dates.  He did, however, give me an idea of how many children each of Mary's children had produced. 

Obviusly, there were large gaps and nothing prior to Ned and Mary. 

Then, at the genealogy conference last weekend, I learned that the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses had survived the fire of 1922, and they were now available online.  So I got to work and, putting together the clues from all of my resources I was able to find Mary Brennan and her husband James Clooney in the 1901 census.  They were 80 and 92 respectively, though by the 1911 census they were gone.  I had the names of their children and based on location and the number of children each had, I was able to find 1901 and 1911 census records on each of them. 

There was only one thing about which I was skeptical.  Was James Clooney really 12 years older than Mary, and did they really live to such an advanced age in the early 1900s?  So I went searching and found something that answered the question.

I had read in Irish Diary that James Clooney and his wife, Mary Brennan Clooney, were buried in the Aghaboe cemetery, so I googled "Aghaboe cemetery, Ireland" and found a blog discussing an ongoing project to index all the graves, many of which have unreadable headstones. The group doing the indexing had posted pictures of all the headstones, with the names of the ones that were readable.  I clicked on the one for James Clooney, hoping it was Mary's husband.  It wasn't.  It was the headstone for their grandson James and on it were listed the names and death dates not only for James, but for his father and mother, his two brothers, and his grandparents, James and Mary Clooney.  Indeed, James was 12 years older than Mary, and they did live to the ripe old ages of 92 and 84.

At the conference, I also learned that I may be able to access Irish church records from the 1700s and 1800s through the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, or one of its local branches, and I will be looking there next.

Genealogy weekend

I just returned from a four day genealogy conference.  I learned a lot and talked to so many people, all trying to locate their ancestors, mostly from other countries.  I met a woman who can't find many of her Polish relatives, as they perished in the Holocaust.  I met a woman who cannot find any ancestors on her father's side as he is adopted and cannot access the records. I met people who are using DNA to locate ancestors.  It made me realize just how fortunate I am to have the records I inherited from my father, as well as numerous informally written family histories to draw from.

I came away with many new tools to either help me find missing family members, or enhance my understanding of the lives of those I have found.  One of the tools is Google Earth.  I have actually been playing with it this morning and have found some of the towns in Ireland where my Brennan family lived and some of their descendants still reside.  I've found my grandparents' homes, my husband's childhood homes, and some of my previous residences. 

I learned a lot more about how to find my German ancestors, and also found a contact for a person who can help me find my husband's Czechoslovakian great grandfather, who has been elusive until now. 

The genealogy community, I learned this weekend, is a large and growing group of people who are all obsessed with finding their family's history.  Thanks to ancestry.com, the Mormon church, and the television show "Who do you think you are,"  more and more people  are adopting their extremely addictive hobby.  The new genealogy craze also provides enormous opportunites for money-making, and it would have been easy for me to spend a fortune on the four day trip.  Fortunately, there are many free sites one can access and not squander one's children's inheritance, and at the conference, there was no shortage of friendly people freely offering their time and advice. 

A genealogy quest

I'm off for a four day genealogy conference in Burbank hosted by the Southern California Genealogy Society.  I've signed up for workshops on elusive immigrants in Europe, finding Irish ancestors, technology tools to assist in research, genealogy  blogging, tracking German ancestors, library research, on-line research, overcoming brick walls, and more.  The conference includes a trip to the LDS research library in Los Angeles.

I'm hoping this four day experience with professional genealogists will help me move past some of the conflicting data, and find missing data on a number of lines in my tree and my husband's.

In the meantime, my researcher is still working on the Eterovich records in Croatia.

I should have much more to report soon.

Beyond astonishment

In an earlier post I said there was more to come about the connection between my husband's ancestors and my ancestors who came to this land nearly four hundred years ago.

I've already written about Tony's direct descent from at least three Mayflower passengers, and my connection to William Ring, who would have accompanied the Mayflower but for the leaky boat on which he was traveling. In searching further, I found another group of my ancestors from the early colonial period, by the name of Doane.  John Doane, who became a Deacon in the church, is my tenth great grandfather. He came over to Plymouth around 1630 with his wife Ann and one child.  Later, they had more children.  One was named Daniel, and he is my ninth great grandfather. 

Daniel married twice, according to records of the time.  The name of his first wife is unknown, though she is considered the mother of all of his children.  Genealogists have long speculated about the name of his first wife.  Many believe her name is Constance Snow, the daughter of Constance Hopkins and Nicholas Snow.  There are strong reasons to believe this as one child's name was Constance, possibly after her mother and grandmother, and because of a book written several years later on the families living in that area at the time.  In that book, Constance Snow is identified as the wife of Daniel Doane. 

Now this is significant to me for one reason only.  Constance Snow was the granddaughter of Stephen Hopkins, a Mayflower passenger.  If this information is accurate, then Stephen Hopkins would be my 11th great grandfather.  As he is also my husband Tony's direct ancestor (his 9th great grandfather), that would mean we share a common ancestor and we can both call Stephen Hopkins "Grandpa."

I told you it was spooky!

What's so great about genealogy?

I haven't always been caught up in genealogy.  For all the years my father was interested, I was indifferent.  I think that's true of many younger folks, who are so busy taking care of the next generation, that they can't afford the time or energy to invest anything in the previous generations, whose members are mostly gone. 

I had been retired for several years before I caught the genealogy bug.  Sadly, it wasn't until after my father died, meaning I never was able to share his passion while he was still here.  So I've been asking myself why  I've finally become interested., and I think I have the answer.

Genealogy combines many of my interests in one cohesive set of activities.  First, it appeals to my love of history, my undergraduate major.   Now there is history and there is history.  Unfortunately, history, as taught by many high school and college instructors, can be deadly dull, which is why in college I concentrated on the most exotic subjects offered at my university:  Russian history, Middle Eastern history, and Medieval history.  American history seemed too tame at that time. 

The same is true of genealogy.  It can be dull or it can be exciting.  At one time, all genealogy meant to me was list of names and dates, but now it is a way to personalize history, to place my ancestors in a given time, and learn what life was like for them, surrounded by the historical events that once were simply facts to be memorized for a midterm exam.  For instance, the Mayflower never meant much to me.  Big deal - a bunch of religious protestors got on a boat and came to this land four hundred years ago, and half of them died in the first year.  But when I learned that at least three and possibly seven of those passengers were ancestors of my husband, it made me want to know more about the Mayflower and the early American settlements.  American history suddenly came alive.

I've looked at other historical events and tried to find ancestors associated with it.  I've found ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and WW II.  I've found people who died around the time of the influenza epidemic and wondered if that was the cause of their deaths. I've found ancestors who came to America shortly after the Potato Famine in Ireland, and wondered if that influenced their decision. I've even found a possible ancestor who was living at the time of the Norman Conquest of England.

The second interest that was satisfied by a study of genealogy was my love of psychology.  Reading old newspaper articles about ancestors gives me a glimpse into their lives and the problems they endured as well as the supportive structures they relied upon.  I've learned how many ancestors died because of problems that could easily be resolved with modern medicine.  The Rh factor caused the death of a great aunt in childbirth, for instance.  I have inherited the same Rh problem, and were it not for a simple injection I was given after the birth of my children, the same could have been my fate.

I've learned from obituaries that almost all of my Catholic ancestors in Ohio were members of "The Holy Name Society" at their local parishes. Since the Holy Name Society was never a big thing in my California Parishes, I had to Google it.  My ancestors, it seems, were quite religious.  Several even became priests and nuns.

Further back, I noted that almost all my ancestors had enormously large families.  It wasn't unusual for someone to have 10, 12, or 14 children.  Usually the births were every two years, and in most families one or two of those children didn't make it past infancy.  So many times, I've wondered what life was like for these ancestors, who never had the option of planning their families with modern birth control methods.

I've also noted, particularly with the men and women in the early American colonies, that people did not remain unmarried for long, even after they were widowed, which many were. If a woman with many children lost her husband, she was most likely married to another man within a year.  The same for men whose wives died.  I don't imagine most of these were love matches, but marriages of necessity or convenience.   Women had no way to support themselves and men had no way to work and care for their motherless children.  I can't begin to imagine what that was like.  I think of all the couples with marital problems I have counseled over the years, how many have told me they no longer felt any love for their spouse, and I think of these ancestors from 400 years ago, married to someone in order to survive.  For them, love never even entered into it.

And finally, genealogy satisfies my interest in mystery.  For years I have read detective stories, and loved trying to figure out "who done it" along with Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Kinsey Millhone, Kay Scarpetta, or Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee.  With genealogy, I am presented with mysteries every day.  Why did this particular ancestor disappear after a certain date?  Where was another ancestor born?  Which of the two men with the exact same name, born in the same town, at almost the same time, was my ancestor? Why did some ancestors come to America?  Why did others stay in their native countries?

So a study of genealogy is more than just gathering a list of dead relatives and writing their names on a family tree.  Genealogy teaches me about history, helps me understand what motivated people in previous generations, and helps me solve mysteries.

No wonder it keeps me interested.

Census records

In 2010, as the census forms were sent out, a few congressional representatives made a fuss about the census being an invasion of privacy, and a few political radio entertainers urged citizens not to participate in this exercise, which was first established in our Constitution. Yet, in addition to the importance of the census to appropriate representation in Congress and so  many other important functions of government,  the census is invaluable to another group of people: genealogists. 

First, let me reassure everyone that genealogists are unable to access census records after 1930, so the privacy of most living citizens is protected in that respect.  In a year, we will be able to finally access the records from the 1940 census, but it will be another ten years before the 1950 census report is available. 

I would never have been able to put together a family tree without census records.  They are the second on-line source of information for me after other family trees posted on ancestry.com.  I usually look up records in this order:

1. Ancestry.com family trees with the name of my ancestor.  Frequently these have misinformation which is why the next six sources are necessary.
2. Census records
3. Military records
4. Birth and Death records and obituaries
5. Newspaper stories from my hometown and the hometown of many of my relatives
6. Biographical sketches regarding early American ancestors
7. Genealogical data on specific families located other places on the internet

The census is one of my most valued sources of information.  Not only can I find (or confirm) names of ancestors, their spouses and children, I can find or estimate their birthdates as well.  Some census records give me the occupations of my ancestors.  Most give me the birthplaces of the ancestor and the birthplaces of their parents.  So if there are several census reports on women named "Margaret Brennan," for instance, I can find out if the report I am looking at is the one for my ancestor by checking the city of residence, the birthdate, the spouse and children's names, and then the birthplace of her parents.  As long as I have a pretty good idea of what these are, I can be fairly sure I have the right person.  Then, if there is a piece of information I am missing, like the name of a child, or her occupation, or her spouse's full name, I may be able to find it.

Census records, however, can contain confusing or incorrect information and the researcher must keep this in mind.  Early census reports were filled out by hand, and some are difficult to read. Often names are misspelled so you have to examine the report carefully.  But after reading hundreds of these reports you can get the hang of it and know how to look past mistakes and find the information you need. 

One thing that makes searching census records even more tedious is the number of names that are the same.  I have often laughed at the number of people who have the same name in the Irish side of my family as well as the Croatian side of my husband's family.  These families stuck to the same names and used them over and over again.  Among my Irish ancestors, the most common names are Edward, Robert, John, Michael, Mary, Sally, Bridget, Rose and Nora.  In my husband's family, the most frequently used names are Anton or Anthony, Mate or Mike, Nicholas, Thomas, Magdalena, Maria, Anna, and Antoinette. Often there will be half a dozen people in the family with the same first and last name, so finding the correct census can be a tedious process.  When the ancestors got a little creative and gave an unusual name to a child - like Cletus, my grandfather's name -  it makes the search much easier. (If the name is too unusual, however, the census worker is likely to misspell it.)

So census records are valuable sources of information for much more than just dates.  They bring people into sharper focus and round out the picture of thousands of people I have never met. 

I can't wait for the release of the 1940 census.  

More astonishment

After finding the Mayflower connection in my husband's family, it made me want to push further back in my tree, although I didn't expect to find any ancestors who had traveled on the Mayflower. Like my husband's family, mine was mostly Catholic, and I knew that at least three branches, including my father's Irish ancestors and my mother's German and Belgian ancestors, had all come to this country in the mid 1800s.  Only my paternal grandmother's family, which I knew little about, offered a possible route back to the time of the early American colonies.

The search for these ancestors was quite time consuming.  After all, with each generation, the number of ancestors doubles.  And I had to trace the family back 13 generations to my 11^th great grandparents.  (Just to clarify how many 11^th great grandparents one has – it's over 8000.)  Of course, many of the lines came to a dead end in the 1700 or 1800s, but a couple of lines kept going. 

Eventually I found an ancestor by the name of "William Ring" (1580-1621), my 11^th great grandfather.  He was a passenger on the Speedwell, a ship that accompanied the Mayflower as it departed on its journey across the Atlantic.  Unfortunately, the Speedwell was not seaworthy and had to turn back and William Ring died in Holland the following year. His wife Mary Durrant (1590-1631) eventually came to America with their children, in the year 1629.

One of the children was Andrew Ring (1618-1693) and he married a woman named Deborah Hopkins, another daughter of Stephen Hopkins. Stephen, as you may recall from my previous post, was an ancestor of my husband, and  a passenger on the Mayflower.

Therefore, it turns out that a relative of mine, who but for a leaky boat could have come over with the Mayflower, married a relative of my husband's who did come to America on the Mayflower, nearly 400 years ago.  To be specific, my 10^th great grand uncle married my husband's 8^th great grand aunt. 

Think about that.  Two English families who wanted to escape religious persecution in England made plans to travel on two ships to America.  One family managed to make it across on the most famous sailing ship in our nation's history.  The other had to come later.  These families then became connected through marriage.

Centuries passed and the families continued, branching into many different directions.  Within each family was a small branch that ended up 3000 miles away in the state of California.  And somehow, a young man from one family and a young woman from the other, having no idea their families had ever known each other, met, fell in love, and married.   

Spooky!

But there's more…..