the Patrick McCarry family in the census records

I am participating in Dear Myrtle's Tracing Immigrant Origins Study Group. This week we will be looking at census records or city directories that indicate a place of origin. This is my post for this subject.

I am looking at my 2nd great grandparents, Patrick McCarry and his wife, Margaret O'Connell. We see them in the New York State Census for 1875.

1875 New York State census, Montgomery, Orange County, population schedule, p. 15, dwelling 108, family 130, Patrick McCarry; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Oct 2015)

Patrick was born in Ireland, he is a Cutler. His wife Margaret was also born in Ireland. Their oldest son, Hugh was born in Pennsylvania. Mary and James were born in Connecticut.

In the 1930 U.S. census the information changes. This is the census record for their son Patrick who was born after the 1875 census.

I knew that beginning with the 1930 census the place of birth could not be just Ireland given that the country was now divided. So I looked up the instructions for the 1930 Enumerators and it reads as follows:169. Do not return a person as born in Great Britain but indicate the particular country, as England, Scotland, Wales, etc. Di.stinction must be made between Northern Ireland and Irish Free State. It is not sufficient to report that a person was born in Ireland.

 

1930 U. S. census, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Philadelphia, p. 8B, dwelling 90, family 108, Patrick McCary; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Oct 2015) ; citing NARA microfilm roll 2103.

This says that Patrick was born in Pennsylvania, ( he was actually born in Connecticut), and his parents were born in Northern Ireland. Living with Patrick and his wife Frances are her three sisters. Frances and her sisters were all born in Northern Ireland. So without giving a specific location in Ireland, it does narrow it down a little. 

Checking the Townlands

After my post on Saturday about searching Irish Catholic Parish Records, I had a comment from Bob Cumberbatch giving me a link to townlands.ie. This took me to the page for Aghamore Downland, Co. Mayo. The first thing I looked for was the link to Mountaincommon. I opened the link for the 1901 Irish Census looking for Niland or Nyland. On page 3 I found Catherine Nyland. Opening this I find she is the wife of Pat Nyland. looking at the family I find Austin Nyland, son, Roman Catholic, can read and write, age 9. I know this is the Austin Nyland that I first found Naturalization papers for leading me to this area for the family. I was not sure if he was a brother for the other Nylands but this tells me that his mother is Catherine not Sarah and this family is younger than the family of Pat and Sarah, so cousins!

1901 census of Ireland, Aghamore, Mayo, Mountaincommon, Form A, Pat Nyland, The National Archives of Ireland (http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie: accessed 19 Oct 25015.

So next I wanted to search the Griffith's Valuation(1847-1864) for Mountaincommon. This gave no results. I went back to the Aghamore page. Going down the list I had to find the Townland of Mountaincommon, found it and clicked on the "Occupants" button. Going down I am looking for Nyland or Niland and I see Thomas Niland. Thomas was the father of Pat Niland married to Sarah.
So I opened up the details page:

"Griffith's Valuation Record Information in Ireland." Union of Swineherd, County of Mayo, (printing date 1856), 22A, for Thomas Niland, Tenant, Barony of Costello, Parish of Aghamore, Downland of Mountaincommon; "Griffith's Valuation," digital images, "Ask about Ireland" (askaboutireland.ie) accessed 19 Oct 2015

looking at the list I see John Walsh above and below Thomas Niland. This shows Thomas Niland has a house and land on 22a, but John Walsh has land on 21 and a house on 22b.

"Griffith's Valuation Record Information in Ireland. Union of Swineherd, County of Mayo, (printing date 1856), 21 & 22b, for John Walsh, Tenant, Barony of Costello, Parish of Aghamore, Downland of Mountaincommon: "Griffith's Valuation," digital images, "Ask about Ireland" (askaboutireland.ie) accessed 19 Oct 2015

What does this mean? My 2nd great grandfather was John Welsh/Walsh, and his father was also John Walsh and his mother was Catherine Niland. They were neighbors! While looking for the Niland family, I found the Walsh family in the same place! Don't you love it when a plan comes together!

Keep looking, you never know what you will find!

Irish Catholic Parish Records

Today I thought I would look at the Catholic Parish records on the National Library of Ireland site. I know it has taken me awhile to do this. I don't know where any of my people come from let alone what parish they were in. But then today I remembered with the research I had done on the free weekend of Find My Past, I had found that the Nilands had been married in the Parish of Aghamore. So into the records I went. First I tried to find the marriage record for Pat Niland and Sarah Caulfield. They were married 19 January 1864 and found that the records started in December of 1864. So I was not able to find that. The Baptism records were good for the years the children were born. So I gathered up the birth records for them on Family Search and got into it.

Catholic Parish Records at the NLI, Aghamore Parish/Microfilm 04217/03, page 6; Nov. 1864-Jan. 1865, entry for Dec. 4, Thos. Nyland

I found records for all 6 children. The records went back and forth with the spelling some were Niland, others Nyland, and Sara would be Sally a couple of times. First I found Thomas, on the Family Search record his birth date was 4 Dec 1964 and place was Kilkelly, Mayo, Ireland. The Church record has the same date but it is not identified as the birth or baptism date. The Church record has a column heading of Village, this entry said Mountain.

Catholic Parish Records at the NLI, Aghamore Parish/Microfilm 04217/03, page 82, May 1876 -Aug. 1876, entry for Mary Nyland

All of the children are the same with Family Search saying Kilkelly except for the youngest, Mary. Family Search has Mountain, Mayo, Ireland. I have not been able to find anything about this village of Mountain but I had seen the reference to it before.

"Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1800-1962", [online database], (Ancestry.com, accessed 17 Oct 2015), entry for Austin Niland, age 18, arrived Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 17 April 1910 on S.S. Merion.

I saw this on the ship manifest for Austin Niland's arrival. In the column for name and address of relative in country you came from, he listed his father in Mountain, Aghamore.

I am finding that my Niland or Nyland family seem to be in this area of Aghamore. So I have to keep looking and maybe I will get them connected with my 3rd great grandmother, Catherine Nyland Welsh. I so wish I could get back to Ireland with this information I have now that I didn't know 11 years ago when I was there! Maybe some day?

Findings in Ancestry's Wills and Probate files

I was not having much luck with Ancestry's new collection of Wills and Probate files, so today I started looking at my Fitzpatrick's and go lucky! First I found Thomas J. Fitzpatrick. He was the older brother of my great grandmother, Cecilia Fitzpatrick O'Donnell. Thomas had a photo studio if Bessemer, Alabama. I thought I might find something for him and what I found was he didn't leave a will. So I found that it was filed 3 March 1927 with his wife Mary C. Fitzpatrick as Administratrix. The actual settlement did not happen until 24 September of 1928.
The citation for this is: ancestry,com "Alabama, Wills and Probate Records, 1753-1999", File no. 1028, Thomas J. Fitzpatrick, 3 March 1927, accessed 3 Sep 2015 [online digital image]. Citing: The State of Alabama, Jefferson County, Probate Court, Bessemer Division.

The second one I found was for Rev. William H. Fitzpatrick. He was the uncle of Cecilia Fitzpatrick O'Donnell. He was a Catholic Priest in Boston, Massachusetts. I knew he had a will from the letters I had received scans of from my Fitzpatrick cousin. The letters were written by James Fitzpatrick, the son of Thomas J. Fitzpatrick. James had mentioned the will in one letter talking about Father Fitz's nieces that he left money to in the will. It sounded like James had gotten a copy of the will to have seen that, but that was really all he mention about it. But one other item that was mentioned in the will answered another question. We did not know from the letters where Stephen Fitzpatrick, 3x great grandfather, died and was buried. We knew that Stephen's wife died and was buried in Boston, not sure about Stephen. William had bought a plot with 4 graves, in St. Mary's Cemetery in Dorchester, Massachusetts. I had called the cemetery a couple of months ago. They could tell me that William's mother was buried in the cemetery but could not tell me where. She could tell me that William was in the plot that he bought and another person, George McNeil, is buried there. Do not know who he was. the office told me she was unable to tell me who was in the other 2 graves because the old records were not kept very well. She said the William's mother could be there but she is not sure about the other one. But the will does state that William was to be buried "in my own lot in the old Dorchester Catholic Cemetery, Bernard Street, between the graves of my father and mother." So hopefully that was the case. William made this will 26 June 1913, he died 12 December 1913 and the will was allowed 1 January 1914.  The citation for this is:Ancestry.com "Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991" William H. Fitzpatrick, will filed 18 Dec 1913, [online digital image], accessed 3 Sep 2015. Citing: Probate Record Books (1900-1916), and Probate Docket Books (1901-1916), Suffolk County, Massachusetts; Probate Court (Suffolk County), Probate Place: Suffolk, Massachusetts.

So all in all is was a good genealogy day!

Sunday's Obituary- Stephen R. Davis

Stephen R. Davis, Obituary, Martins Ferry Obituary File; Martins Ferry Public Library, Card file of obituary clippings, death; 7 Jun 2000, accessed; 27 Aug 2015

Stephen is my 2nd cousin once removed. His grandfather, Stephen Henry Fitzpatrick, was the older brother of my Great grandmother, Cecilia Fitzpatrick O'Donnell.

Stephen Fitzpatrick had been born in Nova Scotia Canada and he did not remain in Hazleton, Pennsylvania which is where some of the Fitzpatrick family settled when coming to the United States in 1870. Stephen married Isabell "Nappy" Dougherty at St. Gabriel Church in Hazleton, 2 Jan 1882. After about a year they went to Ohio and then eventually went to West Virginia. It does seem that the family kept some attachment to Ohio, as I have found that a few of them ended up back there as was the case of Stephen R. Davis. Stephen's mother was Stephen and Nappy's first child born 14 Mar 1883. She was born in Hazleton before they left for Ohio. And it was in Ohio that Margaret married Thomas Davis 19 Sep 1903. Stephen was their youngest child.

Happy Birthday George C. McClellan VanBilliard

My Great-grandfather, George C. McClellan VanBilliard, was born on 16 Jul 1864. Son of Jerome VanBilliard and Ellen Shick, he was born in Freemansburg, Northampton, Pennsylvania. He was the middle child of 7 children. It was only in the 1870 census that the middle name of McClellan is found. 

On 19 Sep 1885 George married Susan Haas in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  They had 9 children and the next to youngest, Elizabeth, was my paternal grandmother. My father, George Charles O'Donnell Sr, was named for his maternal grandfather.

In the 1930 census George was living in New Hope,Bucks,Pennsylvania. He was work as a foreman for the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company, at the time the biggest competitor of Western Union, who later took them over. I have this letter that he sent to my father. I never saw this letter until after my father died so I don't know if he ever saw his grandfather in June of 1930. George VanBilliard died a few months later on 10 Nov 1930 in Brookfield, Madison, New York.

Obituary find

Last week I found an online index for a Pennsylvania newspaper that I didn't know about. It is the Allentown Morning Call and the index is at the Allentown Public Library. I was really excited about this. I knew that my great grandmother, Cecilia Fitzpatrick O'Donnell was living in Allentown when she died so I gave it a look. I found one for her in the index and for 5 other people. So I ordered them and asked for them to be emailed. And there they were this morning. I was so excited with this. With information that I didn't have and was able to verify that I had the right info on other things. It said that "she was the mother of 10 with 4 preceded her in death". That verified that I had not missed any, I had figured using the census records that she had two children before 1900 that had been born and died. then I know about the other 2 that had died. A little girl that was under a year old I had found when the death certificates came on line at Ancestry and her 21 year old son, Manus that died in a mining accident.
Something that was new was the married name of her sister Jane. I had not been able to find anything about her because I did not know who she married, so I had nothing after the 1880 census. But there she was, Mrs. Jeannie VanWert. so I was able to find more about her. I had found her other sister, Elizabeth, before and also her two brothers that were mentioned, Robert and John. There is still another sister and brother that I have not found anything after that 1880 census. So I will just have to keep on looking. But this was a great find!!!