Baptismal Records

In looking for the O'Learys in Ireland, I had found extracted birth/baptismal records for my great grandmother Elizabeth O'Leary and seven siblings. Having only expected to find four siblings, I was surprised to say the least. Since these records weren't originals, but a database of copied records, I wanted to see if there was any chance of finding the original records (without having to fly to Ireland since that's not going to happen any time soon.)

Early on in my searching I had found an Irish genealogy site that had some church records scanned but since at the time I didn't have enough information to make the site useful I just bookmarked it as a resource that might come in handy at a later date.  I forgot all about that site until I found a website called "Irish Genealogy Tool-Kit." What a great resource! It has lots of information and sent me back to the site I'd found months before with the church records. I expect to reference that site quite a bit as I move forward.

The Irish Genealogy website is hosted by the Minister of Arts of Ireland and has a collection of pre-1900 church records for just three of the Republic of Ireland's 26 counties plus the city of Dublin. Luckily for me, County Cork is one of the three counties! (Carlow and Kerry are the other two.) Using the information I got from Ancestry.com, I started plugging in the names and dates for Lizzie O'Leary and her siblings. I had much better luck here than I did with the Irish Census records and found the following:

Baptism of John Leary, 16 January 1865. Parents: Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors: Patrick Leary and Hannah Ford. Parish/Church/Congregation: Ballinhassig.

Baptism of William Leary, 14 February 1867.  Parents: Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors:  Daniel Murphy and Eliza Looney. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Ballinhassig.

Baptism of Ellen Leary, 6 April 1869. Parents: Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors: John Leahy and Ellen Coleman. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Ballinhassig.

Baptism of Edmund Leary, 25 December 1870. Parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors: Edmund and Margaret Leary. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Ballinhassig.

Baptism of Eliza Leary, 19 March 1873. Parents: Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors:  Timothy Riordan and Mary Looney. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Ballinhassig.

Those records match up fairly closely with the records I found on Ancestry, most being within a day or two of the birthdate shown in those records. I've yet to turn up records for Polly (Mary), Jeremiah, or Daniel, but the records I found provided additional information I can use in my searches. Taking a look at the sponsors names there appear to be at least four, and probably five, additional family members -- Patrick Leary, Eliza Looney, Edmund Leary, and Margaret Leary. The second Mary Looney is the only one that's puzzling. I suspect it's a sister-in-law or cousin of my great great grandmother Mary Looney as it's not likely that she was both mother and godmother to my great grandmother Elizabeth, but I don't know that for certain. It could even be a clerical error by the priest who recorded the baptism.

Having found some of the O'Learys, I thought I'd also look for the Colemans and see if they turned up at all. In the stories told by Aunt Margaret, her father Daniel Coleman had a half-brother named Bartholomew who also moved to San Francisco. I'd found a death record for him that indicated his mother's maiden name was Cosgrove, and when I searched on his record at Ancestry.com I turned up two brothers, Michael and Cornelius, in the birth and baptisms database. So I was looking for six Coleman siblings, my great grandfather Daniel, his brother John, his sister Margaret and three half-brothers. I turned up the following information (as transcribed):

Baptism of Dan Coalman, 21 March 1860. Parents: J--- Coalman and Ellen Roes.  Sponsors: Ned Coalman and Johann McDonna. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Courcey's Country or Ballinspittal.

Baptism of Ellen Coalman, 20 November 1861. Parents John Coalman and Ellen Moss.  Sponsors: Jeremiah Donoghue and Mary Coveney. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Courcey's Country or Ballinspittal.

Baptism of Michal Coleman, 22 July 1867. Parents John Coleman and Eliza Colgrave.  Sponsors: Bartholomew Coleman and Margaret Mudge. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Courcey's Country or Ballinspittal.
  
Baptism of Cors Thos Coleman, 27 December 1868. Parents John Coleman and Eliza Cosgrave.  Sponsors: Maurice Cosgrave and Mary Murray. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Courcey's Country or Ballinspittal.

As you can see, some of the spelling is a bit off and there are some transcription conflicts.  I took a look at the attached records and Ellen "Roes" and "Moss" look to be Ellen Ross, which was my great great grandmother's name. (The writing on some of the records was atrocious!) The transcription for Eliza "Colgrave" also looks more like Cosgrave in the image. I couldn't find a record for John Coleman Jr. or Bartholomew. The only sister I turned up was named Ellen, not Margaret, so I don't know if there was another sister or if the there's another name conflict. According to the records I've found for Bartholomew, he was born in 1880 and there were only about 40 recorded baptisms in the 1880s for anyone named Coleman (or Coalman) so I suspect Bartholomew's record hasn't been digitized yet since most of the other decades have upwards of 500 Coleman records. Either that or it's been lost to time, though the extracted record I found on Ancestry would seem to indicate there's some kind of record available.

So, again, I have more information to sort through and follow up on. The baptismal dates again match up fairly closely with the records I've found on Ancestry. Daniel Coleman's is the only one that's a little odd as I've found birth dates from 1860-1878 for him, but I've consistently found March 17 so I'm fairly confident in the record. (And I know the 1878 record is wrong as it's from the 1920 census which shows him as age 42 and Lizzie as age 41 and I've always known he was about 10 years older. Most of the other records have him born between 1860-1866.) 

I am very pleased at the progress I've made on the Coleman/O'Leary side of the family in the last two months. There is much much more to sort through and uncover, but that will be true every time I learn something new since each new item uncovered tends to bring along other questions that need answers.

Irish Census Records

Having found seven siblings for my great grandmother Elizabeth O'Leary in Ancestry.com's extracted baptismal records, I wanted to see if I could confirm that they were indeed her siblings.  I had already traced her sister Ellen O'Leary Ford to San Francisco and identified her children and grandchildren. I needed to work out her other sister who I was told was named Polly, but records turned up as Mary.  I also needed to look for at least five brothers.

As I have throughout the process of working on the family tree, I looked for other sources for records beyond Ancestry. I had found a source for the 1901 and 1911 census records of Ireland through the National Archives of Ireland. Their search functions and digitizing of records isn't as clean as Ancestry, but it's pretty good. The biggest headache being that each digitized image of the census record is a separate file and with the way the Irish censuses were recorded I had to open multiple files to gather all the information. (As opposed to the US census records where all the information for multiple families is recorded on a single page which were digitized in groups so I could scroll through pages to see neighbors, etc.) The next biggest headache is understanding the land divisions in Ireland as they definitely don't make a whole lot of sense to someone like me who has lived her entire life in urban/suburban United States of the late 20th/early 21st century! It's definitely not as neat and easy as knowing my relatives lived at 6 Harry Place in San Francisco in 1880, but I think I'm getting a general idea.

As I mentioned in my last post, I believe I found my great great grandparents Jeremiah O'Leary and Mary O'Looney in the 1901 census. Only daughter Mary was living with them in 1901, so I set off to look for the five sons and my great grandmother who was still living in Ireland in 1901. I started with oldest brother John. According to the record I'd found on Ancestry, he was born January 16, 1865 which would make him 36 in 1901. I entered that information and up popped a record: John O'Leary, age 36, teacher, in Fahanalooscane, Ballymartle, County Cork. Living with him is his sister Eliza O'Leary, age 24! Well, that matches up with the family story that Lizzie O'Leary's older brother was a teacher who worked with Daniel Coleman's sister. According to the census record, John O'Leary is married, but his wife doesn't appear on the census form. Unlike the US census records, which recorded the usual residents of the enumerated houses whether or not they were at home on the day the census was taken, the Irish census is based on who was in the enumerated house on a specific date (e.g. March 31, 1901)

Having found John in 1901, I decided to see if I could find him in 1911. He appeared again in Fahanalooscane, and this time his family also appears on the census record. Wife Hanora (age 43), sons Jeremiah (10) and Denis (5), and daughters Mary (7) and Hannah (10 months.) Ah-ha! Well that's loads of useful information. I now have John's wife's name so I can look for her in the 1901 census. His oldest son is 10, so he was likely an infant when the 1901 census was taken, so perhaps Hanora was staying with family when the census was recorded. Denis is 5 in 1911, which would mean he was born in about 1906. That matches up with the information I found about Dennis O'Leary in San Francisco, whose wife and daughters attended my parents wedding!

Well, that certainly was a promising start. It got a bit more difficult after that. I had very little information on the other brothers beyond birth dates, so identifying if I'd found the right people would be quite difficult. I found five different William O'Learys living in County Cork in 1901. One was born in the United States, so that left four options, but none were living in Ballincollig. None of them had any clues to indicate I'd found the right one, so I'll have to go digging some more there. Next on my list was Edmund. No Edmund O'Learys showed up in the 1901 or 1911 census records. I did find a couple of Edwards, but none of them appeared promising. So what happened to Edmund? Is he indeed a brother?Thinking he might be the mysterious "Arthur" from Ellen's death notice, I tried that name with the age I'd found for Edmund. Again, nothing promising. There was an Arthur O'Leary who was about the right age and living in Ballincollig, but he was illiterate. Since all the other O'Learys could read and write, I doubt he's the Arthur I'm looking for.

I set Edmund and Arthur aside and moved on to Jeremiah. This is a brother I knew existed, so what could I find about him? I turned up 19 Jeremiah O'Leary's in the 1901 census that were within 5 years in age of the Jeremiah I was looking for. Two were born in Cork City, so I eliminated them. Another was born in County Kerry, so I eliminated him also. That left 16 possibilities, one of which was living in Ballincollig. I clicked on his record and he was living with an aunt, Ellen O'Leary, and a sister Hannah O'Leary. Drat. That probably isn't the right one either. It's going to take some time to weed through the remaining 15. Okay, let's see if we can find Daniel O'Leary. There are 34 Daniel O'Learys in County Cork in 1901. Arrgh!

So, I've got a lot of work ahead of me weeding through the various census records to see if I can figure out if any of the people I've found are Lizzie O'Leary's brothers. I'm not even completely certain that they all are brothers. John at least matches up with the family stories and I know there was a Jeremiah. As for William, Edmund, and Daniel, it's hard to know for certain. That doesn't include the mysterious Arthur who may be one of those three or a completely different person! I need to see if I can find out more on those birth records I found on Ancestry.

Other O'Learys

After having found some O’Leary relatives in California, I went to look back to see what I could find in Ireland. I had learned that my great great grandparents were Jeremiah O’Leary and Mary O’Looney, so I plugged those names into my family tree and did a search of Irish birth records looking for my great grandmother Elizabeth O’Leary. What I had been told by Aunt Margaret was that Lizzie had two brothers and two sisters, so I expected to find some siblings when I searched on Lizzie’s name. What I didn’t expect was to find was SEVEN siblings!

The Irish Births and Baptisms database I found on Ancestry.com let me search for children of Jeremiah O’Leary and Mary O’Looney born between 1865 and 1885. My first searches came up with too many names to easily sort through, so I narrowed my search to include only children whose father’s first name was Jeremiah and were born in county Cork. That gave me a much shorter list to look through and what I found was the following:

John Leary, born 16 Jan 1865, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

William Leary, born 12 Feb 1867, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Ellen Leary, born 4 April 1869, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Edmund Leary, born 23 December 1870, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Eliza Leary, born 18 March 1873, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Mary Leary, born 29 April 1876, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Jeremiah Leary, born 1 September 1877, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Leary Looney

Daniel Leary, born 25 June 1880, Ballincolby, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney Leary

I didn’t find an Arthur O’Leary as referenced in Ellen’s death notice, but now there were five names that didn’t match up with the information I had. I had Lizzie’s two sisters as Ellen and Polly, but this shows them as Ellen and Mary. Based on my experience with Mary/Mollie Murray, I suspect Mary is Polly’s given name. So, that would explain the sisters.  What about all these brothers though? There are five when I expected to find only two, and only one matches up with the names I had. It’s possible that Arthur is one of the brothers I’ve found who went by a different (middle?) name or there’s one more sibling I’ve yet to find. The birthplace definitely matches up with the family history and the dropping of the “O” in O’Leary and O’Looney isn’t anything surprising, so I’m sure I’ve got the right family.

Well this is a surprising find indeed. A good thing to do then would be to check the Irish censuses. One small problem with that however – there is no census information available for Ireland prior to 1901. The records were all destroyed. Fantastic. The other issue is that these records I’ve found are extracted records. That means that volunteers copying from microfilm and other original records compiled the database but there isn’t a way to view the original records directly on line (at least that I’ve found yet.) It’s quite possible that some of these records are transcribed incorrectly.

I’ve yet to go completely through the two Irish censuses that are available for 1901 and 1911, but I have found what I believe are records for Jeremiah and Mary in 1901 and another record in 1911. According to the 1901 census, Jeremiah O’Leary was 76 years old and working as a farmer. Mary O’Leary was 58 and their daughter Mary (Polly?) was 21. That is four years younger than the Mary/Polly I found in the baptismal records, but close enough to probably be the right family. There were also 11 lodgers/boarders living with the family. Two soldiers and their wives, one with a daughter; three men that I’m guessing were farm hands (their occupations are listed as “groom” and “joiner”); and a young widow and her two children. The original form lists the O’Learys with the “O”, however Jeremiah signs the form as the head of the family, and he omitted the “O” in his signature. That would match up with the baptismal records then.

I couldn’t find Jeremiah in the 1911 census, so I looked for Mary. I found a Mary O’Leary living in Ballincollig who was listed as age 73 and is a widow living with her daughter Marianne, age 30. Again, the ages are a bit off, so I’m not completely certain. Also, according to the record, this Mary O’Leary had given birth to six children and all six were still living. I found eight children, so that’s a conflict. This Mary is working as a shopkeeper, so I’ll have to puzzle this one out a bit. And, of course, I'll have to see if I can find the five O'Leary brothers in the Irish Censuses.

A few other things to consider. According to Aunt Margaret, Lizzie’s brother Jeremiah fought in World War I. He was born in 1877. World War I started in 1914 when he would have been 37 years old. That seems a bit old to be joining the military. It’s possible he was already in the military when the war broke out. I should probably add studying Ireland’s involvement in World War I to the list of things I need to learn more about. Also, one of these brothers is the father of Dennis O’Leary whose wife and twin daughters were invited to my parents’ wedding in 1965, but which one?

As always, answering one question opens up the door to many more questions. I look forward to delving more into these.

Onward with the O’Learys

As I mentioned in my last post, I managed to get a couple of leads to start tracing out some of my O’Leary relatives. I decided to start with the names from the invitation list to my parents’ wedding in 1965. Who were A. Ford and J. Ford and what could I find out about Catherine Dwyer and Mrs. Dennis O’Leary?

My first step was to take a closer look at the items I had taken from my parents’ house. The card from Mrs. Dennis O’Leary was signed May O’Leary and said that she and her twin daughters would be attending the wedding. Okay, so that’s four people to find: Dennis O’Leary, who presumably has died by 1965, May O’Leary, and their twin daughters. I plugged the information I had into my family tree and went on to the next. Mr. & Mrs. A. Ford also responded to the wedding invitation that they would both attend, but their daughter would be unable to join the festivities. The card was signed Mr. & Mrs. A. P. Ford, so no full name, but another initial. I plugged them into the family tree also. Mrs. Catherine Dwyer also accepted the invitation, but by 1965 she appears to be widowed. There wasn’t a card from Mr. & Mrs. J. Ford, but they and their daughter were on the invitation list, so I entered their information too.

Before I continue, I should pause to mention that I decided when I started this blog not to mention any living people directly by name.  Now I’m at a point where I am discovering some of my father’s second cousins and as such they are probably within 10 years or so in age of my father, which means in all likelihood a good number of them are still living. Until or unless I have sufficient evidence to prove otherwise, these cousins will be referred to indirectly (e.g. Dennis O’Leary’s twin daughters.) While it is possible that some of Nana’s cousins are still living, they would all be near 100 years old or more so I’m figuring that it’s not likely.

Once I entered the information I had, I headed off to take a look at the San Francisco City Directory for 1965. This is different than the phone book that just lists name, address, and phone number for the registered owner of the telephone. The city directories often listed spouses’ names and occupations as well as home and often work addresses. A very useful tool that I was surprised to discover continued into the early 1980s! I was able to find J. Ford quickly – his full name was John J. Ford and his wife’s name was Verna and he worked for E.F. Hutton & Co. Using this information I was able to check census records to learn that in addition to the daughter that was invited to my parents wedding, they also had a son. I’ve not found out much yet on these two beyond their names and approximate birth dates.

There were several different possibilities for Mr. & Mrs. A. P. Ford, but none of the names I found in the city directory matched up with the address I had, so I decided to go back a bit further. I knew he was the son of Ellen O’Leary and the brother of John J. Ford, so I searched the census records and I found the Ford family in the 1920 census. This helped quite a bit. A.P. Ford is Arthur Ford and he was born in about 1913. John J. Ford is his older brother, born in about 1905 and they had a sister, Catherine, born in about 1906. Ah-ha! Catherine Dwyer is likely Catherine Ford! Their father’s name is also John J. Ford, born in about 1868 in Ireland. The elder John Ford worked as a galvanizer.

I haven’t been able to identify Arthur Ford’s wife as yet, but know that they had at least one child, the daughter who was invited to my parents’ wedding. I’ve also been unable to identify Catherine Ford Dwyer’s husband, but it’s been entertaining looking for him as I keep hitting records for my Dwyer grandparents and great grandparents! My mother says that there is no direct relation to her Dwyers and Catherine’s husband, and she’s probably right at least as far as we can easily identify, but perhaps somewhere in the far distant past there is a common root. I haven’t been able to learn if Catherine and Mr. Dwyer had any children.

My next search was for Dennis and May O’Leary. Since they were living in Burlingame (or at least May and her daughters were) in 1965, I knew I wouldn’t be able to find them in the San Francisco City Directory, so I worked with what I knew and looked for twin girls named O’Leary that were about my father’s age. It took a few tweaks to find them as they were a bit younger than I thought, but in looking for them I was able to find four older brothers. Having these brothers enabled me to find Dennis in the 1940 census where three of the four boys also appear.  Dennis was born in about 1907 in Ireland, unlike Nana and her Ford cousins who were all born in San Francisco.

As I was gathering more information on the Ford family, I was able to find a death record for Ellen O’Leary Ford that came from a collection of San Francisco funeral home records. Ellen died in 1932, and when I found this record I was working on my iPad, so the image file attached to the record was hard to read. When I took a look at the image on my computer I learned two things. First, that Ellen died from second and third degree burns over one half of her body area. That seriously stunned me for a bit. As I’ve been going through the family tree I’ve been finding out how various relatives died and for the most part they’re fairly common causes: childbirth, heart attack, etc. But second and third degree burns? What an awful and painful way to die. I am going to assume there was some kind of house fire as that would seem to be the most likely cause, and will definitely start digging through old newspapers to see if I can learn more about that.

The second thing I learned from the death record I found for Ellen was much more mundane, but definitely useful. There was a clipping of her death notice from the San Francisco Examiner and it said she was the “dearly beloved wife of John J. Ford, loving mother of John J. Jr., Arthur Patrick, and Catherine H. Ford. and beloved sister of Arthur O’Leary and Mrs. D. Coleman.” Ah-ha! I’ve found the missing brother!

Or at least, that’s what I thought. I’d yet to begin searching on my great great grandparents Jeremiah O’Leary and Mary O’Looney. What I’ve found in those searches has me a bit more puzzled. We’ll save that for another post.