The Arrival of Lizzie O’Leary

I knew from previous findings that my great grandmother Lizzie O’Leary had arrived in the United States some time between March 31, 1901 (when she appears in the Irish Census) and July 12, 1904 (when Daniel and Lizzie’s marriage license was issued.) Several of the US Census records had her arriving in 1904, which seemed to be my best bet for a starting point when I decided to look and see if I could find her immigration record.

SS Umbria, the ship Lizzie O'Leary
sailed on from Ireland to New York
(ancestry.com)

It didn’t take too long for me to find the record at Ancestry.com once I tried looking for Lizzie O’Leary rather than Elizabeth. Up popped her record arriving at Ellis Island on June 6, 1904 on the Cunard line ship the Umbria which set sail for New York on May 29 from Queenstown (now Cobh) Ireland. I would image that Lizzie caught a train from New York to San Francisco shortly thereafter.

The passenger manifest had some very useful information beyond Lizzie’s travel information. According to the manifest, Lizzie was 28 years old, a dressmaker who had last lived in Ballinsloe. Her brother had paid for her passage and she had at least $50 with her. The most interesting fact, however, was what relative or friend she was going to join. Rather than listing her fiancé Daniel Coleman, she listed her brother Arthur O’Leary! Ok then, that backed up my suspicion that Arthur had also moved to San Francisco and was likely why I couldn’t find him in the Irish census records.   

Address for Arthur O'Leary on passenger manifest
(ancestry.com)

I’m having a hard time corresponding the address listed for Arthur O’Leary in the passenger manifest with any of the Arthur O’Learys I’ve looked up in the San Francisco City Directories. The address on the manifest looks like 83 “Asnoy” Street or maybe “Amoy” Street, neither of which exist in San Francisco. I thought it might be Army Street, but there is no one named O’Leary living on Army Street in the 1903-1905 city directories. I’ve run through the list of streets starting with the letter “A” in the city directories to see if anything else makes sense, but nothing does so far. Ditto for any one named O’Leary – none of the addresses look like anything that could be mistaken for “Asmoy.” More puzzles.