More O'Learys?

Back in September, I started looking through the Irish Census records and the church records that are available on line for County Cork to start piecing together some of the O’Leary branch of the family tree. I started first looking for my great great grandparents Jeremiah O’Leary and Mary O’Looney. When I found them in the 1901 Irish Census, I culled the information available and added it to my database. Similarly, when I combed through the baptismal records looking for my great grandmother Lizzie O’Leary and her siblings, I added the information found there to my files.

Those searches gave me approximate birth years for my great great grandparents and possible aunts and uncles for my great grandmother. Using that information, I went back to the Irish Genealogy site that has the pre-1900 church records for Counties Cork, Kerry, and Carlow to see if I could track down more information on that group of ancestors. I started with Jeremiah O’Leary. According to the 1901 Census, he was 76 years old which means he was born in about 1825. I plugged his name and approximate birth year into the search engine for the Cork & Ross diocese church records, and up popped 34 baptismal records. Not all were for a child named Jeremiah O’Leary, so I immediately eliminated them. That left me with five possibilities, only one of which was in Ballinhassig (the parish where my great grandmother and her siblings were baptized.) The other parishes I found were Kilmurry, Ovens & Aglis, and Cork South Parish. I looked at the record for the Jeremiah (Jerry) O’Leary who was baptized in the Ballinhassig parish first. His parents’ names were Timothy O’Leary and Joney Neville, so I used that information to see if I could find any siblings that matched up with the names I had found as godparents to my great grandmother and her siblings. I didn’t find any certain siblings. Hmmm. If my guess that the godparents for my great grandmother and her siblings were aunts and uncles, I needed to find a Patrick and Edmund O’Leary. Mary O’Leary was another possibility, but as she and Edmund were both godparents of my great grandmother’s brother (also named Edmund) I suspect Mary is Edmund’s wife.

What I needed was a map. While I’ve visited Ireland, I am not familiar enough with the geography beyond a general knowledge of where the various counties are. The parishes (both civil and religious) and towns are harder to identify without a map. Unfortunately, the Irish Genealogy site doesn’t have a map of the various parishes, so I had to go search for one. I was able to find a variety of maps at the Irish Times. It would be easier to work out which parishes border each other if the Catholic parishes map weren’t broken into three regions, but from what I could work out Ballinhassig parish is bordered by Ballincollig, Innishannon, Clountead, Douglas and Carrigaline parishes. None of those turned up in my search for Jeremiah, but I did notice the parish Ovens located next to Ballincollig. I had a Jeremiah O’Leary baptized in the parish of Ovens & Aglis in my search, that seemed like a good one to check out, so I clicked on his record. His parents were John O’Leary and Joan Mulcahy. I searched again using those options and found an Edmund O’Leary whose parents were named John O’Leary and Joannah Mulcahy who was baptized in the Ovens & Aglis parish in 1829. Hmmm. Joan and Joannah are fairly close, and Edmund O’Leary was one of the godparents I found.

While I’m not completely certain I’ve found the right family, it’s a strong possibility, so I noted down all the information in both baptismal records for Jeremiah and Edmund. I’ll have to do some more digging to see if I can confirm this find, which will definitely be challenging without census records, but hopefully some of the census alternates will prove helpful.

I had no luck searching for a Patrick O’Leary who was about the same age as my great great grandfather Jeremiah. There were several, but none with the same parents or in the same parish.  Perhaps Patrick was a cousin instead of a brother or maybe the record is missing. I don’t have enough information to know either way yet.

Having had reasonable luck with Jeremiah, I turned to my great great grandmother Mary O’Looney.  According to the 1901 census, she was 58 years old which would have her born in about 1843. Nothing turned up with that information, so I looked at the 1911 Census record. The Mary O’Leary I found there is a 73 year old widow which would have her born in about 1838. I tried that date, again no luck. I tried searching with out a date, which gave me many more options and the ability to filter by parish and decade. I found a Mary Looney baptized in February 1835 in Ballinhassig parish. This might be a possibility. Her parents were named Timothy Looney and Lydia Johnson.

As I did with Jeremiah, I did a search on those two last names to see if I could come up with any of the suspected siblings. I came up with 6 names – all children of Timothy Looney and Lydia Johnson in Ballinhassig parish: Mary Looney (17 Feb 1835), Lidia Luony (24 Jan 1837), Timothy Luony (15 April 1838), Eliza Luony (31 March 1841), Margaret Looney (13 June 1847), and George Looney (30 Nov 1852.)  I had found an Eliza Looney in the baptismal records as the godmother of my great great grandmother’s brother William.

Again, I’m not completely certain I’ve found the right family, but it is a strong possibility and I’ve noted all of the information I found. I definitely have some digging to do this year to see if I can find any other information that will support these finds.

I’ve yet to do the same kind of searching on the Colemans, but have that on my to do list for this year as well. That to do list is getting longer by the day!

A Couple of Mysteries Solved

Shortly after Christmas, the wonderful folks at SFGenealogy.com updated their Colma Cemetery Index with an index of the removal cards from Calvary Cemetery. Back in the late 1890s, the city of San Francisco stopped burials within the city limits, and so people began being buried at cemeteries in Colma. There was a protracted battle over what to do with the remains left in the various cemeteries in San Francisco, but eventually most were moved to Colma, and those buried at Calvary Cemetery mostly wound up at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery.

Since I knew my great great grandfather John Murray had died before burials had stopped in San Francisco, I thought I’d see if he turned up in the Calvary records. I had found a death notice for a John Murray in November 1890 that I was fairly certain was my great great grandfather, so I plugged in his name and the date I’d found. He popped up immediately, and the attached image indicated that he had been reburied at Holy Cross in June, 1940. That meant he’s not the unnamed Murray I found buried with my great great grandmother Bridget who was buried in 1912. In addition to the date he was reburied at Holy Cross, the record indicated that there was a second family member buried with him. Well that is certainly interesting!

Who was this second person buried with my great great grandfather? The removal record indicated that the original plot at Calvary had been purchased in November, 1875. Using that date, I searched on anyone with the last name of Murray and up popped a record for Lizzie F. Murray. When I looked at the image attached to the record I got a big smile on my face – the record indicated she was the “child of John & Bridget.” Well, that means I’ve found the right John Murray, and now I’d found the missing child. I really hadn’t expected to find out what happened to the unknown sibling of my great grandfather that was indicated in the 1900 census. According to the removal record, Lizzie was three years old when she died in November, 1875. That would have her born about 1872 and, as I suspected, fall between Mollie (Mary) and my great grandfather Marshall.

An added bonus to these newly added records is that Holy Cross allowed the SFGenealogy team to upload the images from the original Calvary registers. Armed with the names and dates for John and Lizzie Murray, I looked for them in the Calvary registers. According to the register Lizzie died from typhoid fever on November 22, 1875 at the age of 3 years and 3 months old. The Holy Cross records indicate she was buried on November 22, so I’m not sure which it is – did Calvary enter the date of burial under “died on” or did the transfer record just assume the “died on” date was the burial date? Still, in the worst case, I’m within a few days of the correct date.

I did the same look up for John Murray, and it indicated he was 50 years old, born in Ireland and died on November 20, 1890 which matched up with the death notice I found in the San Francisco Call. I can’t quite decipher his cause of death as yet, but I suspect it’s cirrhosis of the liver (the first word starts with a “c” and is followed by “of liver”.) Another interesting note for his record indicated to which parish he belonged. Naturally, whoever entered the information just entered “S.B.” which is less than helpful, and I had to go to the San Francisco City Directory for 1890 to see which church it might be. I’m fairly certain that “S.B.” stands for “St. Bridget/Brigid” (the 1890 directory has it listed as St. Bridget’s, but current references call it St. Brigid’s) as that parish was the closest to where John and Bridget Murray lived in 1890.

Lizzie and John were removed to Section H in 1940, but I wasn’t able to find them in the Holy Cross records. Fortunately, the folks at SFGenealogy were able to help me out when I asked why I was having difficulty. Section H is where the mass grave for removals from Calvary is located and thus not everyone buried there was listed in the Holy Cross records.

Now that I know where my great great grandfather is buried and identified the unknown sibling for my great grandfather, I have one puzzle still to work out. Who is the unknown Murray buried with my great great grandmother? The Holy Cross records list a burial date of March 16, 1912. Could this be one of my great grandfather’s siblings? If so, why isn’t the first name listed? I know it’s not his younger brother Joseph since he shows up in the 1920 census, so if it is a sibling it’s either Mollie (Mary) or John Henry. Another possibility is that it’s a child, thus no name, in which case it could be the unknown child of Mary and Marshall Murray. If that’s the case, however, Mary and Marshall would have likely been married by 1911, and the Mary J. Mullane I’ve found (and am fairly certain is the right Mary Mullane) is still married to Dennis Edward Hayes in 1910, so what the heck happened there?!

I’m going to have to cull through the 1905-1929 California Death Index images to see if I can find a death record that corresponds to the date of burial I’ve found at Holy Cross. Hopefully that will help find the missing relative. I'll also have to spend some more time with the Calvary records to see if there's anyone else listed there.

A Year of Searching

Last January, I decided to start researching my paternal ancestors – the Coleman and Murray branches of my family tree. When I started out, I had only the barest of information and a total of 71 names plugged into my family tree. Granted there were a few more people than those 71 that I knew existed. I knew most of my father’s first cousins were married and had children for starters. What I didn’t know was all their names or ages, and so they weren’t immediately added to the tree. I’m still gathering some of that information, but now I’ve got a list of 213 names and a much fuller looking tree.

There is still a lot of information I need to gather on my living relatives, but I know so much more now than I did just a year ago. And I’ve gone from knowing next to nothing about my ancestors, to having a picture of who they were and how they lived. I’ve learned my great grandfather Marshall Murray had five siblings and that both of his parents emigrated from Ireland – his mother from County Sligo and his father from County Galway. While I don’t know much more about my great great grandparents’ families, I do have paths to chase down to see if I can find out more. I do know my great great grandfather John Murray worked as an upholsterer upon arriving in San Francisco in about 1865 and that he met my great great grandmother Bridget McDonough while she was working as a laundress at the same laundry.

I’m still trying to learn more about my great grandfather’s siblings, and that is proving to be a challenge, but if I figured out what happened to one sister over the course of my first year of research, I am optimistic I can find out what happened to the other four siblings.

I’m fairly confident I’ve found my great grandmother Mary Mullane’s family, and while there are many puzzles to work out among the Mullanes I know that my grandfather had a few cousins who lived into adulthood and have children of their own.

On the Coleman/O’Leary side, I was able to find so much information from Ireland that I was stunned. When I began I expected that finding records from Ireland would be much more difficult, but I lucked out considerably by having my ancestors come from County Cork and the availability of some of the church records on line. Those records have given me leads not only on my great grandparents’ siblings, but their parents, aunts, uncles, and (possibly) grandparents (my great great great grandparents!) I’m still trying to verify some of that information, but the start looks promising.

While looking at my family history, I’ve also had to look more at world history. What was happening where my family was living while they were living? How did those events impact their lives? How have familiar places changed over the years since my ancestors walked the same streets I have? I’ve learned quite a bit. I think I’m finally getting the point of all those school assignments I had over the years!

Shortly after I began my search last January, I picked up a new CD by Bruce Springsteen. There were two songs on that CD that keep running through my head as I dig through the past to find out who my family was. The first is called “We Are Alive” and the chorus is:

We are alive
And though our bodies lie
Alone here in the dark
Our spirits rise
To carry the fire and light the spark
To stand shoulder to shoulder
And heart to heart 

The song is about many things, but mostly about people who struggled to make a better life for themselves and their families. It rings very true to me, especially when coupled with the second track, “American Land.” That song is about the hope and promise of America and, oddly enough, has a Celtic feel to it. It opens with:

What is this land America, so many travel there
I’m going now while I’m still young my darling meet me there
Wish me luck my lovely, I’ll send for you when I can
And we’ll make our home in the American Land.

 

Thinking about my ancestors who left the only home they’d known to travel thousands of miles away to find a better life knowing that they’d likely never see their home again is amazing to me. I can’t imagine what that would be like. I’ve long joked that my ancestors got it right on the first try – they settled in San Francisco and never left. Over 150 years later, and most of my family is still in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Oh, I’m sure some as yet figured out second, third, and fourth cousins have long since left the area, but between my extended family on my maternal side and the extended family on my paternal family I don’t have to travel far to find family. The idea of moving half a world away never to return is something beyond my comprehension.

 

Learning more about those people and what they went through to make a better life for their family and, ultimately, me is something I am eager to learn. I am their legacy and what does that mean. People I’ve never known yet have informed who I am. Those spirits do rise and stand behind me as I move forward.

 

I can’t wait to see what the next year of searching brings!