Answering and Reviewing Some Questions, Part 1

I realized that over the four years since I started this blog I had posed a bunch of different questions that I may have not answered in a follow up post, so I decided to go back through the 40 or so posts I have written and see what I may have forgotten to update.  I'll also try to put in quick links to questions that were answered in case something was missed.  This will be a multi-part post and one that will appear from time to time as I move along in my research since I suspect there will be more instances of me plowing ahead and forgetting to update all the answers I find and/or forgetting to go back and look at some other questions.

The First Month of Digging brought up a lot of questions and I think I've answered most of them by now.  Some questions, like what happened to my Murray family relatives during and immediately following the 1906 earthquake and fire will probably remain a mystery.  That kind of information is usually found in family stories and I know of none.  Many of the other questions that I pondered in that first month have been answered though.

• What was Bridget's husband's name?  When did he die?
• Who is Joseph's wife? Why isn't she living with him in 1920?
• What happened to Mary and Nellie? Did they marry?
• Who were my great-grandmother's parents? Did she have any siblings?

The question of where in Ireland were my Murray great-great grandparents were from is answered in passing in several posts.  Both Bridget McDonough Murray and John Murray's death notices contained the useful information that they were born in counties Sligo and Galway respectively.  That decidedly narrows down where in Ireland I'll need to look for other points of reference, but with the challenge that is inherent in Irish records it will be difficult to find such common names with out being able to narrow them down to a parish or townland.

When did they come to California is another partially answered question.  Based on what I've been able to find in the San Francisco city directories and the 1900 census record has given me a rough estimate.  In the 1900 census, Bridget shows up as having arrived in the US in 1866.  I first find her with a certainty in the 1867 city directory working at the Occidental Laundry.  However I also found a Bridget McDonough working at the Russ House laundry in 1864 with several other McDonoughs.  I'm not 100% sure that's "my" Bridget, so I've put that record in my "maybe" file for now.  John Murray first shows up in the city directories in 1862 working at Easton's laundry.  So I have a reasonable timeline for both of them arriving in California.  But what about the question of when they arrived in the United States?  While it's possible they both emigrated from Ireland directly to California, it's more likely they arrived in the US on the east coast before moving across the country.  I haven't, to date, found any definitive records of the arrival of either Bridget or John.  The best lead I have is for Bridget as her death notice asked that papers in Chelsea, Massachusetts be notified.  That leads me to believe there was some kind of family in Massachusetts and that Bridget may have landed in Boston before moving west.  As for John -- that's definitely going to be a needle in haystack.  John Murray is a common enough name and the immigration records of the 1860s contain very little information that would allow me to identify one John Murray from another with any certainty.  The most interesting part of this question though gives rise to another question.  If John and Bridget arrived on the east coast sometime between 1860-1866, what was traveling across the entire continent in the middle of the US Civil War like?

The question of what happened to my great grandfather's older brother John Henry is another open question.  I only have spotty records for him.  After finding him living with the rest of the family in 1900-01, I have very little hard evidence on him.  He witnessed my great grandparents' wedding in 1918 and I know he's buried at Holy Cross Cemetery with his brother Joseph, so I know he died in 1930.  Those are the only hard records I have for him.  Again, with a name like John Murray, it's a bit tricky tracking him down.  I have a couple of possibilities in census records, but nothing definite.

I haven't quite found all of the Murrays in the 1910 census.  Bridget and Nellie (Ella) have died by 1910 and I'm pretty sure I've found Mollie living with her husband.  The brothers, however, are a bit more of a challenge.  I have a reasonable guess for Joseph, but nothing for either Marshall or John Henry, so that's one area I need to keep looking.

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The Mystery of Mary Mullane introduced me to my first real puzzler of the family -- that my great grandmother was married to someone named Denis Edward Hayes before she married my great grandfather Marshall.  Edward Hayes seems to have dropped out of the records after the 1910 census and I haven't a clue what happened to him.  Based on what I do know, I'm guessing Edward Hayes abandoned my great grandmother sometime around 1910.  My great grandparents weren't married until 1918, four years after my grandfather was born and the information my great grandmother provided for the marriage license wasn't entirely truthful.  Both of those facts lead me to believe Edward Hayes ran off.  I haven't put a bunch of effort in to tracking him down, but do have some potential leads to follow up.  The best of those is from the 1940 census which has an Edward Hayes who is the right age and divorced living at the Napa State Hospital, but with such a big gap between records I can't be certain I've got the right person.  And, like Joseph Murray's wife Agnes, has me wondering what put him in the state hospital in the first place! 

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More McDonoughs was my first lead on some possible relatives of my great-great grandmother Bridget McDonough Murray.  I found a Patrick McDonough living near the Murrays in the 1880 census and other searches turned up a Thomas and Betsey McDonough working with a Bridget McDonough at the Russ House in 1864.  I haven't spent much time on the McDonoughs recently, so I haven't found any connection between any of these people to my great-great grandmother.  I did spend some time on them when they first turned up then set it aside for a few months.  When I went back and took a look at the work I'd done, I discovered I'd made several mistakes and gotten different families mixed up so had to scrap a lot of what I did and go back to the beginning.  I think what I've gathered to date is accurate, but it is pretty limited and I've as yet to make any connections.