Recently I discovered that the San Francisco Examiner had been added to Newspapers.com. Even better, it's the ENTIRE run of the Examiner from it's beginnings in 1865 to present day. Accessing archives after 1922 requires a different level of subscription which I only recently obtained as my original subscription level expired in February. Since I hadn't had the chance to look at the Examiner before, I decided even the limited 1865-1922 access would be a useful resource and I started searching on some of my early San Francisco ancestors.
One of the first people I tried searching for was my great great grandfather Timothy John "TJ" Mullane. I knew he died in 1888 as I had found his burial record and a brief notice in the San Francisco Call, but hadn't been able to find out much more than that. Once I ran the search in the Examiner, however, I had a little bit of more information. An obituary (or more properly a death notice) appeared in the December 10th issue which read:
In this city, December 8. Timothy Joseph, beloved husband of Mary Mullane, and father of John and Mary Mullane, a native of County Cork, Ireland, aged 41 years, 3 months, and 19 days.
Friends and acquaintences are respectfully invited to attend the funeral to-day (Monday) at 1 o'clock p.m. from his late residence, 25 Belcher Street, off Fourteenth, between Sanchez and Church. Internment, Holy Cross Cemetery.
Friends and acquaintences are respectfully invited to attend the funeral to-day (Monday) at 1 o'clock p.m. from his late residence, 25 Belcher Street, off Fourteenth, between Sanchez and Church. Internment, Holy Cross Cemetery.
I was a little puzzled by his name being listed as Timothy Joseph as his voter registrations had his name as Timothy John and that it only listed two of his seven children, but the date was correct as was his home address. I'm guessing the children who weren't named were left out because they were all under 18 at the time. The part I was most interested in was that he was "a native of County Cork" -- finally a link to a specific area in Ireland! While it doesn't narrow down exactly where in Cork he was from, it is much closer than I was with just Ireland as a place to search. It means he likely emigrated from Cobh (then Queensland) to where ever he entered the United States, so a bit of a narrowing down for his immigration record.
This also makes the sixth great great grandparent I have traced back to County Cork, which definitely explains the heavy presence of connections to Cork in my Ancestry DNA test. It also leaves only two paternal great great grandparents with only a country of origin for a birthplace.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
