DNA Update

At the end of 2017, my father asked that I get an Ancestry DNA test for him and since that was something I had been wanting to do myself I also got a test for myself. When the results arrived early last year, they turned out pretty much as expected -- Dad and I are pretty definitively Irish.

The test results were broken down into regions, and my test came back with the following breakdown:

• 83% -- Ireland/Scotland/Wales
• 13% -- Great Britain
• 2% -- Europe South
• 1% -- Europe West
• <1% -- Caucasus
• <1% -- Scandanavia

Recently, Ancestry updated their databases which resulted in revising areas and adjusting the test results accordingly. My new breakdown looks like this:

• 97% -- Ireland and Scotland
• 3% -- England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe

Gone are the trace regions and I'm even more Irish than I "used to" be. Again, none of these results are surprising. The three percent that covers England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe is likely the French and German parts of my ancestry as the regions my ancestors came from are covered in the regional map Ancestry uses. The most interesting breakdown is in the 97% Irish segment. In the original breakdown, it indicated that I had a strong connection to the Munster region of Ireland. Munster is the southern province of Ireland and encompasses County Cork where I know quite a few of my ancestors were born. The new breakdown, is more specific about which areas of Munster I am connected to -- North Munster, North and East Cork, North Cork, North Kerry and North Cork. The "North and East Cork" bit encompasses the area around Kinsale and Ballincollig which is where I know my great grandfather Daniel Coleman and great grandmother Lizzie O'Leary were born. The "North Munster" bit encompasses Tipperary, which is where my great great grandfather James Dwyer was born. The "North Kerry and North Cork" bit is interesting since as of this writing I haven't identified any ancestors from County Kerry. My great great grandmother Margaret McAuliffe was born in County Cork, but I don't know exactly where, so that might be her branch of the tree. It could also be a hint to the Mannings or Mullanes since I haven't determined where in Ireland they came from yet. The Kennys are also a branch that hasn't been narrowed down beyond Ireland, but I've not spent much time on that branch of the tree.

Along with learning about these breakdowns, several of my aunts, uncles, and cousins have taken the Ancestry DNA test as well. It's fun getting notices about a "close relative" match and sending a text or email off to the matching person with a joking "I guess we are family." However, because of this my mother's older brother, who has been researching the Dwyer/Kenny side of the family for the last 25 years, sent a note to those of us who have taken the test explaining who some of the matches are. One match is a descendant of Winifred Gallagher who was the younger sister of my great great grandmother Elizabeth (Bessie) Gallagher. Winifred married a man named Robert Coleman, and when my uncle discovered this he contacted me to see if there might be a connection to my Colemans. The Gallaghers are from County Roscommon, which is in the northwestern part of Ireland -- nowhere near County Cork where my Colemans are from. Still there was an outside chance Robert Coleman was connected to my Coleman ancestors, so with the new information from the DNA tests, I hopped over to my father's test results to see if there was a match to the same person. No such luck, but even a no match is a good result. Now we know my Colemans and Robert Coleman aren't related (though, admittedly, it's still possible there's a much further back connection than the tests can identify at this time.)

Finally, I did check my father's new results to see what change might have popped up for him. Since his initial results showed he was pretty much Irish, I didn't expect to see a whole lot of variation, and I didn't. His original test results came back as:

• 93% -- Ireland and Scotland
• 3% -- England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe
• 1% -- Finland/Northwest Russia
• <1% -- Scandinavia
• <1% -- Middle East

The new results are:

• 98% -- Ireland and Scotland
• 2% -- England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe

So, yep, Dad is still about as Irish as you can get. His Munster province breakdown is similar to mine, only adding "Southwest Munster" which is mostly the southern parts of Counties Cork and Kerry, which gives some hint that there is a possible link to County Kerry in the Manning/Mullane part of our family tree since we know the Murrays are from Galway, the McDonoughs are from Sligo, and the Colemans and O'Learys are from Cork. Perhaps somewhere down the line the DNA test will find a match with one of my Manning/Mullane relatives and we can figure out where everyone came from.

Kiss Me, I'm Irish -- An Update

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post highlighting my Irish background. I calculated my Irish ancestry based on the number of great-great grandparents (or 3x great grandparents in some cases) who were born in Ireland. Based on that, I said I was 90.63% Irish, 6.25% German, and 3.13% French Canadian [the French history is a bit more complicated.] That's pretty darned Irish for a fifth generation American.

Recently, my father said he wanted to take an Ancestry DNA test and asked me to order him one. Since this was something I'd been wanting to do myself for a while, I ordered two. We got the results back not too long ago and they were interesting to see. No, there wasn't any kind of family scandal -- my dad is my dad (and based on matches to an uncle and cousin, my mom is my mom.) What was interesting was the percentages that turned up. Knowing what I have uncovered about my father's side of the family, I had predicted he'd be mostly Irish with a bit of other British Isles thrown in since it would be unlikely he'd be 100% Irish. My predictions proved correct -- Dad's results came up 93% Irish (technically Ireland/Scotland/Wales) with a "very likely" connection to the Munster province of Ireland with "relatives who lived in this region in the past few hundred years." Dad's maternal grandparents were both born in County Cork which is part Munster, so that part is clearly correct. The rest of his test came up under "Low Confidence Regions" which showed the biggest chunk at 3% for Great Britain. So, yeah, my dad is Irish.

Well, what about my results then? I knew I'd be less Irish than my father since we know there is some German and French ancestry on my mother's side. Still, based on where I know people came from, I was pretty sure I'd still come up mostly Irish. My results turned up 83% Irish and 13% Great Britain. Like Dad, I showed a strong link to Munster which makes sense as in addition to the Coleman/O'Leary branch of my tree coming from County Cork, I have a great-great grandmother on my mother's side who was also from County Cork. County Tipperary is also part of Munster which is where the Dwyers come from, so that would also be included. What's most interesting though, is when you add up my dad's Ireland/Great Britain percentages and my Ireland/Great Britain percentages they total out the same -- 96%! So, yeah, I'm Irish too.

My "Low Confidence Regions" were a bit different than Dad's with 2% "Europe South" and 1% "Europe West" which is probably the French and German bits (though, oddly, Italy is the biggest land area for Europe South.) The fun stuff is in the trace amounts. Both Dad and I show up with less than 1% of Scandinavia (Vikings!), Dad comes up with less than 1% Middle East where I come up with less than 1% Caucasus which are overlapping regions and show the history of human migration.

The next task is to compare these results against other people who have taken the Ancestry DNA test to see if there are any relatives out there who might have more information on the family. There are a couple of promising results I've seen, but have yet to delve into them to see if they're worth pursuing.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Following Up on John Coleman's Children -- Aileen Gertrude Coleman

John and Sadie Coleman had five children who survived into adulthood. The second of their four daughters was named Aileen Gertrude Coleman and she was born in about 1904. Aileen has been an interesting relative to track down, and only in part due to having to separate her records from that of my grandmother's older sister Eileen Dolores Coleman who was born in 1907. I still haven't found a common Coleman ancestor to attribute the two cousins being so similarly named. The closest would be their grandmother Ellen Ross Coleman.

As with all of John and Sadie's children, there has been some challenge in finding out what happened to them over the course of their lives, a matter made more complicated by multiple name changes due to marriage and divorce. Aileen is no different. When I first found Aileen in the 1930 Census, she was listed as Aileen Myers and divorced. She and her son, Raymond (then 3 years old) had moved back home with her mother and siblings. In the 1940 Census, she is again living with her mother and son, but this time her name is Aileen Stiles. She is listed as married, but there is no husband living with her.

So now I had to set out to find two husbands for Aileen. Based on the information I had, I put an approximate timeline on her first marriage to be about 1925 and her divorce must have taken place between about 1927 and 1930. I dug around and eventually found a marriage record for Aileen's first marriage. She married Leslie Louis Myers on October 31, 1925 at St. Andrews Church in Oakland. Their son, Raymond Lester Myers, was born about six months later on May 2, 1926. Since it would appear Aileen was pregnant when she and Leslie Myers married, perhaps things fell apart because of the "shotgun wedding" aspect.

I started looking to see if I could find any record of their divorce and while I've yet to find a confirmed documentation for the date of their divorce, I did find the reason why. While searching through the Oakland Tribune for divorce notices, I found a couple of articles in January 1929 that indicated Leslie had been arrested for embezzlement. According to the January 7, 1929 edition of the Oakland Tribune, Leslie Myers had forged and sold $2000 worth of stock certificates while working as an assistant bookkeeper at the Montgomery and California Street branch of the Bank of Italy (which would later become the Bank of America) due to "destitute circumstances and illness of his wife and baby." He surrendered himself to the San Francisco police on January 5 and "told police he was a 'two-time embezzler,' having taken $1500 from an Oakland Loan company two years ago." Leslie was apparently on probation for the earlier embezzlement which was nearing it's completion as he had repaid most of the money he had stolen. (While the article doesn't state as much, I would imagine the repayments from his first embezzlement came from money he obtained from the second one.) A follow up article in the January 23, 1929 edition of the Oakland Tribune reported that Leslie Myers was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Sure enough, the next time I found Leslie Myers was in the 1930 Census in the federal prison at McNeil Island in Washington. His record shows him as married, so I'm guessing the divorce was in progress around the time of the census or the prison official who completed the census form did not have a current file on Leslie Myers marital status. Leslie Myers died in July 1977.

Now it was time to find Aileen's second husband, Mr. Stiles and determine what happened to him. Why isn't he living with Aileen in the 1940 Census? It's a little too early for him to have gone off to fight in World War II, though that could have been a possibility if he'd gone to Canada or the UK which were already involved in the fighting by then. I needed to back track then and see if I could find any record of an Aileen Stiles between 1930 and 1940. That's where the city directories and voter registries came in handy, and I eventually found Aileen Stiles in a 1932 voter register in Oakland. Mr. Stiles wasn't listed on that record, but there was another register for 1934 and this time I found her with her husband Nelson H. Stiles, a truck driver. The latest record I was able to find of them living together was a 1938 voter register. I went off to the newspapers then to see what I could find and I eventually turned up a notice of a divorce granted to Aileen Stiles from Nelson H. Stiles in the July 4, 1941 edition of the Oakland Tribune.

After her second divorce, Aileen went back to using the name Aileen Myers, presumably because that was the same last name as her son's. I'm still looking into Aileen to find out what happened to her after she divorced for the second time. Right now, I've been able to track her until about 1956 through city directories. I have yet to find a death record for her and I have found very little information on her son Raymond. So there a couple more puzzles to work out.

Reviewing Daniel P. Coleman's Service Record

I've been looking over the service record I found for my great grandfather Daniel Patrick Coleman in the Royal Naval Registers of Seamen's Services. It's been a bit slow going as there are a lot of pieces that are difficult to read and I still need to research what some of the abbreviations mean. I have been able to decipher the names of most of the ships he served on and when he served on them. I've also found a little bit of information on the ships (mostly from Wikipedia, so I know I need to do more in depth research, but there is useful information for starting points.)

According to the records, Daniel joined the Royal Navy in September 1875. He spent about a week on the HMS Revenge, which was a training ship. From October 1, 1875 to October 23, 1875 he was on another ship, but I can't make out the name on the record. He was then assigned to the HMS Ganges for three consecutive terms of service between October 24, 1875 and August 1, 1877. The Ganges was also a training ship.

On August 2, 1877 Daniel, now 17 years old, joined the crew of the HMS Shannon. According to Wikipedia, the Shannon was the first armored cruiser in the Royal Navy, but was a somewhat unsuccessful ship. In April 1878, the Shannon was sent to the China Station, but recalled in July 1878. According to Daniel's service record, he left the Shannon on August 31, 1878. He was then sent to the HMS Victor Emmanuel from September 1, 1878 through April 9, 1879. The Victor Emmanuel was a receiving and hospital ship stationed in Hong Kong at that time, which leads to some questions. If the Shannon was recalled to England in July 1878 and Daniel doesn't leave that assignment until August 31, 1878, how does he wind up on the Victor Emmanuel in Hong Kong on September 1, 1878? If the Victor Emmanuel is a receiving and hospital ship, why is Daniel there? Is he ill or is he waiting for his new assignment (receiving ships were a place for new recruits who were awaiting their assignments)? There is the family story that Daniel nearly died from malaria while in the Royal Navy, so spending seven months on a hospital ship would match up with that story. Of course, the story is that he contracted malaria while fighting in the first Boer War, but as of yet I can't prove he was in that war and he has a medal from the Third Burmese War, so it's possible that the stories got mixed and confused.

My best guess right now for the discrepancy between the Shannon departing the China Station in July 1878 and Daniel's service record is the Shannon was recalled in July, but didn't depart until the end of August. Either that or Daniel was left behind, but not removed from the list of names on board until August/September. This is definitely one period in the record where further research is needed.

After Daniel left the Victor Emmanuel, he was assigned to the HMS Iron Duke for about a month before joining the crew of the HMS Egeria from May 8, 1879 through October 11, 1881. There were a couple of disruptions in Daniel's time on the Egeria. He was sent back to the Victor Emmanuel for about a week in December 1879, so I'm guessing he needed medical services on the hospital ship. He also spent two stints "in the cells" first for 10 days in January 1881 and then for 14 days in April/May 1881. There is nothing in the record that indicates why Daniel was sent to the hospital ship nor "the cells" so I'll have to see if I can learn more about those incidents. Daniel's character is described as "good" for the most part on the Egeria, though there are a couple of notations of "fair" both appearing around the time he was sent to "the cells."

From October 12, 1881 through December 1881, Daniel was stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Station (listed as the N Barracks on his service record.) Daniel spent a couple of weeks of January 1882 on the HMS Duncan before transferring to the HMS Repulse on January 24. The Repulse was the guard ship at the naval base in Hull. Daniel served on the Repulse until August 31, 1883 before returning to the Duncan for a few months.

On January 10, 1884, Daniel joined the crew of the HMS Serapis which was a troop ship between England in India. According to the notes on Wikipedia, the travel time between the two countries took about 70 days. Allowing for time spent in port Daniel probably made two round trips.

On November 12, 1884, Daniel joined the crew of the HMS Ranger. The Ranger is the ship he served on during the Third Burmese War and was awarded the Burmah Medal. Daniel spent nearly three years on the Ranger until October 31, 1887. This is the second longest single assignment in Daniel's record and since the Ranger was involved in a war, that probably makes sense. This is another period of Daniel's service record that I need to spend more time researching.

Daniel left the Ranger and joined the HMS Cambridge on November 1, 1887. Again this was a short service time before he moved on to the HMS Excellent on Februrary 4, 1888. The HMS Excellent was a gunnery school training ship. Daniel spent most of 1888 on the Excellent before moving on to the HMS Amphion on December 10, 1888.

The Amphion is where the record gets curious. Daniel is listed as a member of the Amphion's crew from December 10, 1888 until February 4, 1890. It is from here that Daniel was "sent to Portsmouth to be dealt with summarily." There is no indication what or why Daniel was sent away, but there is a year gap between his last date on the Amphion and his next assignment on the HMS Duke of Wellington on February 10, 1891. That is followed by another gap in his record between March 4, 1891 and April 14, 1891. From Daniel's service time on the Egeria, I can guess that the gaps in service time are due to time spent in confinement for some kind of misbehavior. Whatever happened at the end of Daniel's time on the Amphion had him imprisoned for a little over a year. The notation for his character on the Duke of Wellington is listed as "fair", which after a year in prison is probably understandable, but there is no explanation why there is another six week gap after he leaves the Duke of Wellington.

On April 15, 1891, Daniel is serving on the HMS Victory I, which was the Naval School of Telegraphy, so whatever caused the gap in service time did not prevent Daniel from moving on to an assignment that would give him more skills to be used during his military service time.

Daniel then moved on to the HMS Sans Pariel on August 1, 1891, which was part of the Mediterranean fleet. This was Daniel's longest assignment, lasting until April 17, 1895. During his time on the Sans Pariel, Daniel had another two brief stints "in the cells" -- one for 7 days in August 1894 and another for 5 days in October 1894. Despite these two incidents, his character is listed as "good" or "very good."

Daniel returned to the HMS Victory I on April 18, 1895, and that is the last fully legible entry on his record. There are two more listings after the Victory one, but the ships names are completely blacked out in the image and it would probably require seeing the original record to figure out what they were. Those two listings cover the dates September 1, 1895 to September 11, 1896 and September 12, 1896 to January 4, 1898. The last entry includes that he was discharged at his own request which was granted on December 17, 1897.

The next record I have in Daniel's chronology is his departure from Southampton, England on January 29, 1898 bound for New York on the ship Paris. I need to figure out what happened between Daniel's arrival in New York to when he first appears in San Francisco in the 1900 census, but that's a task for another day. There is also much more to figure out about Daniel's time in the Royal Navy. I want to know more about the ships he served on and where they were sent. I know from what I've found so far that Daniel spent time in Hong Kong, India, and Burma (now Myanmar) as well as being stationed in England. I definitely want to learn more about what got him sent to Portsmouth and I need to learn more about the Burmese Wars.

Following Up on John Coleman's Children -- Gladys Mae Coleman

In my last post, I covered what I had learned so far about my great grandfather's brother John Coleman and his wife Sarah (Sadie.)  I've also discussed one of his grandsons -- Robert F. Kerley -- in an earlier post.  This time I want to cover John and Sadie's oldest child and Robert's mother, Gladys Mae Coleman.

Gladys married Frank Patrick Elliott at St. Anthony's Church in Oakland on February 3, 1917.  (In another one of those weird coincidences, my great great grandmother Mary Manning Mullane had a cousin named Lizzie Quinlivan who was a housekeeper for the priests at St. Anthony's in the 1890s.)  At some point, Frank and Gladys moved to Ohio where their oldest son John was born in 1919.  I haven't been able to find a direct record for Frank or Gladys in 1920, but at least Gladys was in California by August 1920 as that was when their younger son Robert was born.

Gladys and Frank divorced at some point, but I've not yet found a record of their divorce.  I do know it happened prior to 1924 when Gladys shows up living in Oakland with her mother and siblings and has returned to using her maiden name in the city directories.  Gladys and her sister Marion both worked at Capwell's department store in Oakland.

On August 31, 1929 Gladys married Gordon Ernest Kerley in Oakland.  Gordon was born in Montreal, Canada in 1902 and emigrated to the US from Vancouver in about 1925.   Gladys and Gordon were living in San Francisco in the 1930 census, but Gladys's two sons John and Robert were living in Oakland with her mother Sadie.  In 1931, Gladys and Gordon had a son of their own, Gordon Henry Kerley.

By 1936, Gladys and Gordon had moved with all three children to Southern California and John and Robert Elliott were going by John and Robert Kerley.  I don't know if Gordon Kerley formally adopted John and Robert or if they just took their step-father's name.  I'm still following up on my research on all three of Gladys's sons.  Gordon E. Kerley died in 1961 in San Francisco.  Gladys died in Contra Costa county in 1988.  I suspect she was living with (or at least near) her son Robert Kerley who lived in Walnut Creek.

Learning More About the Colemans -- John James Coleman and Sarah Myers Coleman

My great grandfather Daniel Patrick Coleman had an older brother John James Coleman who also emigrated from Ireland to the United States. I first encountered John Coleman living in San Francisco in the 1900 US Census while looking for Daniel. According to the 1900 Census record, John arrived in the United States in 1877. I am still working on determining when and where John arrived in the US, but I do have some idea of what happened to him afterwards.

In about 1895, John married Sarah (Sadie) Myers, probably in San Francisco. By the 1900 census, Sadie had given birth to three children, but only two had survived -- Gladys Mae (b. 1896) and John James, Jr. (Jack, b. 1899). By the 1910 census John and Sadie had moved to Alameda and Sadie had given birth to four more children, again of which only two had survived -- Aileen Gertrude (b. 1904) and Marion (b. 1906.) John and Sadie's eighth child Noel Margaret Coleman was born in 1914. According to both the 1900 and 1910 censuses, John was a sailor. The 1910 census indicates he was a mate on a fishing vessel. By the 1920 census, Sadie turns up as a widow. I haven't been able to find a death notice for John, but based on the California Death Index, I believe he died in 1919. Sadie lived in Alameda County, mostly in Oakland, until her death in 1956.

John and Sadie's children have been challenging to follow in the records as three of their four daughters were married more than once, which means lots of name changes. The fourth daughter, Marion, I haven't been able to find any records for past 1933 as yet, so it's possible she too will prove to have challenging name changes. I've gotten some information on all five of John and Sadie's children, and will follow up with what I've found in later posts.

I am also planning to spend a bit of time looking in to Sadie's family. As I noted in an earlier post, Sadie's younger sister Gertrude Myers Alexander was a witness to my great grandparents' wedding in 1904, so while she is not a direct relative, she did play a role in the family history.

Crossing Paths with Cousins

Most of the research I've done to date has been on the Murray/Mullane side, so this year, I've decided to spend more time looking into the Coleman side of the family tree. One of the first things I'm looking in to is my great grandfather Daniel Coleman's brother John Coleman and his family. John Coleman married a woman named Sarah (Sadie) Myers and had five children that lived to adulthood. I've been working out who each of the children were, who they married, and if they had any children. It's been a bit complicated as it appears each of John's children were married multiple times, so I've had to go very slowly through their records. However, in doing so, I found an item that had me quite amused.

John and Sadie Coleman's oldest child was Gladys Mae Coleman. Gladys's first husband was named Frank Patrick Elliott and they married in 1917. Gladys and Frank had two sons, John and Robert.  In 1929, Gladys married a man named Gordon Ernest Kerley. I haven't discovered what happened to her first husband Frank, but it appears that Gordon Kerley adopted her two sons as they appear in the 1940 Census as John and Robert Kerley.

I haven't found out much yet about John Kerley, but I was able to find quite a bit about his younger brother Robert. After serving in World War II, Robert received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley and began a career in university administration. After stints at the University of Kentucky and Johns Hopkins University, Robert Kerley was appointed Vice Chancellor for Administration at UC Berkeley in 1970.

This is where I stumbled on one of those weird small-world occurrences. I found a copy of the University Bulletin for the Staff of the University of California on Google Books that detailed his appointment. The Bulletin read, in part:

"The appointment of Kerley to fill the important executive position on the campus was announced by President Hitch and Chancellor Roger W. Heyns following approval by the Regents."

[University Bulletin: A Weekly Bulletin for the Staff of the University of California, Volume 18, Number 37, 29 Jun 1970]

That sentence gave me a moment to pause and wonder because it contained the name of someone I knew. Roger W. Heyns was a founding board member of the SETI Institute where I have worked for 25 years. While I didn't know Roger well, I did get to know him a bit during his time on the board until his death in 1995. It was yet another reminder that the world is smaller than we would imagine it is.  

Robert Kerley died in 2006 and was survived by his wife and six children. I'm still following up on them, and hope to discover more about this part of the Coleman family tree.

Another Holy Cross Visit -- November 2015

It's fairly time consuming to head up to Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma to try to track down where all the many relatives I have buried there are located.  It helps tremendously that I have a list of locations from the Cemetery Index at SFGenealogy.com so have a list of where I need to go and which family members are buried near each other.  I always make a plan ahead of time as to which sections I'm going to visit and who I'm going to look for.  I had some time off last November, so I planned to spend a morning at Holy Cross.

For this visit, I planned to hit Sections J, K, and M which are more or less in the center of the cemetery.  I parked my car near the Priests Plot and paid a quick visit to Uncle Eddie and waved at Joe DiMaggio's grave in Section I before trekking through Section J looking for some of my Mullane relatives.

This was the first trip I remembered to stick my phone into my search bag (which usually contains gardening gloves, my camera, a bottle of water, a clipboard with my search list, and a gardening shovel in case uncovering a headstone requires a bit more work than my hands can manage) and it proved handy.  Section J is one of the older sections and the row numbering is somewhat perplexing.  After some cross-checking on the phone that I was headed in the right direction, I was able to find the grave I was looking for -- that of my great grandmother's brother Phillip J. Mullane and his wife and three children.  Phillip and Mary Agnes Greeley Mullane had four children, but only one lived to adulthood.  Edward, Nora/Norine, and Phillip Clayton are the only ones whose names appear on the headstone.

Next it was over to Section K to see if I could find Thomas Joseph Mullane and his mother Margaret Shanahan Mullane.  Margaret was married to my great grandmother's youngest brother Edward.  Edward is buried over in Section F with his parents and other family members, and based on what I've been able to find at SFGenealogy.com, it appears Thomas and Margaret are buried with some Shanahan relatives.  Unfortunately, I was unable to get properly oriented in this section and wasn't able to locate the grave.  It was particularly frustrating because my Theler great-great grandparents are also buried in Section K and I've located their grave previously and I couldn't find them either to help with my orientation.  I'll need to head back to find them.

I walked up the hill next to see if I would luck out in Section M and find a headstone for my grandfather's sister Mollie Murray Johnson.  I knew from a previous visit looking for her mother and sister in the section that there weren't a lot of headstones in this older part of the cemetery and that the ones that were there are much newer.  With so many rows containing very few headstones it was a trick trying to find the right approximate location.  I walked around the area I thought I should be looking for any headstone I could cross-reference on my phone and I couldn't find anything for Mollie.

Since it was a nice day and I had struck out on most of the folks I was looking for I decided I was close enough to walk up to the St. Rose of Lima section where several of my aunts are buried.  After saying hello to Helen, Diane, and Betty (all conveniently within a few rows of each other), I headed down the hill to the San Lorezno section and visit my aunt Pat and got my first look at my cousin Mark's headstone.  It was a little bit sad to walk through these sections as they all were people who impacted my life directly -- much more so than all of the other folks I had been looking for but had never met (or even knew about until recently!)  I miss them all.

As I headed back to my car I realized I was going to have to cut across Section G to get there, so I made my way down to Section G2 to make a quick visit with Nana and Grandpa Murray.  While this wasn't a particularly productive trip in locating ancestors, it was a nice way to spend a warm fall morning.

More Visiting Holy Cross Cemetery -- February 2015

In my last post I detailed a visit to Holy Cross Cemetery in October 2014 that was somewhat successful. In February 2015, I made another visit. This time I focused on Sections T, U, V, 4, and 5 which are in the north corner of the cemetery. This was a few more sections than I would normally cover in one visit, but they are all in fairly close proximity to each other and there are lots of family members buried there mostly between about 1920-1960. It was a particularly productive visit as nearly all the plots have a marker and there are family members on both sides buried there. I had located my Kenny great-grandparents in Section U on my second visit in 2012 and eventually found my Murray great-gandparents in Section U later that year. My Coleman great-grandparents are across the road in Section T. That puts three of my four sets of great-grandparents in the same general vicinity and gave me orientation points to find other family in the same sections.  

Patrick and Myrtle Mullane
are buried with relatives of
Patrick's wife Ellen
Mary Sullivan

Patrick's name is inscribed on the left
side of the marker

I hit Section T first as there was only one location to find there -- the site for Patrick Henry Mullane and his daughter Myrtle. Patrick was one of my great-grandmother Mary Mullane Murray's younger brothers. The headstone was very informative yet confusing since there were so many different names on it. I think I've figured out who everyone is  (or at least a best guess as is the case with the Comerfords) but I do have a mystery to resolve since Patrick's wife Ellen isn't buried in the same plot and I've as yet been unable to find out when she died or where she's buried.

My great-great grandmother
Bessie Gallagher Muckle
buried with her daughter
Theresa Muckle Epstine

Then I walked across the road to Section U where there are a bunch of relatives from my maternal side. My great-great grandmother was Elizabeth (Bessie) Gallagher and was born in County Roscommon, Ireland. She married Thomas Muckle who was born in County Down, Ireland. They spent most of their lives in Virginia City, Nevada and Tom died there. Bessie moved to San Francisco after his death with my great-grandparents.  She died in 1929 and was buried at Holy Cross. Her daughter Theresa Muckle Epstine was buried with her in 1937. The index at SFGenealogy.com indicates that Bessie is in grave 1 and Theresa is in grave 5 which has me wondering if there are other people buried in the plot that aren't in the database for some reason.

Kate Nowlan's daughter
Catherine Nowlan Delury
and family are between
Kate and Bessie

My great-great grandaunt
Kate Gallagher Nowlan
and her family a couple of
places to the right of Bessie

Bessie came to the United States with her two sisters Catherine (Kate) and Margaret (Maggie.)  Kate married Daniel Nowlan and also settled in Virginia City, Nevada before eventually winding up in San Francisco. Kate and Daniel Nowlan had five children and their daughter Catherine Nowlan married Daniel Delury. The Nowlans and Delurys are buried in the same row as Bessie Muckle and Theresa Epstine, so the three graves were easy to find as they were all side by side.

William Muckle and family.
William was my great-grandmother
Maggie Muckle Kenny's brother

A couple of rows away is another Muckle plot. This one is for another of Bessie Gallagher Muckle's children -- her son William Muckle and his family. William was my great grandmother Maggie Muckle Kenny's younger brother and he's buried with his wife and three children.

 My last stop in Section U was to look for the younger of my grandmother Audley Kenny Dwyer's two older brothers -- Harry Kenny and his wife Ethel. I'm pretty sure I located the where they are buried, but there wasn't a headstone. I'll need to go back and bring my phone to help double check. Harry and Ethel are buried with Ethel's daughter Merle Williams and mother Laura S. Glanville.

Daniel E.Delury and family.
Daniel was my grandmother
Audley Kenny Dwyer's second cousin

Ellen O'Leary Ford and family
Ellen was my great-grandmother
Lizzie O'Leary Coleman's sister

Next it was over to Section V where there was some more mixing of my families. I first found more Delurys in row 13 -- Daniel E. Delury, the grandson of Kate Gallagher Nowlan and son of Catherine and Daniel Delury, is buried with his wife Hazel and daughter Margaret. Over in row 14 and a few plots down I found my great-grandmother Lizzie O'Leary's older sister Ellen O'Leary Ford buried with her husband John and daughter and son-in-law Catherine Ford Dwyer and Edward Ambrose Dwyer.

Barbara Jane and her father
Douglas S. Evans
Barbara is my mother's third cousin

Jane Delury Evans is buried
next to her husband and daughter.
Jane is my grandmother's second cousin

This part of my trip was hugely productive and I found all of these folks relatively quickly. I headed then up the hill to Sections 4 and 5. My first stop was some more descendants of Kate Gallagher. Her granddaughter Jane Delury Evans is buried there. Jane Delury Evans's husband Douglas and daughter Barbara Jane are buried in the plot next to her.

Joe and Pauline Kenny

A few rows away, my grandmother Audley Kenny Dwyer's oldest brother, Joseph B. Kenny, Jr. is buried with his wife Pauline. My grandmother and Joe had a falling out somewhere along the line so my mother doesn't have a real memory of him other than family stories. Joe died in 1958, not long after Harry died in 1950. I don't have any memory of my grandmother speaking about either of her brothers so they've always been kind of mysterious people to me. That's why I was surprised to find that Joe's wife Pauline lived until 1985 and was living in Burlingame when she died. I grew up not far away in Millbrae and went to high school in Burlingame.

I continued up to Section 5 before heading home for the day. My first stop was to find John J. Coleman, Jr. and his wife Mildred. Jack Coleman was my grandmother Elizabeth Coleman's first cousin -- the son of my great grandfather's older brother John. Jack may actually be John Coleman, IV as my great-great grandfather's name was also John and if I have identified HIS father correctly I have four generations of John Colemans in a row. Jack Coleman was about 13 years older than my grandmother Elizabeth and worked as a clothing salesman. Mildred was actually his second wife and I've yet to learn much more about them. Jack died in 1979 in San Rafael. Mildred lived until 2002.

Margaret Coleman Madigan and
her husband Mike. The marker was a bit
overgrown and I had
to pull up some grass and dirt to read it.

My last stop on this visit was to my grandmother's sister's grave. Margaret Coleman Madigan is buried in Section 5 with her husband Michael. Mike died in 1961, well before I was born, but Aunt Margaret lived until 1999 so I have many fond memories of her. Margaret was my grandmother's younger sister and they were very close until Nana's death in 1973. I still have a few memories of Nana, but none of them are a sense of her personality since I was only four and a half when she died. Aunt Margaret gave me a good sense of what Nana's personality was probably like as all my father's siblings agree they were like two peas in a pod. She was a warm and loving lady and I miss her vivacity. 

This was definitely my most productive trip to date as I was able to locate all of these graves in about an hour.  It definitely helped that they were all so close to each other!