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! 

More Photos

I've been in the process of setting up a new computer this week, so didn't upload all the pictures I received from Letty and Cici (partly because I needed to install a new scanner to copy a few of them.) Here are the rest with what information is available. I have uploaded them as I received them save for some minor cropping of white space. I plan on cleaning up what I can of them (saved as a revised version!)

Lizzie O'Leary (standing) with
her sister Polly and mother Mary
about 1903 Ireland

John Alexander Coleman
1905-1913
Daniel & Lizzie's oldest child

Daniel J. Coleman (Uncle Dan)
about 1920

Eileen, Lizzie, Daniel J.
& Elizabeth (Bess) Coleman

Margaret, Daniel P., &  Lizzie Coleman
aboard ship about 1920

Margaret, Daniel P., & Lizzie again

Daniel J. & Elizabeth (Bess) Coleman
(we won't ask what Nana did to her hair)

Family Photos

Growing up I spent a lot of time at my maternal grandparents' house, which had a large room downstairs off the garage.  When my mother was growing up, this room belonged to her two brothers, but I knew it as the family room where Grandma kept a lot of the toys for her many grandchildren. When my grandparents converted it from a bedroom to a family room, they hung a variety of pictures on the wall. Most of the pictures were early photographs of their parents and grandparents. I never really knew who was who in those pictures, but I always knew they were family and the stories related to the various people pictured.

After my grandparents and my grandaunt Elise (my grandfather Dwyer's sister) passed away, my mother's older brother and cousin started going through the family photo albums and scanning pictures for the rest of the family to share. So over the years I've acquired copies of pictures of my grandparents as children (though mostly of my grandfather), my mother and her siblings throughout the years, and so forth and so on. There are lots and lots of pictures of the Dwyer side of my family.

The Murray side, however, is a completely different scenario. For most of my life I've only ever seen about a dozen photographs of anyone on my father's side of the family that were taken before my parents were married. There are a couple of pictures of my dad in high school, a few more from when he was in the army, a picture of Nana and Grandpa Murray taken when my uncle Ed was ordained a priest, another of my father and three of his four brothers taken when my dad was about five, and one or two of my father’s brother Dan after a hunting trip. That’s it. The Dwyer family was big on photography. The Murray family, not so much, and for all I knew there were no other photographs.

At this point in the story, it has become necessary to talk about living people. When I started this blog, I decided not to name any living people, however the narrative starts getting confusing if I keep referring to several people as “cousin.” For this reason, I will be using aliases when referring to living relatives as I continue the story.

About five years ago, however, my father's cousin Letty sent some pictures to Uncle Eddie. He asked one of my cousins to duplicate them for the rest of the family, and suddenly I had about a half dozen new photographs. They look to have been taken in about 1942, based on the one shot with my father in it. There are two pictures that are particularly good. The first is of Nana and Grandpa Murray who are in their late 20s and standing arm in arm in front of the summer rental house they were staying in. The second photo is of my great grandmother Lizzie O'Leary Coleman with Grandpa Murray, my father, and his two older brothers Ed and Dan. Lizzie is wearing a hat in the picture, which makes it difficult to see her face, but it’s nice to see a picture of my grandfather as a young man and my father sucking his thumb!

Lizzie O'Leary & Daniel  
Coleman (seated)
on their wedding
day in 1904

These new found photos are precious to me, and I have the two I mentioned framed and hanging on my living room wall. Then about two months ago, my father's cousin Cici, with whom I have been corresponding about my Coleman/O'Leary research, sent me a scanned file of a photograph of Lizzie O'Leary and Daniel Coleman on their wedding day! Holy smokes!  There are more photographs!

Lizzie O'Leary on her wedding day

When I told her I had received the photo with out any problems, she sent me several more. I have also been in contact with Letty about my research and she too sent me some photos, in this case, hard copies. Some of the pictures I received from Letty were duplicates of the ones I received from Cici, but all told, I now had about a dozen photographs from about 1900-1920 of my Coleman relatives! Wow!

Lizzie O'Leary Coleman 
at her house in Bernal Heights 

Granted, photography has only been around for a little over 150 years and mass-produced cameras weren't readily available until the end of the 19^th century, but it is amazing what having a photograph of someone can inspire. The questions about who the person was, what did she do for a living, what was life like for him, and so much   more just multiply when you have an image of a relative long past. Having these few family photographs further cements that these people existed and had lives and hopes and dreams like we all do and that they aren't just stories of forgotten ghosts.

 

The Colemans on board ship circa 1920
Uncle Dan, Lizzie,
Aunt Margaret (on Lizzie's lap),
Daniel, and Nana

Aunt Eileen & Uncle Dan
I'm guessing their
First Communion
circa 1915

Back to Holy Cross

Two trips to Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma and I hadn’t been able to find my great grandparents Marshall and Mary Murray. I had been told at the office they were buried in Section V, but I could not find them and trying to figure out the section numbering was beyond frustrating. Then a couple of weeks ago I discovered that the folks at SFGenealogy.com had a searchable database of Holy Cross Cemetery available for 1887-2001. I plugged Marshall and Mary in and up popped their records – in Section U! No wonder I couldn’t find them! I entered in the names of various other family members buried at Holy Cross over the past 100 or so years and they all turned up where I expected them to and I logged the specifics for some where I only had the section noted.

My great grand parents
Marshall and Mary Murray

So I headed back up to Holy Cross with a list of names and gravesites to find. I knew that my Kenny great grandparents were also in Section U and from the database they were in Row 14, Grave 134. Marshall & Mary were in Row 23, Grave 59. Mom had shown me where the Kennys were on our last visit so I parked near their graves and counted down the aisle until I got to grave 59. Then I made a right turn and counted rows up until I hit row 23. I was only off a couple of markers and there were Marshall and Mary – finally!

Aunt Eileen & Uncle Bill Doheney

My list for section U also included my grandmother’s sister Eileen Coleman Doheney and her husband Bill. They were fairly easy to find right along the road at the top of the section. Aunt Eileen and Uncle Bill are buried with Uncle Bill’s sister Gertrude and mother Annie.

Nana’s aunt Ellen O’Leary Ford and her husband John Joseph Ford are buried in Section V with their daughter Catherine and her husband Edward Ambrose Dwyer. It was a pretty hot day, so I only did a cursory look for the Fords in Section V and will go back to look for them another day.

My father's younger brother
Jackie Murray who died at age 2

Next it was over to the children’s section to look for my father’s younger brother Jackie (John Joseph Murray.) I’d bypassed this section on previous visits since I only had a general section and not a row and grave number. It’s very sad walking through the rows and seeing lives ended so young. I found Jackie’s grave in fairly short order.

My father's second cousin
Mary Catherine Ford

Since the children’s section is close to the newer crypts where my father’s second cousin Mary Catherine Ford was buried, I walked down there too. Mary Catherine was the daughter of Arthur Patrick Ford and died of cancer in 1999 at the age of 58.

I’ve found several other relatives in the on line database and will make another trek up to Colma in the coming months to document their locations. The database was able to clear up a couple of mysteries. Nana had an older brother John who died as a child. I knew it was sometime between the 1910 census (where John appears) and 1918 when Aunt Margaret was born, but didn’t have a specific date. It turns out that John died in 1913 and is buried with his parents. The database also helped confirm a marriage record I’d found for Catherine Ford Dwyer – in Washington DC! No wonder I was having problems finding her husband in San Francisco. I’m not sure if Edward Dwyer died in San Francisco or in the Washington DC area, but at least I’ve got a name and date to help figure it out! Finally, I have a suspicion that my great grandmother’s brother, Arthur O’Leary might have lived in San Francisco as he was mentioned in Ellen O'Leary Ford's death notice. There are several Arthur O’Learys buried at Holy Cross, four who died after Ellen in 1932. Two of those four show up in the CA Death Index from 1940-1997, and one of those two was born outside of the US. I’ll need to do a bit more digging there also, but it’s a place to start.

Baptismal Records

In looking for the O'Learys in Ireland, I had found extracted birth/baptismal records for my great grandmother Elizabeth O'Leary and seven siblings. Having only expected to find four siblings, I was surprised to say the least. Since these records weren't originals, but a database of copied records, I wanted to see if there was any chance of finding the original records (without having to fly to Ireland since that's not going to happen any time soon.)

Early on in my searching I had found an Irish genealogy site that had some church records scanned but since at the time I didn't have enough information to make the site useful I just bookmarked it as a resource that might come in handy at a later date.  I forgot all about that site until I found a website called "Irish Genealogy Tool-Kit." What a great resource! It has lots of information and sent me back to the site I'd found months before with the church records. I expect to reference that site quite a bit as I move forward.

The Irish Genealogy website is hosted by the Minister of Arts of Ireland and has a collection of pre-1900 church records for just three of the Republic of Ireland's 26 counties plus the city of Dublin. Luckily for me, County Cork is one of the three counties! (Carlow and Kerry are the other two.) Using the information I got from Ancestry.com, I started plugging in the names and dates for Lizzie O'Leary and her siblings. I had much better luck here than I did with the Irish Census records and found the following:

Baptism of John Leary, 16 January 1865. Parents: Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors: Patrick Leary and Hannah Ford. Parish/Church/Congregation: Ballinhassig.

Baptism of William Leary, 14 February 1867.  Parents: Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors:  Daniel Murphy and Eliza Looney. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Ballinhassig.

Baptism of Ellen Leary, 6 April 1869. Parents: Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors: John Leahy and Ellen Coleman. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Ballinhassig.

Baptism of Edmund Leary, 25 December 1870. Parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors: Edmund and Margaret Leary. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Ballinhassig.

Baptism of Eliza Leary, 19 March 1873. Parents: Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney.  Sponsors:  Timothy Riordan and Mary Looney. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Ballinhassig.

Those records match up fairly closely with the records I found on Ancestry, most being within a day or two of the birthdate shown in those records. I've yet to turn up records for Polly (Mary), Jeremiah, or Daniel, but the records I found provided additional information I can use in my searches. Taking a look at the sponsors names there appear to be at least four, and probably five, additional family members -- Patrick Leary, Eliza Looney, Edmund Leary, and Margaret Leary. The second Mary Looney is the only one that's puzzling. I suspect it's a sister-in-law or cousin of my great great grandmother Mary Looney as it's not likely that she was both mother and godmother to my great grandmother Elizabeth, but I don't know that for certain. It could even be a clerical error by the priest who recorded the baptism.

Having found some of the O'Learys, I thought I'd also look for the Colemans and see if they turned up at all. In the stories told by Aunt Margaret, her father Daniel Coleman had a half-brother named Bartholomew who also moved to San Francisco. I'd found a death record for him that indicated his mother's maiden name was Cosgrove, and when I searched on his record at Ancestry.com I turned up two brothers, Michael and Cornelius, in the birth and baptisms database. So I was looking for six Coleman siblings, my great grandfather Daniel, his brother John, his sister Margaret and three half-brothers. I turned up the following information (as transcribed):

Baptism of Dan Coalman, 21 March 1860. Parents: J--- Coalman and Ellen Roes.  Sponsors: Ned Coalman and Johann McDonna. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Courcey's Country or Ballinspittal.

Baptism of Ellen Coalman, 20 November 1861. Parents John Coalman and Ellen Moss.  Sponsors: Jeremiah Donoghue and Mary Coveney. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Courcey's Country or Ballinspittal.

Baptism of Michal Coleman, 22 July 1867. Parents John Coleman and Eliza Colgrave.  Sponsors: Bartholomew Coleman and Margaret Mudge. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Courcey's Country or Ballinspittal.
  
Baptism of Cors Thos Coleman, 27 December 1868. Parents John Coleman and Eliza Cosgrave.  Sponsors: Maurice Cosgrave and Mary Murray. Parish/Church/Congregation:  Courcey's Country or Ballinspittal.

As you can see, some of the spelling is a bit off and there are some transcription conflicts.  I took a look at the attached records and Ellen "Roes" and "Moss" look to be Ellen Ross, which was my great great grandmother's name. (The writing on some of the records was atrocious!) The transcription for Eliza "Colgrave" also looks more like Cosgrave in the image. I couldn't find a record for John Coleman Jr. or Bartholomew. The only sister I turned up was named Ellen, not Margaret, so I don't know if there was another sister or if the there's another name conflict. According to the records I've found for Bartholomew, he was born in 1880 and there were only about 40 recorded baptisms in the 1880s for anyone named Coleman (or Coalman) so I suspect Bartholomew's record hasn't been digitized yet since most of the other decades have upwards of 500 Coleman records. Either that or it's been lost to time, though the extracted record I found on Ancestry would seem to indicate there's some kind of record available.

So, again, I have more information to sort through and follow up on. The baptismal dates again match up fairly closely with the records I've found on Ancestry. Daniel Coleman's is the only one that's a little odd as I've found birth dates from 1860-1878 for him, but I've consistently found March 17 so I'm fairly confident in the record. (And I know the 1878 record is wrong as it's from the 1920 census which shows him as age 42 and Lizzie as age 41 and I've always known he was about 10 years older. Most of the other records have him born between 1860-1866.) 

I am very pleased at the progress I've made on the Coleman/O'Leary side of the family in the last two months. There is much much more to sort through and uncover, but that will be true every time I learn something new since each new item uncovered tends to bring along other questions that need answers.

Other O'Learys

After having found some O’Leary relatives in California, I went to look back to see what I could find in Ireland. I had learned that my great great grandparents were Jeremiah O’Leary and Mary O’Looney, so I plugged those names into my family tree and did a search of Irish birth records looking for my great grandmother Elizabeth O’Leary. What I had been told by Aunt Margaret was that Lizzie had two brothers and two sisters, so I expected to find some siblings when I searched on Lizzie’s name. What I didn’t expect was to find was SEVEN siblings!

The Irish Births and Baptisms database I found on Ancestry.com let me search for children of Jeremiah O’Leary and Mary O’Looney born between 1865 and 1885. My first searches came up with too many names to easily sort through, so I narrowed my search to include only children whose father’s first name was Jeremiah and were born in county Cork. That gave me a much shorter list to look through and what I found was the following:

John Leary, born 16 Jan 1865, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

William Leary, born 12 Feb 1867, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Ellen Leary, born 4 April 1869, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Edmund Leary, born 23 December 1870, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Eliza Leary, born 18 March 1873, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Mary Leary, born 29 April 1876, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Jeremiah Leary, born 1 September 1877, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Leary Looney

Daniel Leary, born 25 June 1880, Ballincolby, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney Leary

I didn’t find an Arthur O’Leary as referenced in Ellen’s death notice, but now there were five names that didn’t match up with the information I had. I had Lizzie’s two sisters as Ellen and Polly, but this shows them as Ellen and Mary. Based on my experience with Mary/Mollie Murray, I suspect Mary is Polly’s given name. So, that would explain the sisters.  What about all these brothers though? There are five when I expected to find only two, and only one matches up with the names I had. It’s possible that Arthur is one of the brothers I’ve found who went by a different (middle?) name or there’s one more sibling I’ve yet to find. The birthplace definitely matches up with the family history and the dropping of the “O” in O’Leary and O’Looney isn’t anything surprising, so I’m sure I’ve got the right family.

Well this is a surprising find indeed. A good thing to do then would be to check the Irish censuses. One small problem with that however – there is no census information available for Ireland prior to 1901. The records were all destroyed. Fantastic. The other issue is that these records I’ve found are extracted records. That means that volunteers copying from microfilm and other original records compiled the database but there isn’t a way to view the original records directly on line (at least that I’ve found yet.) It’s quite possible that some of these records are transcribed incorrectly.

I’ve yet to go completely through the two Irish censuses that are available for 1901 and 1911, but I have found what I believe are records for Jeremiah and Mary in 1901 and another record in 1911. According to the 1901 census, Jeremiah O’Leary was 76 years old and working as a farmer. Mary O’Leary was 58 and their daughter Mary (Polly?) was 21. That is four years younger than the Mary/Polly I found in the baptismal records, but close enough to probably be the right family. There were also 11 lodgers/boarders living with the family. Two soldiers and their wives, one with a daughter; three men that I’m guessing were farm hands (their occupations are listed as “groom” and “joiner”); and a young widow and her two children. The original form lists the O’Learys with the “O”, however Jeremiah signs the form as the head of the family, and he omitted the “O” in his signature. That would match up with the baptismal records then.

I couldn’t find Jeremiah in the 1911 census, so I looked for Mary. I found a Mary O’Leary living in Ballincollig who was listed as age 73 and is a widow living with her daughter Marianne, age 30. Again, the ages are a bit off, so I’m not completely certain. Also, according to the record, this Mary O’Leary had given birth to six children and all six were still living. I found eight children, so that’s a conflict. This Mary is working as a shopkeeper, so I’ll have to puzzle this one out a bit. And, of course, I'll have to see if I can find the five O'Leary brothers in the Irish Censuses.

A few other things to consider. According to Aunt Margaret, Lizzie’s brother Jeremiah fought in World War I. He was born in 1877. World War I started in 1914 when he would have been 37 years old. That seems a bit old to be joining the military. It’s possible he was already in the military when the war broke out. I should probably add studying Ireland’s involvement in World War I to the list of things I need to learn more about. Also, one of these brothers is the father of Dennis O’Leary whose wife and twin daughters were invited to my parents’ wedding in 1965, but which one?

As always, answering one question opens up the door to many more questions. I look forward to delving more into these.