Update on Neil McNulty/Frank Raymond

I’ve mentioned in a previous post that there is a strong evidence that husband of Nellie Bradley (the daughter of John Bradley and Mary A Keenan, and my children’s 4x great-aunt) Neil McNulty changed his name to Frank Raymond sometime between 1888 and 1900. The family are listed as McNulty in 1880 census and their three boys were born in 1880, 1882 and 1886 with Neil McNulty listed as their father, but in 1900 census their names have changed. The full story is here:

https://mychildrensancestors.wordpress.com/2018/01/01/what-happened-to-neil-mcnulty-nellie-bradleys-husband/

I’ve since had a lucky break that was the final proof I needed that Neil McNulty and Frank Raymond were the same person. During one of my general searches I came across a second newspaper obituary for Nellie’s mother – Mary A (Keenan) Bradley, that listed among the pall-bearers her three grandsons Frank Raymond, Harry Raymond and Patrick McManus. (John Bradley’s name is misspelt as Broderick but this is the correct obituary as date matches, as well as address of her daughter – 98 Cowper St)

Source: Newspapers.com – The Boston Globe – 1909-07-13 – Page 11

When exactly, and why, did Neil McNulty change his name – I’m still not sure, but I’ve traced few living descendants of his sons Frank and Harry, so one day I may contact them and see if they know more about it.

When the brick walls start crumbling down

I’ve written about the Keenan ancestors before – Owen Keenan (c. 1793, Ireland -1856, Glasgow) is my children’s 5x great-grandfather and he was married to Helen/Ellen Mullen (c.1801, Ireland – 1864, Glasgow). Their children were all born in Ireland and the first record of them I’ve found was in Glasgow in the 1851 census. I’ve been trying to find out where the Keenans came from, building trees for any DNA matches with Keenans in their trees, or any other Keenans in Glasgow or Boston.

The break-through came few days ago, when the admins of a newly-established Scottish genealogy forum https://scottishgenealogyhelp.jcink.net/index.php offered a look up at the Glasgow archives (this is an excellent group, so if you have Scottish ancestors make sure you join!)

I’ve known about the Poor Relief records held there for a while, but unfortunatelly none are online, so a look up needs to be done in person. Those records are exceptionally detailed listing dates/places of birth, previous addresses, details about family members and much more! Luckily they got a hit on one of the children of Owen and Hellen – Peter Keenan, who filed an application for relief in 1894. And the neighbours could probably hear my excitement when I got the message to say it listed the parish where Peter was born – “Rosslee, Co. Monaghan”!!!

Rosslea is a parish on the border of Co. Monaghan and Co. Fermanagh (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosslea) and is currently in Northern Ireland, but the older BMD records for the area are registered in Clones, Co. Monaghan.

Even though I’ve narrowed down the parish in Ireland, there still seems to be more Keenans there than I can count, but at least I know where to focus on from now on!

And just to give you a flavour of the detail contained in the Relief applications, here are two snapshots (love their beautiful handwriting!) The first one is from the original application in 1894, the second is follow up from couple of years later – Peter seems to have applied for medical relief each year and given “a bottle of medicine”. It shows his son Charles is in Philadelphia, which I didn’t know – he is back to Glasgow by 1901, lists the spouses of Margaret and Elizabeth, and also that by 1896/7 poor Francis was paralysed.

Huge THANK YOU again to Andrew Fletcher and Granny Begbie from TRULY SCOTTISH GENEALOGY for finding this treasure!

Where in Ireland are my children’s Mullen ancestors from?

Ellen Mullen was my children’s 5x great-grandmother, and I know very little about her. She was born c.1800 in Ireland, married Owen Keenan, also from Ireland, her children were born in Ireland and the family moved to Glasgow sometime between 1843 (the birth of their last known child in Ireland) and 1851 (listed in the Scottish census living on Possil Rd).

Ellen died in 1864 in Glasgow, and unfortunatelly her death certificate lists no details about her parents. It is unlikely I’ll ever find paper records going so far back, but what I’m hoping for is a good theory by utilizing DNA.

I’ve written about using DNA to support paper genealogy before (click on the link to see the full post), and I’ve linked many DNA KEENAN cousins to the tree built with paper records. I’m confident that Ellen Mullen and Owen Keenan are my children’s ancestors based on both paper trail and DNA cousins.

It is likely that Ellen and Owen are from the same town in Ireland, so I’ve decided to try and track the MULLEN line uisng DNA matches, and see if I get any more information. (I have an older relative on this line who has tested, so using his results as a base)

The top unknown match in the 4-6th cousin category happens to be a Mullen, 58cM over 3 segments. She has a large well documented tree, and what caught my eye is her great-grandfather Bernard Mullen was born in 1847 in Prince Edward Island and died in 1886 in Boston, MA. Some of Ellen Mullen and Owen Keenan’s children also moved from Glasgow to Boston through Prince Edward Island, with one sibling living in PEI for some time.  Bernard Mullen’s parents were Peter Mullen and Catherine Murray, both from Ireland. So while it may be a coincidence, there is also a strong possibility that Ellen Mullen is closely related to Peter Mullen, maybe even a sibling or 1st cousin. (I also know that this match relates somewhere along my Keenan line of futher back from the matches in common, so Mullen connection fits perfectly)

Next I looked at ICW (in common with) matches and tried to see if there are any other decendents of Bernard Mullen among the DNA matches. I found two more, both decending through another of Bernard’s children – Thomas Leo Mullen (1884-1922). While this is not a proof, it is an indication I’m likely in the right direction.

The next steps are usually:

1. Look at the ICW any of the yellow matches and see if I can link them to the tree of Peter Mullen (or my tree, if I’m lucky!) – nothing obvious came up here but there are few fow who I’ll have to build trees. All these matches are likely related on the Mullen line.
2. Search for any DNA matches  – the list was massive and no obvious connections to either Mullen families, so will have to go through this person by person when I get more time. There are some other Mullen families in other locations in USA, so will follow up on these too. There is no guarantee that these matches are actually related on the Mullen line.
3. This is a more unusual approach I use – search for ancestry trees that contain let’s say Bernard Mullen, then look for the owners of the tree and if they are direct decendent, and if so – if they are a DNA match. This is again sometimes like looking for a needle in a haystack, but allows to find possible siblings of Bernard and their decendents. Records for siblings may also contain details about the parents. I’m still working through them but so far nothing interesting has come up.

There is more work to be done, and unfortunatelly I still don’t know how the two Mullen trees connect, but based on DNA and other similarities, I’d guess connection is close.

One possible future task is to find a Mullen male decendent of Peter or Bernard Mullen and see if he agrees to do a Y-dna test, and try to pinpoint the location in Ireland that way.

Edited: I’ve since linked another DNA match who is a grand-child of Michael Mullen b.1851, brother of Bernard and son of Peter and Catherine Mullen. So I seem to be on the right track!

The pretty village of Bozeat, where the Hensmans lived

I haven’t written about my husband’s paternal side before but following our trip last week, I have many photos to share. Our surname is Hensman and my children Hensman ancestors used to live in Bozeat, Northamptonshire.

Arthur Hensman (1854-1930) is my children’s great-great-great-grandfather, who was born in Bozeat, the third youngest of ten children. His father was a farmer and sadly died in 1861 when Arthur was only 7. This may have been one of the reasons Arthur immigrated to New York as young adult and settled there.

We arrived in Bozeat quite late in the afternoon and headed straight for the village pub – the Red Lion in search for some food. The pub, or as it was at the time – “the inn” used to be run by Arthur’s great-grandfather John Gough (my children’s 6x great-grandfather!), also from Bozeat, and when he died in 1837 was taken over by his daughter Jane (Gough) Woolley. The Red Lion inn used to be the gathering place for the community, and often there were notices in the newspapers about auctions ran there.

     

The locals were very friendly and chatty, and one of the first things I quickly realised is that I’ve been pronouncing the name of the village completely wrong (should be /ˈboʊʒət/)!

The pub had this amazing map on the wall, which showed Bozeat in 1800s, it used to be mainly farms.

You can see the Red Lion Inn in the left part of the map. What you can’t see is the still-existing Hensman lane which is only two streets down from the Red Lion. It’s a pretty cool feeling seeing your name on a street sign 🙂

Seems like some of the original buildings may still be preserved! However, it doesn’t seem to be any Hensmans living there anymore. You can also see the locals really take pride in their village and homes, beautiful flowers everywhere.

At the very end of Hensmans lane is St Mary’s church – a beautiful building! It was locked but we looked around the gardens, and even spotted few familiar names on the gravestones. Unfortunately many of the stones were damaged by the weather over the years and letters were hard to see, so will have to follow up with the vicar and see if she has more information about who is buried where.

   

    

I think this may be the gravestone of Arthur’s great-grandfather John Hensman, but the stone is really hard to read to be sure. We found a Gough and a Woolley graves too.

It was an amazing trip, feels so great to finally visit in person the place I’ve been researching on Google maps, and to have a drink in the inn which ancestors ran nearly 200 years ago!

Photos: Liverpool – Toxteth (Cooper/Sweeney)

I did a previous post about Thomas Cooper and Catherine Sweeney in Liverpool, but since we visited Liverpool last week, we decided to try and find the church and street where they lived, and see them in person.

Thomas and Catherine got married in 1865 in Liverpool – I’m not sure when they went there and for how long, and the only clue to look for them there was in the birth certificates of their children born in Glasgow (Scottish BC list marriage details for the parents) The church where they were married, St. Patrick’s Chapel in Toxteth is still there but was locked up when we visited.

According to the marriage certificate both Thomas and Catherine lived on 12 Pleasant Hill Street.  We went to look at the street, but unfortunatelly all the even numbers were demolished and the street is boarded up. The odd numbers were still there,  however it seems all the buildings are likely post-war and not the original buildings from 1860s. Here are few photos of the place as it is today. I’m going to follow up with the city library and see if I can get more informations or old photos.

Update (17th Aug): Thanks to Mike Campbell for sending me this photo of Pleasant Hill Street from 1968!

Pleasant Hill Street towards the Royal Southern Hospital, 1968 – source “Old Photographs Of Liverpool Liverpool Picturebook” facebook page, accessed 17th Aug 2018

 

St Stephen’s church, North End Boston

Thanks to American Ancestors free access last week I decided to revisit their database looking for more documents for Richard McManus and his wife Catherine Bradley. The way one searches their site is not very intuitive, and could be quite frustrating, but after trying out few options, I was rewarded with their marriage record!

Richard and Catherine got married in St Stephen’s church, which according to Google is located on 401 Hanover Street. Beautiful church, and it is still there!

St Stephen’s church, 401 Hanover Street, Boston. Image source: Wikipedia

I was particularly interested in the witnesses listed as I was hoping they may be new relatives I could further research, but unfortunately the names do not sound familiar: John J Bench and Mary O’Neil(e).  I’m not sure if they are relatives or family friends, and haven’t been able to find anything further about them.

1873 Marriage of Richard McManus and Catherine Bradley, source: American Ancestors website

Richard and Catherine’s oldest child was born a year later, however I can’t find him in the church register in this church, or any other church in Boston. I also can’t find any other births, marriages and deaths listed for either the Bradley or McManus family.

The only other record I found, again in St Stephen’s is the baptism of Catherine’s youngest sister – Rachel Bradley in 1871. She was the only sibling born in Boston (older siblings were all born in Scotland)

1871 Baptism Rachel Bradley, source: American Ancestors

Unfortunately, again, I don’t recognise the names of the sponsors – Hugh Quigly and Margaret M’Kenna, so I’ll have to dig deeper.

I’m still trying to find out at which church did Richard and Catherine’s baptise their children, and at which church did her sisters marry in 1879.

When DNA proves your paper genealogy

I love DNA for genealogy research! And love when it all aligns and supports all the paper trail. Here is how I use it…

Let’s look at one of my favourite branches of the tree, the KEENANs. Favourite, because they’ve caused me so much headaches, I’ve grown to love them! I’m still missing many records, and there have been so many inconsistencies in the records I’ve found – I have people appearing in census after they died, people appearing in census in the same year once with their spouse and once with the family of a child, ancestor re-marrying while she was still married after abandonding her family, her sister’s husband completely changing his name out of the blue… then when his wife died, he re-married her cousin, just to give me extra headache trying to figure it out 🙂 It has truly been challenging but fun researching them, and I’m sure there are still many surprises to be uncovered there.

But thanks to DNA I’m now more comfortable that I’ve been on the right track. Here is a list of some of Owen Keenan and Ellen Mullen’s decendents (they had five children), the yellow boxes represent people who have done a DNA test and who match my husband and a known relative. There is obviously more work behind the scene, but visually you can see – there are a lot of cousins there, and everything seems to align as expected.

Now, only if I can figure out where in Ireland did Owen and Ellen come from…

DNA decendents of Owen Keenan and Ellen Mullen (click to see larger version)

On a side note – ancestry DNA tests are currently on offer – if you are interested in doing a test yourself, hurry up! (http://dna.ancestry.co.uk)

Was Philip McManus buried with the stranger James Peter Flynn?

Philip McManus (1867-1936) was the youngest child of John McManus and Jane Hegarty and brother of Richard McManus Sr, who emigrated to Boston. Philip is my children’s 3rd great-uncle. John and Jane McManus had the following children:

• John McManus (1842–1893) – married Mary Jane Henderson, lived in Derry.
• Richard McManus (1845–1907) – married Catherine Bradley, lived in Boston, died in NY.
• Catherine(1) McManus (1847–)
• Mary Jane McManus (1852–)
• Bridget McManus (1854–) – married Edward Doherty, lived in Derry.
• Charles McManus (1858–)
• Catherine(2) McManus (1861–)
• Margaret McManus (1863–1925) – married Daniel McDaid/McDade, lived and died in NY.
• Jane McManus (1866–)
• Philip McManus (1867–1936) – lived and died in Derry, never married.

Philip never married, and in 1901 lived at Fulton Place, Derry with his sister Bridget Doherty and her family, and their mother Jane. Next year his mother Jane passed away, and in 1911 census he is again with the Doherty family but they all have moved to St Columb’s Wells. Philip was a slater, the same as his brother-in-law Edward Doherty and few of the the other McManus men.

Philip died in 1936 and was buried in Derry City Cemetery in plot NB223. He is the first one in the plot, and there are six other family members buried there, last one in 1980.

The puzzling thing was the proprietor of the plot was “Frank Flynn of 15 Marlboro Avenue”

Flynn wasn’t a surname I’ve come across before in the tree, so went digging through newspapers, etc. and using the street address built a tree for him.

I’m pretty sure Frank is Francis Flynn b. 1905 in Belfast. His father was James Peter Flynn, police constable who was born in Dublin, married Elizabeth Mary Murphy who was born in England and had few children born in Belfast. As indicated in his obituary, he seem to have moved to Derry sometime after 1911 census, both 1901 and 1911 census have him in Belfast.

The strange thing is James Peter Flynn died on 26 Aug 1936, a day after Philip McManus, and Philip was the first person buried in the plot owned by his son!

So far I haven’t found any connection between the Flynn and the McManus families. The fact that both men died a day apart is very puzzling! Could they have buried Philip McManus, and his relatives later in the grave of a stranger, both first men buried in the same grave?? Or is it a mixup of cemetery records? I don’t know the answer yet.

Prefab houses come to Derry in 1946

I stumbled across this lovely photo of Annie (McManus) Warren – it’s from 1946 when Derry got their first pre-fabricated bungalowes (her initial is wrongly listed as E).

She was the first one to be handed the keys – look at that beaming smile 🙂

Will have to follow up and find out more…

Edited: very insightful comment below from my husband Arnie, her grandson – on her right is indeed her husband William Edward Warren. And the fact that he was in the military is probably relevant to them being one of the first to be accommodated.

Source: Londonderry Sentinel, 17th Oct 1946, p.4

 

Kavanagh – Sharkey connection?

This post is about another puzzle we haven’t been able to solve yet, but putting it out here, somebody from Derry may know the answer!

It started with the newspaper death notice below. Mike Campbell was researching his Sharkey ansestors when he came across it, and he messaged me about it as he saw this blog, and that I had Kavanagh ancestors.

You can see Mike’s own blog and post about it here: https://mikecam123.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/323/

He was wondering if I knew what the connection was – Charles Kavanagh is listed as Catherine Sharkey’s nephew, and he is also my husband’s 3x-great uncle. Both Charles and his brother Patrick lived on Bridge street for a while (Charles is listed living on Foyle street by 1901 and Miller street in 1911, while Patrick stayed on Bridge street for many years).

The death certificate for Catherine Sharkey shows she is 56 years old and never been married. So Sharkey must be her father’s name.

1889 death certificate for Catherine Sharkey, age 56, Bridge Street. Source: Website https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/

And here is the problem – Patrick and Charles parents were Charles Kavanagh and Mary Ann Begley.

The Sharkey name does appear few other times too –

• Sara Ann Charkey is  the godmother of Patrick Kavanagh in 1860,
• Francis Sharkey and Catherine Sharkey are the godparents of Charles Kavanagh in 1863 and
• Catherine Sharky is the godmother of John Kavanagh in 1864.

And finally, another member of the Sharkey family, Francis Sharkey, who died 1912 is buried in plot MC642 in Derry City Cemetery owned by Charles Kavanagh. This also suggests a close relationship between the Kavanagh and the Sharkey families.

However, we still don’t know how exactly do they relate!

(I’m also not 100% sure about the informant on Catherine’s death certificate – Bridget Fahan maybe? I can’t find anybody by that name around that time

Edited: There is a Bridget Graham living on Bridge street in 1901, maybe it’s her, not a relation so far.)