My Irish Ancestors

    Yesterday I wrote about my current projects. I did however leave off the work I'm doing on my Irish ancestors. I have names and dates for all of my 3xgreat-grandparents, except for the parents of my 4 Irish 2xgreat-grandparents. Each of them came from a different one of the 4 provinces of Ireland and I have only limited info on their exact birthplaces (important information to have when trying to go back into Irish records). The Kain's and the Kennedy's lived on adjoining farms in Clinton County, Iowa. 

 John Kain 1819-1893 Province of Ulster

    According to his Clinton County, Iowa grave marker, John was from Armagh, County Armagh. I have no info on who supplied that information, so it's something I need to look into. 

    The info I have on his birth date is very consistent across the years, 11 June 1819. 

    His first-born son was named Thomas, perhaps a clue to his father's name. 

    In 1860 and 1870 a David Kain, born in Ireland, was also iving in Clinton County, Iowa. In 1870, aged 60, he was living and working on the Hampshire Township farm of Catherine Fox, widow of Thomas Fox who may have been Mary Kain's brother (see below). The Fox/Kain connection supports the conjecture of a relationship between John and David Kain.  There are other Irish Kain's who appear in Clinton County records of that time, so these collateral lines are something that I can try to research. 

    I have paid for research to be done by Irish experts in County Armagh based on the info that I have and they could find nothing that was useful. Not a good sign.

 

Mary (Fox) Kain 1823-1819 Province of Connacht  

    Mary and John were married in 1848 in St. Louis, Missouri. The only source for her birthplace of Country Leitrim is her grave marker, which is also the source for her birth date of 20 September 1823. I do not have a name for a parish where she might have been baptized.

     I have no info of possible names for her parents.

    There are two possible brothers for Mary: Thomas and Patrick. A Thomas Fox was living in St. Louis at the same time as John and Mary. He moved his family to Clinton County just before John and Mary. He died in 1863 at the age of 44. There is also a Patrick Fox who was living with John and Mary in St. Louis in 1850. There are 2 Patrick Foxes living in St. Louis at that time; one was a teamster and the other owned a book shop. The teamster seems a more likely candidate to be Mary's brother.  I have researched his descendants ( a very interesting crowd) in the hopes of identifying a surname that shows up in my DNA matches. No such luck.

 

John Kennedy 1826(?)-1913 Province of Leinster

     According to John's Clinton County grave maker, he was from King's County (now County Offaly). I have a document of written notes from one of his descendants that gives his parish as Rosegray. There is a parish of Roscrea in that county, which may be  the one I want. I have not been able to find any records for his birth or baptism to date. His year of birth is very fluid. In 1850 he was possibly 25 and living in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In 1860 he was 35. In 1870 he was 44. In 1880 he was 53. In 1900 he was 65, 10 years younger than he should have been. In 1910 he was 83. At the time of his death in 1913, he was supposedly 93 years old. I think the earlier records are probably more accurate, 

    I know the names of his parents because he left money in his will for masses to be said in their remembrance and HE NAMED THEM right there in his will: Michael and Julia. A maiden name of Noland is given as his mother's maiden name on his death record.

    John has two siblings that appear in Clinton County: James and Mary. John's oldest son, Michael appears in a census record living with his uncle James Kennedy. Mary was married first to Stephen Lawler in Chicago. They later lived in Clinton County, where Stephen died. Mary then married a man named, wait for it, John Kennedy. Yes, that's right, she married a man with the same name as her brother. Her link to her brother is established by his living with Mary's daughter and listed as her uncle. Mary's description of her coming to America differs than the one for her brother. It is possible that the parents came to Chicago from Ireland with their children.

    As you can imagine I have a lot of avenues for research on this line, and so far nothing has turned up.

 

Hanora (Collins) Wallace Kennedy 1830-1888 Province of Munster

     Again the only evidence of where in Ireland she was born comes from her grave marker: Parish of Glenbrohane, County Limerick. Her birth date is given as 25 March 1830. 

    Mary was married to a man with the surname of Wallace in Ireland. They had one daughter in Ireland and one in America. Mr. Wallace probably died sometime shortly after the birth of his second child and Hanora married John Kennedy in Chicago in 1854, in the same church where Mary Kennedy married Stephen Lawler. Wallace's first name is given as John on one of his daughter's death records, but there is a marriage record for a Hanora Collins and a Thomas Wallace in County Limerick at the right time to be this couple. The informant for the death record may have confused her step-father's name for her father's.

    Again there are several possible line of research on Hanora.

 

Summary 

    I have included links to the WikiTree profiles for these four people. John Kain's is the only one that I have worked on cleaning up. The rest are on my Genealogical To Do List.

    As you can tell, I have a lot of research paths on my Irish ancestry. They will require more determination and focus that I can give them at this time. It may be left for future researchers to take up this work and take it forward. Hopefully I have left enough breadcrumbs.

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Back In the Saddle Again

The itch to write has been bugging me for too, too long. So here I am once again blogging about my family history research after a break of over 3 years.. Plus it's my 200th post, so why not? 

The biggest news recently is that my WikiTree profile of my great-grandfather William Frederick Ogden (mapapa) was awarded "Gold Standard: Genealogically Complete and Peer Reviewed." Yay for me! His profile was one that I did for the Profile Improvement Project in WikiTree. (A great and rewarding experience. Highly recommend.) I chose him for that project because I didn't feel I had enough info on him. Now I obviously have more than enough. 

I still have profiles for my paternal grandparents and my other 7 great-grandparents that are ready for Gold Standard review. I've gotten some feedback on a couple of them. It appears that the best thing for me to do is join the monthly "Go for Gold" challenge on WikiTree, submit one for the month, and see if I can get one profile accepted each month. 

Here the other family history projects I have on my plate right now:

• Application for Certificate of Canadian Citizenship. My great-grandfather William Ogden (see above) was born in Ontario. His parents were born in New Brunswick and Ontario. His paternal grandparents were born in New Brunswick. His other ancestors were born in Scotland or were Loyalists who moved to New Brunswick after the revolution. I think 5 ancestors born in Canada should be enough to qualify me.

•  Everard Huigen's (papapapa) military records. I recently discovered a Dutch military record for my 2xgreat-grandfather. I had no idea he had served. This opens up a whole new chapter in his life for me. I posted the record to the Dutch Genealogy Facebook Group and was rewarded with 2 more military records of his and some explanation of what they say in Dutch. He was drafted and served from 1846 to 1851 in the Artillery and Horse Artillery. I think I will need to hire someone to transcribe and translate the records for me. I also want to find out if there are more military records for him.
• Resolve duplicate WikiTree profiles. During the last WikiTree Connect-a-Thon, I came across duplicate profiles for a pair of my 3xgreat-grandparents in WikiTree: Johann Toemmes and Maria Schmitt (papapamapa and papapamama). I need to determine all the sources for these two from my records and from the duplicate profiles and merge them into a single, well sourced pair of profiles.
•  Photos. After my brother's death two years ago, I took possession of his photo collection and my parents' collection, which he had.There is a lot to do on thousands of these photos. Some are duplicates, triplicates, and beyond, Some I have already scanned and processed. Some have when, who, and where on them; others do not. It is very overwhelming and hard to figure out an efficient process for working through them.

If all that seems like a lot, I agree. Overwhelming at times.

I also have many stories to share about my ancestors and I created this blog for that purpose. Here are some of those that I'd like to get around to posting:

•  My great-grandfather who was hit over the head with a bottle at a 4th of July party
• The same great-grandfather whose house burnt down
• My Dutch 3xg-grandfather who served in  the French National Guard during the Napoleonic Wars
•  My 2xg-grandfather who fell to his death off of a bridge down to the river 30' below
• My 11xg-grandfather who lived in Haworth, Yorkshire, England 300 years before the Bronte family
•  The Orphan Train adoption of my dad's Uncle Charlie
• My parents' first date

Please let me know if any of those stories sound like something you'd like to know more about.  

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 17 "DNA"

 I have done a previous post on how DNA may have helped verify a relationship in my family tree. But for this prompt I want to look at how far back I can verify my various branches thanks to having DNA matches that also link back to those branches through paper trails. 

• I match an aunt, first cousins, and children and grandchildren of first cousins that verify my link to my four grandparents. 
• I match my parents' first cousins, my second cousins and their children that verify my links to my eight great-grandparents.
• I match third cousins and their children and grandchildren that verify my links to all sixteen of my great-great-grandparents.
• I match fourth cousins and their children and grandchildren that verify my links to 14 of my thirty-two great-great-great-grandparents:
• Toemmes/Schmitt2
• Schmitt1/Peters
• Kennedy/Noland
• Ogden/Morrell
• Gibbon/Davidson
• Nilsson/Persdotter
• Strayer/Schaeffer

And that's as far back as I've gotten. As I reviewed these matches, I became confused about whether some of these cousins are mislabeled. I think I may some "removed" levels to remove and some to add. I really  need to add these matches to my Ancestry tree and let Ancestry work out the relationships. Yay, more tasks for my genealogy to-do list.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 16 "Should Be a Movie"

I think that a good screenplay could be developed around the life of my 2xgreat-grandmoteher Anna Helena (Schmitt) Fitzler.

In May of 1858, at the age of 24, she set sail from Antwerp, Belgium on the ship "Charles Cooper." Sailing with her were her future sister-in-law Anna Christina Fitzler and Anna Christina's 5-year-old son Wimar. They landed in New York City on 25 June 1858.

The Charles Cooper

Two weeks later at St. Patrick Catholic Church in LaSalle, Illinois, Anna Helena married Johann Wimar "Wymer" Fitzler in a joint ceremony with Anna Christina Fitzler and Johann Schloesser, most likely the father of Wimar, who became Wimar Schloesser. 

St. Patrick Catholic Church, LaSalle, IL

Anna Helena and her husband settled in Marshall County, Illinois, near the town of Henry, where her two brothers, Peter and Michael were already living. 

Wymer bought a farm in Hopewell Township. Over the years he was forced to take out several mortgages on it. His lack of success may have been a result of alcoholism The progression of the disease and its effects on those around the alcoholic always make for good drama in a film.

On 13 October 1885, Wymer fell to his death from the bridge over the Illinois River outside of Henry. He was returning home after a couple of days in Henry, where he spent at least the last day drinking. 

The climax of the film would be when the authorities come to her door to tell her about her husband's death Anyone who has ever cared about an alcoholic has imagined what that would feel like. I wonder what she felt? Grief. Anger. Relief. Shame. Guilt.  

There was probably an element of guilt since she quickly moved her family to Knox County, Nebraska where she had two married daughters living. She died there many years later in 1904. According to one of her obituaries, she was "known universally as Grandma Fitzler" and had a "kindly nature."

Her life may have been a rocky road, but I think she had a smooth ending. At least I hope she did.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 15 "Solitude"

It was hard to think of an ancestor that I associated with this week's theme of solitude. After some thought I have decided to write about one of my Irish immigrant 2xgreat-grandmothers: Hanora (Collins) Wallace Kennedy (my pamamama). She immigrated from Ireland in 1852 or 1853 with a husband and an infant daughter. After the birth of their second daughter, her husband presumably died. She was left alone in a foreign country with two daughters under the age of two. That sure feels like solitude to me. 

According to her grave marker, Hanora was born on 25 March 1830 in Glenbrohane Parish, County Limerick, Ireland. She married John Wallace in Ireland in about 1850. On 1 August 1852, their daughter Ellen "Nellie" Wallace was born somewhere in Ireland. Sometime between her birth and the birth of their next daughter the family came to the United States. On 31 May 1853, Hanora "Nora" Wallace was born, probably near Beloit, Wisconsin.

I assume that John Wallace died sometime in 1852 or 1853, because on 10 November 1854, Hanora married John Kennedy at Old St. Mary's catholic Church in Chicago, Illinois. I have no idea how or where they met. Shortly before the marriage John Kennedy had acquired land in Clinton County, Iowa, where the newlyweds soon settled. They went on to have four children together--the first born 9 September 1855. 

Hanora died on 24 November 1888. She was only 58 years old. Her daughter Julia, who had become a nun died three years before her. 

Hanora sure packed a lot into her brief life. I hope she found enough happiness to offset all the losses she experienced and that any traces of solitude disappeared with her second marriage and their life together raising children and farming in Clinton County.