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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SNGF : 3rd Most Recent Unknown Ancestor

Randy Seaver's challenge for this week:

1) Who is your TMRUA - your Third Most Recent Unknown Ancestor? This is the person with the third lowest number in your Pedigree Chart or Ahnentafel List that you have not identified a last name for, or a first name if you know a surname but not a first name. 

2) Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently? Why don't you scan it again just to see if there's something you have missed? 

3) What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your TMRUA?

4) Tell us about him or her, and your answers to 2) and 3) above, in a blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a comment on Facebook or Google Plus. 

So, first post since June. Long time no blog.

My third most recent unknown ancestor would be #40, the father of my great-great-grandfather John Kain. As far as I know, John was born in Armagh, Northern Ireland. I still need to verify that by tracking down his St. Louis marriage record and other information that might give me insight into his parents and where he came from. I also have a David Kain in a census record showing him on the Clinton Co., IA farm of John Kain's sister-in-law (widow of John's wife's possible brother). David Kain might be a brother of John and the only record I have of him is the census record. It's a clue that might help trace back to John's parents.