Think of Ancestry.com as a Springboard

  One of the things I like about the show "Who Do You think You Are" is that they include a variety of other resources besides just Ancestry.com even if that means that the celebrity is chauffeured to the location and sits there waiting like a princess for the genealogist or archivist to present them with copies of documents.  Occasionally they get to handle and leaf through to a pre-tagged page.  But still it does shows a variety of repositories and that not everything is online. I realize that the filming of the episode may preclude this possibility, but it would be nice to see other family researchers  using the historical societies, town archives, and libraries they visit. I suppose a family historian yelling, "I found them!!" in the background might disrupt the solemn unrolling of  a hand lettered family tree done in perfect calligraphy. However, even the restaurants or cafes are usually empty. Genealogy is a growing all consuming passion hobby. . .  but wait, hobby seems too frivolous a word.  Anyway, I think they should show more people engaging in research in the background.
  Now that I have that off my chest, let's get to the topic of this blog post.
  Maybe some of you feel the same way I do and sigh in frustration when your Ancestry.com search results in transcribed documents or the barebones information from an index.  What do you do next? Do you just attach it to the person on your tree and go on. . .or . . . do you read all of the information in the fine print paragraphs at the bottom including "learn more"?  I read. . . and often the information at the bottom is the springboad that I need to locate the original document. Just recently I used this method to track down the  first intent papers of my gg-grandfather, Owen McDonnell of Clinton, Iowa. I have not been able to pin down the passenger ship or exact year he came to this country.  His obituary and his tombstone list two different years of birth and the census records vary as census records always do.  Did he immigrate with any of his brothers, Michael, John, and Bartholomew who also lived in Clinton or alone?

His brothers show up in Clinton county, Iowa in the 1860 census living together.  Michael is married and,according to the census, his daughter was born in Wisconsin.  I asked my friend and researcher extraordinaire, Mary  if she could find their naturalization papers in Clinton. Her search of Ancestry.com had produced typed naturalization cards for a Michael, John, and Owen McDonnell as well as the transcribed record below.

 I found the same records earlier during one of my million searches of Ancestry, but did not connect the Owen from Clinton with the Owen from Wisconsin.  Mary went to the courthouse to see if she could get a copy of the original naturalization documents referenced.  This is what she found:

 

Shucks, there is only minimal information, but it looks like this connects the Owen from Clinton with the Ancestry.com record listed above since they both state there is a record in Walworth County, Wisconsin.  While the record above tells me the original record was filed with the Clerk of Court, the Ancestry.com record says it is currently in the possession of the Walworth County Historical Society and can be found in the "Records of Naturalizations and Declarations of Intent", book one, page 48.

Next, I open my laptop and do a search for Walworth County Wisconsin Historical Society. Success! They have a website and an email contact.  I quickly send an email to Deb Ketchum, hoping that she checked her email often - like hourly. I also found a library phone number and called leaving a message just in case the email wasn't checked. It turns out that she does check her email and listen to her phone messages.  That evening, I found a message on my phone from Deb.  We talked, and she told me that the records were now held by a local university, but that she would make a trip over to see if they had them.  She explained that the underfunded archives were kept in a basement and there had been leaks and other accidents in the past.  She also said that the letters of intent often had very little information and didn't want me to be disappointed.  Within a week I had the records in my hand . . . errr, I mean computer.

Owen's Letter of First Intent

And Michael's

 And John's

Lots of questions remain but Now what did I learn from these brief letters of intent:  The brothers did not immigrate together but each one came separately with my Owen coming last. They all gave their letters of intent the same day. I now know that 1833 is his correct birth year rather than the 1837 in one account.  I know that Owen was the last to come and that his immigration year was 1852 which varied in the census records. This means that the 1851 Irish census showing Owen McDonnell and Julia McDonnell is still a good possibility for mother and son. The month of his immigration was "about September".  Hopefully this will help me find his ship, but it hasn't so far.  They all signed their names rather than make a mark - a source of pride for me, and they all spelled it "MCDONNELL" despite the spelling of McDonald on Owen's.  Now what happened to Bartholomew?  I am still putting the pieces together for him.
 
In a future post, I will show you how the information at the bottom of an Ancestry.com record led to a "bad boy" uncle.

Where Do I Go From Here?

Abbey House B&B across from Jerpoint Abbey taken last summer

And now for a brief continuation of yesterday's frustration. . .

This morning I re-found the Ask about Ireland website with their searchable Griffith's Valuation.  I found it from a link at the Cork Ireland GenWeb site that led to a link, that in turn led to a link, and so on. But as soon as I saw the website I had a "aha" moment.  I'm sure that I must have bookmarked it either on my laptop or my desktop, and either in Internet Explorer or Firefox, but regardless, it isn't on the combination I have in front of me now.  One issue is that from their main webpage, I cannot figure out how to navigate to the Griffith's Valuation so if I revisited earlier I might not have realized the Griffith's information was there.  My fantasy dream hope is to find the four brothers living in close proximity on Griffith's since they were adults at the time, and Owen did not immigrate until approximately 1852. It might just catch them before their immigration. Of course, Owen might be still living with his mother.  

Did you feel my heart stop?

Informational note: I am searching the Ask Ireland Griffith's records intermittently while writing this post.  I tried and re-tried using the various brother's first names paired with McDonnell, dutifully checking the similar names box, but, after several attempts, I noticed that  the variation McDonald never showed up in the results.  So with a loud sigh and no expectation of success I entered McDonald for the surname, left the first name blank, and for the barony, I selected Barrett's since I had a vague recollection of a notation to that effect on family information given to me by my double cousin Mary.  Why not?  What was one more dead end?  When the results came up, I gasped.

Except for two, all of the results were in Grenagh - the location listed in Owen William's (my g-g-grandfather) obituary.  The name Denis is shouting at me because, Owen William also had a son named Denis, and I wondered who his name came from.  Could it be Owen had a brother Denis?  Grenagh is the parish name and as such, is a much larger property than just the town of Grenagh - which I presumed earlier to be the Irish home of Owen William.

I needed to see the original.  Wow, there is a lot to sort out to be able to decide if this is in fact my g-g-g grandfather's family - my family and the family of my cousins known and unknown.

  Below I have listed the record information for two of the individuals - Owen and Julia.  Julia would have been a widow at this point.  As you can see, the townland is Rathduff rather than Grenagh.  Now I have some new search parameters for the Irish Family History Foundation.  I wonder if it will make a difference in the birth record results.  I wish I had a large paper map of Griffith's to spread in front of me to find the locations referenced on the records to see if they are anywhere near each other.  I have tried it using the pop up map that is linked to the records but by the time I zoom in enough to see the numbers of the parcels, I lose track of where I am.  The information on the website did say that the order of the list does not necessarily indicate proximity or adjoining properties. In looking at the original page above, it appears as though Julia sublet a few acres to two other individuals - interesting.

Please notice that the year of these records is 1851.

Yes, I noticed that the eldest son, Michael, is missing. I tried to do a search for him using both McDonnell and McDonald but there were too many results in the county of Cork - none in the Barony of Barretts.  Could Michael have already immigrated?  Bartholomew would also have been young - could he be the one doing the farming for Julia?

This has been a satisfying morning.  I found (or re-found if you are being picky) a new resource, I corroborated the Grenagh information, and while I have not broken down any brick walls, I feel as though I have chipped a peephole in this one.  This is the best information I have to date, and after all my blog is not wikipedia, it is a chronicle of my family history adventure.

To go back to my opening statement . . . Where do I go from here? Suggestions are always appreciated.

I need another cup of coffee. . . . and to savor the moment.

Round and Round in Circles I Go



Ladies View - Lakes of Killarney

A recent email from cousin Karen in California gave me the impetus I needed to relook at my "Is it Owen or is it John" research.  I am, of course, referring to my g-g-g-grandfather who, according to the family legend, was bayoneted by a British soldier and died of pertonitis two weeks later. While the descendants of his son Owen William McDonnell believe his name to be Sean (John), I discovered that some of the descendants of his son Michael, believe his name to be Owen.  Oh dear!  Records from the birth index of the Irish Family History Foundation add to my confusion as I mentioned before in this post. If only I could narrow it down to a fairly reasonable certainty, I would gladly purchase the records available on the Irish Family History Foundation website. So far nothing lines up.  What seemed promising, remains elusive.

 The Owen possibility came to light when cousin Don, a descendant of Michael McDonnell, followed a path from a GenWeb post to my blog.  Our Christmas holiday vacation was a whir of email exchanges full of, wonderful old photos, but to our surprise. . . Don told us that his mother always understood that Michael McDonnell's father was named Owen, and his mother was Julia. In a flash I was back to the Irish Family History Foundation but again the results were mixed. This is where I became discouraged.  It feels like it is barely a fingertip out of reach.  This post sets out what I have uncovered  so far and hope that someone might see what I have missed or know of a resource that I do not.

The four brothers in order of birth and the birth range for each  as determined from census records. Conveniently, the 1860 census for Elk River, Iowa lists John, Michael and Bartholomew living together.  The family story is that Owen met his wife, Bridget O'Callahan, a bond servant, in Cinncinnati so it is possible they were both in Ohio for the 1860 census, but I have not found a definitive record yet.  They married in 1864.  A family tree scribbled long ago on a piece of scrap paper mentions a brother James with a question mark, but does not say whether he immigrated to America or not.  I am using the 1860 census because even if the ages are not exactly correct, the order of birth should be. So . . . . from oldest to youngest:

Michael  b.1826

John b. 1830

Owen  if b. 1833

Bartholomew b. 1834

Owen  if b. 1837

On the Ireland GenWeb site I found the following naming pattern tradition.

1st son was named after the father's father
2nd son was named after the mother's father
3rd son was named after the father
4th son was named after the father's eldest brother

1st daughter was named after the mother's mother
2nd daughter was named after the father's mother
3rd daughter was named after the mother
4th daughter was named after the mother's eldest sister

 Could my ancestors have adhered to this tradition?  If this were true, then both Owen William and Michael McDonnell should have named their oldest son after their father.  There are too many John McDonnell's in Iowa to know which is the correct one at the present time so we can't check his family, if he had one.  I have not been able to find Bartholomew in a census after 1860.  Possibly he went by Bart, possibly he spelled his surname McDonald, possibly he died . . . all currently unknown.  So the only two we can check are Michael and Owen William.  Michael did not name any of his children John and his youngest and third son was named Owen - so it doesn't fit for either name. It looks like Michael didn't follow the tradition.  He did have a daughter Julia, however.

Next Owen William.   His oldest son is named John (one of the choices for his father's father), his oldest daughter is named Mary (this is the mother's mother), his second son is Simon (this is the mother's father), the third son is Michael (this is his eldest brother), the fourth son was named Owen Jerome (this is the father's name),  There was a daughter Julia who died but I have no date of death for her.  Other children followed, including Bartholomew. So with the exception of reversing the order for Michael and Owen Jerome, it seems as though my g-g-grandparents did follow the traditional naming.  For this very superficial reason, I believe my family had the correct name for my g-g-g-grandfather . . . Sean (John) McDonnell!

Tomorrow, I will try to sort out some of the searches on the Irish Family History Foundation website.