Could Someone Have Gotten this Wrong?

 

I'm going to venture out and possibly say the unforgivable. When it comes to baptismal records, could someone have gotten the details wrong? 

I ask, because I'm having a difficult time locating the baptismal record for my father-in-law's great-grandmother, Johanna Falvey. Sure, right now I'm riding on guesswork in estimating that her father's name might have been Patrick Falvey. I'm making that presumption based on traditional Irish naming patterns, in which the second-born son was supposed to be named after his maternal grandfather. Combining that assumption that the name would be Patrick, along with Johanna's own obituary indicating that her native home in County Kerry was somewhere near the Lakes of Killarney, has led me to Catholic records in the parish of Kilcummin.

Granted, Ireland has had a history of records lost for tragic causes, but in the case of the Kilcummin records, all appear to be intact during the time frame when other children of Patrick Falvey and Anna Fleming were born. It seems odd to have missed only the records for the year when Johanna was likely born—although pinning a date to her birth has itself been a challenge.

According to subsequent records, the year of Johanna's birth has ranged from 1826 through 1830. Two census records—for 1870 and 1880, after she arrived in Fort Wayne, Indiana—pinned her birth as occurring in 1830. The 1900 census made that even more precise: November of 1829, a reasonable date, given the wiggle room of previous year-only age estimates.

Johanna's death certificate, on the other hand, reported her birth occurring in 1826. Since her age at death, according to her obituary, was given as seventy seven, the math would bear that out—but even her headstone didn't help with these calculations. Complicating matters, Johanna's youngest son, John Kelly, was born in 1876, making his mother fifty years of age at his birth.

Not that that would be impossible, but quite unlikely. And yet, turning to the baptismal records back in Kilcummin parish in County Kerry, even searching page by page through all the possible years in which she could have been born, I find nothing.

However, I did find something else. On June 1, 1827, I located a baptismal record for someone listed as Joannes Falvey, son of Patritius Falvey and Anna Fleming. Unlike many other Catholic baptismal records I've seen, the priest at the Kilcummin parish did not follow the usual format of writing the entire narrative statement out in Latin, "I baptized [name], legitimate son/daughter of [father and mother]."

Thus, by the Kilcummin record using a chart form rather than the traditional narrative, we are robbed of the chance to see the subject/verb agreement in Latin as a guide. Gone, too, would be the opportunity to read whether that was "filius" (son of) versus "filia" (daughter of). Granted, a statement like "I baptized John" (Ioannem) would not look very different than "I baptized Johanna" (Ioannam), but when reading two hundred year old chicken scratch, we need all the help we can get.

Despite squabbling over what might seem like minor details, there was another thought that occurred to me. This is not the first time I've searched for a record for an Irish ancestor named Johanna. Years ago, in searching for another Irish antecedent of my father-in-law, this time the sister of his maternal grandfather John Tully, I had run into records listing that Johanna as "Johann." Could it have been owing to faded records and impossible-to-read handwriting? Possibly. But it shows me that that name is subject to occasional slips of the pen, even resulting in daughters being recorded as sons.

Whether that "John" baptized in the Kilcummin parish was the Falveys' son or a mistaken entry for what should have been their daughter Johanna, I can't say at this point—perhaps I'll never be able to say for sure. That makes it all the more important for me to trace these possible siblings of Johanna, especially now that we've been gifted with such a perceptive tool as DNA testing.

With that, we'll begin looking at the descendants of Johanna's possible sister, Gobnait Falvey, to see if we can find any confirmation of their family connection.

Bound for Boston

 

It should be no surprise to see Irish emigrants embarking for the American city of Boston. Of all the American cities, Boston may be considered the quintessential destination, even more so than New York City, another key port for immigrants. In the case of DNA matches descending from Johanna Falvey's possible sister Gobnait, Boston apparently was their ancestral port of choice.

There are still problems with following that branch of the Falvey family from County Kerry to America. Judging by my husband's DNA matches, as he is the surrogate tester on behalf of my father-in-law, who is long since deceased, Boston is among other locations where Falvey descendants have gathered. The ever-changing name for the matches' matriarch—sometimes Debora or Debby, sometimes Abby for Abigail—still plagues me with doubts that I am following the right family line.

Hopefully, during this week as we review the various branches of the Falvey line pointed out by their descendants' telltale DNA, we can review some of the documentation and determine whether there is any reason beyond name-switching to cause us to doubt we've found the right line. A cogent negative argument is just as important as explaining why a connection is correct. There are so many ways to go astray when researching these Irish lines with such potential to stumble on name twins and other genealogical hazards.

Before we zoom in on our most likely Boston immigrant connection, though, I need to settle the issue of why I cannot find the baptismal record for Johanna, herself. That has been bothering me for a long time. Despite searching page by page through baptismal records for the Kilcummin parish where the Falvey family went to church, I have yet to find a likely document. Tomorrow, we'll take that brief detour to make some notes on possible explanations, before we move on to examine the documents in the Boston area allowing us to track the descendants of Gobnait or "Debora" Falvey.

When Irish Names get Tangled With Latin

 

It may be all well and good to learn the traditional Irish naming pattern and then determine who an ancestor's likely parents might have been. But when we go searching for that brick wall ancestor's possible siblings back in the homeland, things can get tangled quickly.

The problem lies between the Catholic tradition of memorializing saints through bestowing their names upon the family's newborns and the sticking point of recording those acts of adoration in a foreign language. 

In the case of Johanna Falvey's family back in County Kerry, that foreign language of record, at least for the Church, was Latin, while the Falveys—undoubtedly for centuries—probably conversed day to day in their native Irish tongue. Not that there weren't Irish saints, but that all records were entered by priests in Latin.

Tracing the baptismal records of Patrick and Anna Falvey's children gives us not one, but two apt illustrations. Their daughter, baptized in February of 1830, was listed in the parish record as Gobineta. When I trace the lines of Falvey DNA matches backwards in time, I can see that she must have married someone in County Kerry named Daniel Cullinane. However. if I follow the baptismal records for the Cullinanes' children, the mother's name appears alternately as variants of Gobineta or totally different names, such as Debora. Tracing one supposed DNA descendant, that name also appears as Abby. Were these three different wives of the same Daniel Cullinane?

Take this other Falvey example, Gobineta's younger brother Demetrius, baptized in January of 1837. When I try to trace his line down to the present, I find nothing. But my husband has a DNA match whose ancestor was named Jeremiah Falvey—another given name that sounds just about as Irish as Demetrius. What's going on here?

Searching for guides to how the Irish handled the sometimes awkward mismatch between what was on the record and what was used around the home when mom or dad called that child for dinner, I had to locate more than one resource. The FamilySearch wiki provided a useful chart of "Given Name Equivalents" to help me with Gobineta and Demetrius, but I had to use the "find" function to locate some details.

Gobnait, as it turns out, was the actual Irish name. Apparently, the priest recording the Falveys' daughter in the baptismal records tried to compromise, giving a Latin twist to the decidedly Irish saint's name Gobnait. From the FamilySearch wiki chart, I can see that Gobnait was used interchangeably with Abigail and Debora. Thus, in searching for Gobnait Falvey's name in subsequent records, I'll need to be prepared to look also for these alternate names.

As for Demetrius, that baptismal name was not given as an alternate for another Irish name in the wiki chart, but I did find information elsewhere. A listing of Irish given names at rootsireland.ie informed me that the traditional Irish name Darby is sometimes substituted by Demetrius—and also is considered an alternate for Dermot or Diarmuid. Those alternates, in turn, showed up in some unsourced lists on some sites on the (now very) old RootsWeb—such as here, and here, if you can stand reading despite the aggravating placement of ads—and could also be a substitute for the name Jeremiah. Or you can simply turn to a reliable source like John Grenham and glean his quick listing of some Latin to Irish equivalents to find the same information.

Thus, finding DNA matches whose pedigree leads back to someone named Jeremiah rather than Demetrius, or Debora or Abby instead of Gobnait, may not be such bad news, after all. I'd say it's time to start building out those branches and checking the documentation connecting each generations from Johanna's siblings to the present.

Examining Possibilities

 

Armed with two tenuous connections to her homeland in County Kerry, Ireland, we're off to examine the possibility that Johanna Falvey Kelly's father was named Patrick Falvey. We already know that Johanna's obituary, printed in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette the day after her May 1, 1903, death, stated that this widowed immigrant was a native of County Kerry. Although two separate obituaries offered conflicting information on the family in her homeland, we can at least say that she left several siblings behind when she and her husband decided to move their family to the U.S. city of Fort Wayne in Indiana.

Other than that—and a record from the Catholic parish of Kilcummin, affirming a marriage of Johanna Falvey of "Knocanscore" to John Kelly—I've yet to find documentation to point me correctly to that Irish homeland. This is where the guess work comes in. 

Using traditional Irish naming patterns as a guide, I surmised that Johanna's second-born son, Patrick, would represent the given name of her father. Looking for any corroboration, I did find an 1824 marriage record from the same Catholic parish for a man named Patrick Falvey, who married Anna Fleming.

Looking for documentation of any possible children of this couple, I did find a baptismal record for someone named John, baptized in June of 1827. Following that was another record, this time for a daughter named Gobnait, a traditionally Irish name, baptized in 1830. Following that was another baptism in 1835 for son Patrick, then another one two years later for Demetrius.

As far as any sign of Johanna, I found none. The time gaps between the elder Falveys' wedding in 1824 and the first baptism in 1827, then another gap between 1830 and 1835, signaled missing records or possibly stillborn births for the couple.

Setting aside the basic question of whether this couple—Patrick and Anna—were actually Johanna's parents, there were other concerns. The first involves a question of just how Catholic priests, required to keep ecclesiastical records in Latin, would handle a traditionally Irish name in their record keeping duties. This would not only impact search results for Johanna's possible sister, Gobnait, but also the brother recorded as Demetrius. Then, too, looking at the F.A.N. Club angle, Johanna had a neighbor after she moved to Fort Wayne, whose last name was the same as her maiden name—and ended up being her next door neighbor. Was there a family connection?

These are not merely idle questions. As it turns out, DNA matches linked to my husband's account trace back to those two possible siblings—if, that is, those questions can lead to substantiated answers. Hence, one reason why I am keen to create floating branches for this extended Falvey family. And the question of neighbors with the same surname who immigrated from the same homeland once again bids me to explore setting up another floating branch.

Floating Falveys

 

While I am absolutely certain that Johanna Falvey Kelly was my father-in-law's great-grandmother, I have no clue who her parents were or how she connected with the other Falvey family members in County Kerry, Ireland. I know this family line because I've done my due diligence to trace back through the generations on the short trip from my father-in-law to his father, Will Stevens, to his mother, Catherine Kelly, to her mother, Johanna Falvey. I've documented every ten years of the way from immigrant Johanna's landing place in Fort Wayne, Indiana, through to the current generation, including tracing every collateral line of all Johanna's surviving children and connecting that information with my husband's DNA matches at four different companies.

Tracing Johanna's line in the other direction, however, seems impossible. Though her obituary mentions her origin in County Kerry—and indeed, I've located a marriage record for her and John Kelly in the Catholic parish of Kilcummin—I've been unsuccessful in making progress back through time. There are, however, DNA matches signaling the possibility of Falvey siblings, or maybe cousins, for Johanna. Since it is possible to build out a tree for each of those lines, it means one thing if I hope to make any research progress: create floating branches in my father-in-law's tree and get busy confirming how those Falvey branches connect with Johanna.

Creating a floating branch for each of those DNA matches does mean I'll be building out a tree for each Falvey connection. Sure, that sounds like work. The process, however, is not as difficult—or messy—as it might seem. Granted, now on Ancestry.com, those who subscribe to ProTools have a way to do this through creating a "network" for the targeted surname in question. But even without the luxury of that subscription add-on, it is relatively easy to create a floating branch. Essentially, you add a person to your tree anywhere, then remove them from the relationship where you added that new person by "edit relationships" then remove the father, mother, or sibling from where you originally attached the suspected relative.

In other words, after adding that suspected Falvey relative, you snip him from any family connections and let him float free in your database. Then, you get to work building out that new branch until you arrive at a possible nexus where you can re-attach your mystery DNA connection.

I first learned this concept from Connie Knox on her YouTube channel, "Genealogy T.V." It's been an indispensable technique which I've used repeatedly. I've shared the technique with others in my local genealogical society and in classes I've taught. Although the technique's description may leave some people scratching their heads, when I walk them through the process, that learning light bulb fires up—learning by doing trumps all other teaching methods.

This coming week, I have several Falvey DNA matches to explore through this same "floating branch" process. They all do cluster together, though in closer examination, they clump into several distinct geographic regions, suggesting possibly descendants of Falvey siblings or cousins.

Beyond adding these Falvey floating branches, the next step will be to delve into the details—and documentation—as far back in time as I can follow each branch. Hopefully, each path will eventually converge in County Kerry in a way that will allow me to understand just how they all relate to Johanna. 

Those Falvey Forebears: What the DNA has to Say

 

There is another tale to be told about these forebears of my father-in-law's brick wall ancestor, Johanna Falvey. That is the telltale report held within these family members' DNA. With Johanna being my husband's second great-grandmother, any third cousins descended from her would still be within the range of discovery, if any of those third cousins would think to test. (Hint, hint: there are a few sales popping up lately, and if not now, surely when the holiday season arrives would be a golden opportunity.)

Even DNA matches who could point out a possible sibling for Johanna would be sterling. Granted, such descendants would then be fourth cousins, a much smaller match. But they might still be able to wave enough DNA in their representative sample to raise the Falvey banner for me to spot.

That, in fact, is what I'm on the lookout for right now. Just at Ancestry.com's DNA, my husband has eleven possible Falvey connections. Six of them descend directly from Johanna herself, and I know how each of them fits into my father-in-law's family tree. In addition to that, there are four more who descend from a possible sister who moved to New Zealand, exactly the detail we had found in Johanna's own obituary. And yet another DNA match descends from a different sister.

Using the ProTools "Shared Matches" device at Ancestry, I can then extend those eleven discoveries to see other matches connected to our Falvey cousins. So far, those who immigrated to the United States seem to center in either Massachusetts or Michigan, likely signifying a connection to the same Falvey ancestors.

To discover the connection may require me to do some tree building on floating branches, to allow me to sort out which Falvey ancestors each match points to. This, of course, will take some time—but that is what this month may be all about. We'll certainly be doing some experimenting with ways to open up the stories behind these Irish Falvey ancestors from County Kerry.

Patrick: an Assumption

 

When we have no solid information to go by in our quest to push past brick wall ancestors, we test assumptions. Based on Irish naming traditions of the 1800s, we can assume that Johanna Falvey Kelly's father would have his namesake represented by her second-born son. That child, born in Indiana shortly after the Kelly family's arrival there from Ireland, was named Patrick.

Thus with that one clue, we'll launch ourselves on an experimental journey next week to see what can be learned about one Patrick Falvey in County Kerry.

Fortunately, there were enough genealogical breadcrumbs sprinkled upon this Irish ancestral pathway to lead us to a few encouraging clues. In a marriage entry in the Catholic parish of Kilcummin, the March 2, 1859, record noted that Johanna was from the townland of Knockauncore—or, in the priest's hurried hand, "Knocanscore."

The witnesses for the ceremony were John Fitzgerald and John Fleming. Hold that thought while we jump back a generation to check on some earlier marriage records. Sure enough, there in the same Catholic parish on November 24, 1824, Patritius Falvey married Anna Fleming.

To be sure, they were not the only couple with that Falvey surname to be married during that time period. Following shortly after Patrick's November marriage entry were two other Falvey men: Hugo, marrying Maria Marmix "alias Cronin," and Daniel, marrying Maria Cotter. Both of these subsequent Falvey marriages occurred in February of the next year. We need to keep in mind that either of these alternate couples could have been Johanna's parents, if her later marriage in that same Catholic parish were any indicator of her roots.

And that is precisely the problem. While I can find baptismal records for some of Patrick Falvey's other children, there is nothing I can find for a daughter named Johanna during the time period later records suggested as her year of birth.

Because of that, I've taken to reading the parish records, line after line, to see whether indexing processes might have missed a misspelling or an illegible entry. In the meantime, there were a few other details I learned about the family of Patrick and Anna. We'll jump to those discoveries next week when we pick up the search for Johanna Falvey's roots.