Pending Further Developments

 

In the search for the Johanna Lee connection to previous generations of the Flanagan family, we may be stuck in what one of my previous professors used to term the "milling about" stage. Going round and round, searching for more information, while simultaneously smothered with the sense that we've already come this way before: that's the milling about stage. And I'm in it.

It may take a while to determine whether there is any death record attached to the burial of the man in William Flanagan's family plot called Edward Flanagan. Though he was buried at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in the middle of 1904, I can locate no death record for him in the Chicago area. Searching for others called by that same name has, so far, yielded no helpful information. Looking for George Flanagan, the likely sibling of the one Edward Flanagan I did locate in an early census record, may be an option, but that, too, may turn out to need as much luck as a shot in the dark.

In the meantime, along with that burial readout from the helpful employee at the cemetery office, I have two other such listings for family plots at the same cemetery. This might be a good time to review what information is already available to me on the extended family—and, if such details are not already uploaded to Find A Grave, add what I can to the records there.

Tomorrow, we'll begin with the eight burials in a family burial plot not far from Johanna's grave, related to the in-laws of her cousin Catherine Malloy Tully whose mother was born a Flanagan. Following that, on Monday, we'll look at yet another nearby family burial plot which I received almost ten years after the first inquiries. Perhaps that review will serve to redirect us in our hapless search for more information on those Flanagan roots of Johanna, Catherine, and their Aunt Anna and Uncle William—not to mention any unknown other Flanagan family members still waiting to be discovered.