Revisiting Research Dilemmas

 

While dealing with my research dilemma regarding those DNA matches who link my husband to a different ancestor than the Margaret Flannery I was expecting, I had thought I might borrow from the play book of adoptees looking for birth parents. I could take my family tree and simply plug in the name of this other Dennis Tully—the one claimed by DNA matches—to see what hints might percolate to the top of my list.

But then, I had second thoughts. Those DNA matches give a different birth year than what I've found for Margaret Flannery's husband Denis Tully. While my Denis Tully was likely born about 1802 in County Tipperary, the other Dennis was said to have been born in 1830. The younger Dennis was of an age to be the son of the elder Denis.

That, however, does not seem right for several reasons. Prime among them is the unlikely possibility that an Irish son would name his firstborn after himself rather than reserving that honor for his own father. I had grappled with that issue, knowing the Irish naming tendencies, when I struggled with this question a few years ago.

Now, however, I want to revisit this question, looking at it from other angles. My thinking now is that the younger Dennis may have followed his namesake uncle to the New World. To see if I can determine that, I'll need to deconstruct the family tree given for the DNA matches leading back to this other Dennis, and ensure that all steps through the generations are supported by documentation.

At the same time, I've gone back to glean the names of all the sponsors of the children of my father-in-law's ancestral Denis Tully and Margaret Flannery, focusing especially on those godparents with surnames Tully and Flannery. Those names, too, will reveal relatives from each of those families, particularly if the Irish tradition of naming godparents from among siblings and their spouses holds. Perhaps exploration into those angles may help reveal some details I had missed, the last time I visited this question.