Seeking Signs of Connection

 

When two families seem like they should connect, but offer no signs of just how that could be, we begin the hunt for clues. In the case of the family of Dennis Tully and Margaret Hurley, DNA matches seem to indicate that this Dennis Tully could be related to an older man by the same name, my father-in-law's great-grandfather, husband of a different Margaret—Margaret Flannery.

Right now, I've been in the process of searching for signs of connection. The tiniest of hints is not too small to be seriously considered. Thus it was, when I discovered one tantalizing detail on the marriage record of the younger Dennis' daughter Margaret, I had to follow up on that information.

It didn't help that the only record I can access for this Margaret's wedding was a state register containing the transcription of returns for Wayne County, Michigan, during the second quarter of 1889. You'll see in a  moment why I'm regretting only having access to a handwritten transcription—and why I'm grateful that other governmental documents seem to clarify the issue for me.

Margaret Tully's marriage record—at least, according to this register—included some details which gave me pause. For one thing, though the bride's entry under the nickname Maggie wasn't too unusual, the names provided for her parents were confidence killers: John Tully and Mary McGuire. Not even close. And yet, her place of birth, listed as Watford, Canada, fit in perfectly with her parents' recent census record in Lambton County near the time of her birth.

It took a visit to other corroborating records to confirm that Maggie, bride of Henry Baxter, was indeed Margaret, daughter of Dennis Tully and Margaret Hurley. Her death record, also drawn up in Michigan, indicated that it was she who was both widow of Henry Baxter and daughter of Dennis and Margaret. To help secure the death record, I noticed the informant was named Anna Bristol, same given name as Maggie's eldest daughter—who eventually became the wife of Ward Bristol.

It was a different detail, however, which caught my eye and made me wonder about a connection with the other Tully family. Moving back to that original marriage register, the one for Maggie and Henry, the record indicated the names of the two witnesses to the ceremony. While I have no idea who Mabel Ramsey might have been, the other name—Michael Tully—could indeed be a key.

In our family's Tully line—that of the family descending from the other Denis and Margaret—there was a son whom I had missed entirely in the original process of tracing my father-in-law's line back through to Ireland. That son's name was Michael. The first notion I had that I might have missed a member of Denis' family was when I spotted Michael's surname while doing a visual sweep of the census page containing Denis' own family in 1861. There he was, another Tully on the same page, with his oldest son named exactly the same as his father, in traditional Irish fashion.

Tracing this mystery Michael Tully through documents, I eventually was convinced that I had found a missing son of our Denis and Margaret. Not long afterwards, I discovered two descendants of that Michael through Ancestry.com, started corresponding with them, and eventually asked each of them if they'd be willing to take a DNA test. Each did. And turned out to match my husband. 

Now, seeing that same name—Michael Tully—I wondered whether the witness to the Baxter wedding was a relative of Maggie. After all, our Michael had moved to Michigan, just the same as Maggie had done. And Michael—born in 1834 back in Ballina, County Tipperary, Ireland—would have been only about four years younger than Maggie's father Dennis.

Double checking the family roster for the other Dennis, just in case, I confirmed that Maggie did not have a brother named Michael. The witness to her wedding had to have been connected through some other relationship.

It all started seeming like a great confirmation of family connections, until I remembered one other detail. Michael Tully, while moving from Canada within the year after birth of his son in 1879, may have been living in Wayne County, Michigan, as early as the 1880 census, but after that, he had moved his family further on to settle in Chicago, near his other siblings. Worse, while documentation during the time period doesn't give me a clear indication that I've found the right man, an 1885 death record in Chicago for a man by the same name and approximate age reveal that this Michael Tully couldn't possibly have been the witness at Maggie Tully's 1889 wedding.