When the FAN Club Keeps Calling

 

Sorting through siblings sometimes uncovers a missing member of the family, as we saw yesterday in tracing the unexpected niece in bachelor Matthew Kelly's 1880 household. We discovered that Matthew had a sister who died as a married woman with four young children. As it turns out, though that Kelly sister, Bridget, died before the 1870 census, we can still learn a lot about her family—particularly her husband—by following his record through the rest of his own life.

There is a reason for chasing after that seemingly unrelated person. Yes, as an in-law, Bridget's husband Michael Creahan would not likely be a blood relative of the Kelly line I'm working on. However, I'm banking on that one reason for continuing the search: the possibility that, even in the family's "F.A.N. Club," we may find ourselves led to some clues about further family connections.

That F.A.N. Club premise is calling my name quite loudly right now, and for good reason. Just taking a brief look at what I could find on Michael Creahan, I may have run across some leads. Thanks to the Find A Grave volunteer who transcribed his obituary onto his memorial on that website, I learned a few details about Michael's journey to his final home in Lafayette, Indiana. That record I confirmed by finding a similar version of the May 17, 1915, obituary which was published in the Bloomington Evening World in the Indiana town where Michael's daughter had moved.

We'll talk more about Michael Creahan's obituary tomorrow, but here are some details which made me want to look further at documenting the steps along his way to America. First, the obituary mentioned that Michael Creahan was from Limerick. While the obituary didn't specify whether that meant the city of Limerick or County Limerick, it did add that Michael had left his homeland about 1847, and at that time of emigration he was twenty years of age.

Another point brought out in Michael's obituary was that, having arrived in America, he spent all but ten years living in Lafayette, Indiana. Those other ten years? That was when Michael was working in New Orleans, bringing to mind the familiar immigration route of some other members of the extended Kelly family. Could Michael have been an early arrival among his family members, sending funds back for their eventual voyages to join him in the New World? Or did Michael actually follow the path because others from among his associates and neighbors had already been that way before him?

That's why the F.A.N. Club concept is tapping me on the shoulder: family, friends, associates, or former neighbors could have influenced Michael's decision to leave home for, eventually, Lafayette, Indiana, via the route others from Ireland had taken, through New Orleans and up the river waterways of the central United States.

Michael Creahan's obituary was a tempting starting point, but there are some other details we'll look at tomorrow to see whether we can glean any further clues on what brought all these Irish immigrants to Lafayette, Indiana, by the 1850s.