Picking up Where we Left Off

 

One of the challenges facing those of us who only have limited time available for research is batching our time in such a way that we can pick up where we last left off. When I was teaching school full time, that meant summers and winter holiday seasons provided my only "free" time for research.

Now, thankfully, I have chunks of time sandwiched into my schedule on a more regular basis—plus, we have the luxury of computer-assisted search prowess which is expanding all the time. Still, every time I set aside a research project, I need to leave myself notes for where I need to pick up, the next opportunity I have to pursue a specific ancestor.

As we enter the month of August, my formidable goal will be to massage all those incomplete Irish governmental and church records to coax them into giving up their secrets on my father-in-law's great-grandmother Anna Flanagan Malloy. I already know, mostly from private letters preserved by pack-rat family members, that she and her brother William originated in County Limerick. According to those family records, their Catholic parish was known as Ballyagran.

If we turn to government records from that area in the time period before the two siblings' emigration, a possible townland might be Cappananty. There, at least according to Griffith's Valuation, our William Flanagan might be the one recorded in the assessment document.

So, what do we need to find next? There, exactly one year ago, according to the recap after my last attempt at searching for the Flanagans, my plan for revisiting this research issue included

• looking for additional governmental records which may have come available online, even for the time periods long after Anna and William's departure for Chicago, to seek records of possible cousins still in Ireland
• finding additional resources in Ireland to explore for this research problem
• building out the family tree to identify other descendants of not only Anna, but her unnamed mystery Flanagan brother in Chicago—and possibly back in Ireland
• reconnecting with any Flanagan cousins contacted in past years to compare research notes since the last time we talked.

For a quick first stop, tomorrow we'll look at four DNA companies where my husband has tested to see whether any new Flanagan connections have since uploaded their results, and to review whether any old connections at Ancestry.com in particular can lead to new insights, thanks to last year's addition of the ProTools subscription.

Finding What's Missing

 

Being stuck on a research question—where I've currently been left, stumped—can leave one walking in circles. It feels like I've been trying the same approaches over and over again for some of my father-in-law's Irish ancestors. While I wonder whether the brick wall isn't his great-grandparents as much as the overall Irish predicament of the mid-1800s, a nagging thought makes me consider whether I'm missing something. There's got to be an answer out there somewhere, if only I could find it.

I had thought about turning my questions over to a search engine, or to AI resources. With that idea in mind, I thought it was timely to spot Randy Seaver's post in Genea-Musings earlier this week, in which he asked ChatGPT5 about twenty record types we should be sure to include in  any thorough family history search.

Actually, I had put some question to such resources last month while struggling with John Kelly, another great-grandparent from my father-in-law's ancestry. I had wondered why the man's family seemed to dance between two different townlands, and asked Google's Gemini what significant differences there might be about the two townlands, despite their contiguous situation. The result, while not answering my genealogical questions, was informative.

Now, in my search for Anna Flanagan and her brother William from Ballyagran, I went back to a map of the area, showing both the village of Ballyagran as well as the townland where I believe I had found William in Griffith's Valuation before he left for America.

Looking at the map again, I spotted the cemetery we had visited during our family's trip to Ireland back in 2014. The map shows the name as Castletown Conyers cemetery. During our visit, we could clearly see the ruins of the church yard as we walked through the old burial ground, but had no way of knowing whether that was the original church for the Catholic parish where William and his sister Anna had once worshipped. 

While I realize I'll need to revisit questions like this once again, I took my questions to online resources to see what might pop up. Almost immediately appeared a new-to-me resource for cemeteries in Ireland. The Irish Graveyards website provided an aerial view of the compound, a map of the burials, as well as a chart of burials, including individual photographs of headstones (if still in existence).

I'll still need to search through the thirty five pages of notes for this one sizable cemetery—though obviously Anna and William were gone from the area long before their own passing—but it also occurred to me to hold on to this resource, not only for the Castletown-Conyers site, but for all other sites also available on the website. It seems like a useful resource, and another approach besides what is already available through other online cemetery websites.

Of course, I'll need to review what I've already found in searching for the Flanagans, and check that inventory to see if there are other resources I still need to add, not only from sources of documentation, but through the posts on the Flanagans that I've written in the past. It's important to build upon what we've already found, but also to explore new horizons.

Map above courtesy of Google Maps.

About Anna's Husband

 

There are some extra details to know about Anna Flanagan, our eighth of this year's Twelve Most Wanted, to help us find her roots in County Limerick in the mid-1800s. As difficult as it may be to find someone with a surname like Flanagan, at least coupled with Anna's husband's name, it might make the challenge a little less daunting.

At least, that's what I thought. Looking for the marriage records for the Catholic parish of Ballyagran, where Anna's brother William had claimed his roots, I realize that not many church records have been preserved. The listing, according to the National Library of Ireland, leaves a big gap right where I'd guess Anna and Stephen Malloy might have gotten married.

The marriage date is only a guess, based on the date of birth for the couple's only child. Catherine, presumably born in the same place where her uncle William claimed his roots, and where Stephen's farewell letter to her mother was addressed, arrived in either 1847 or 1848, depending on the dates provided by later records in the United States, where she and her mother eventually moved after her father's disappearance.

I have yet to find any marriage record, but knowing how my eyes just love the blurry digitized microfilm records, I'll probably cry over that mystery once again, just to be sure. At least we still have something to search through.

Complicating matters is another detail: just how to spell Anna's husband's surname. Whether in Ireland or in Chicago, where Anna eventually migrated, her married name was treated to multiple variations in the spelling department. Sometimes Mulloy, sometimes Malloy or even Melloy—or take away an "l" to make it even more challenging—this is clearly a case of employing wildcards for the search.

All I know for sure is that one day in February of 1849, Stephen sat down—most likely with someone who could write the letter he dictated—to send fond farewells to his wife and let know that, due to a warning he had received, he was leaving from Liverpool, bound for Boston. That was the last that Anna heard from her husband.

On the other side of this story, nearly one hundred seventy years into her future, the envelope that she saved along with that letter guided us in our travels to County Limerick, and brought us, perhaps, to the very parcel of land where she lived while awaiting word from her husband. Even if institutions were not able to preserve records about a specific ancestor, I'm grateful for our own family members who realized the importance of preserving the few details they could find among their relatives' mementos.

Meet Anna

 

There are some ancestors whose stories we fall in love with, and Anna Flanagan's story is such a one. Though I've researched her in the past—she was my father-in-law's great-grandmother—there is so much that remains a mystery still. I'm hoping a concentrated look at the details of her life will bring something more to light as we get this early jump on the eighth of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026.

What I do know about Anna is rather basic regarding the beginning of her life. I know she was born about 1810—if we can believe the report of her age in the 1860 census following her first appearance after emigration from Ireland. There in Chicago, she was listed by her married name, Ann Mulloy, but she was not living with her husband. Rather, she was in the household of someone named William Flanagan—turned out to be her brother—and her thirteen year old only child, Catherine.

Thanks to the information etched on Anna's brother's headstone after his passing in 1893, we can be fairly certain that the Catholic parish of Ballyagran in County Limerick would be her birthplace as well as his. Unfortunately, existing baptismal and marriage records for that location do not extend back far enough to provide documentation for either of those two births from Anna's own family. And I've yet to locate her marriage record or her daughter's baptism.

Prompted by a copy of the letter sent by her husband, Stephen Mulloy, on the eve of his (possibly unexpected) departure for Boston, I did manage to confirm his name appeared in passenger records, just as he had told her he'd be doing. Whatever happened to him after that point, I have yet to discover, despite searching through multiple spelling variations in the Boston area. Nor can I find any record of Anna crossing the Atlantic in search of the man, or her daughter's passage at a later point in her childhood, as the family surmised had been the case.

Anna's story picks up just as abruptly in Chicago with the 1860 census. Through the many more-readily accessible documents from that point until her death in 1885, it is easier to glean an impression of this woman through the events in her later life shared through letters and family reports. Yet it is those early years before her emigration—and that of her two brothers—that still mystifies me. Hopefully, this year will allow us a peek into the rest of that story.

Back to the Flanagans

When plans don't seem to go as...well, as planned, it's time to move on. At the end of June, I opted to move on early to July's selection for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026, John Kelly. That was an impossible choice, and I knew it—but I had hopes.

Those hopes didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, so I'm taking my cue from last month's ending and moving on to the next. With this early start, we'll be headed back to the Flanagans for August. 

My main focus for this month's feature from my Twelve Most Wanted will be Anna Flanagan. Hers was a story which beguiled me, and despite the struggles to learn more, I just love retelling what unfolded in her life. Yet there are several points at which I've confronted closed doors in the timeline of her history.

This month won't just focus on Anna, though. There is her husband, whose mysterious disappearance still begs for explanation. And her one daughter's journey across the Atlantic—with whom, if not her mother?—has yet to be documented, though the fact that she spent the rest of her life in Chicago is proof that she did make the journey from County Limerick...somehow.

Besides Anna and her daughter Catherine, there was Anna's bachelor brother William, who also ended up in Chicago, possibly with another brother. While I still haven't discovered that other brother's identity, I know his daughter also made the journey to Chicago, as well.

If it wasn't for the bachelor brother's magnificent headstone in a Chicago cemetery, I might not have discovered where the Flanagans originated. Thanks to a message etched in stone, I not only have the name of the Irish county, but thankfully the parish as well.

Head starts in research only get us so far, though. Despite being the recipient of this fortunate set of discoveries, I have much yet to learn on the Flanagans. We'll jump in tomorrow with a brief sketch of Anna Flanagan and the pertinent details of her life—at least the ones I've found so far.

Some Thoughts on "Pack Rats"

 

Pack rats—and I'm not talking about the rodent variety here—can be people prone to hoarding unnecessary items. Some avocational genealogists have been accused by family members of being guilty of that very habit, and its related downfall, inability to resist bright shiny objects. But let's think about that for a moment.

As I prepare to launch into my research topic for the coming month—the eighth of my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors for 2026—I realized I would know very little about the early years of this woman's life if it hadn't been for the propensity of her descendants to hoard such items as old letters, photos, and documents. Indeed, the very story that endears me to this woman revolves around a letter which, once received, she folded, placed back in its envelope, and carried with her for the rest of her life. It was the last word she had received from her husband before he disappeared.

Then again, it might have been near impossible to locate records back in Ireland for another of this family's ancestors, except that a pack rat descendant decided to save the little slip of paper handwritten by a priest in County Tipperary, noting the date of baptism of another relative, along with the names of his parents—maiden name for the mother, included. I have yet to find that record in its original home, either.

From letters sent home by my teenaged father-in-law during his service in the early years of World War II to letters exchanged by his great-grandparents with family and friends almost one hundred years before that point, I've gleaned much about these family members which could not otherwise have been found. Others may complain about pack rat relatives, but I for one am grateful that someone saw the value in saving "unnecessary" items.

Don't Blink

 

Now that AI for family history has become all the passion, it seems as if DNA testing has taken a back seat. Not that it has become the red-headed step-child of the genealogy world—that happened after the Golden State Killer case became the breaking story—but there aren't quite as many breathless announcements posted on the topic lately.

Given that observation, I was almost surprised to see a banner pop up on my screen when I decided to take a peek at the latest DNA results for my tests at Ancestry.com.

Really? Ancestry is investing in upgrading their DNA services? I thought no one was talking DNA anymore...

Of course I had to click the second button, "Learn more."

And then, I waited.

The screen seemed to struggle to move ahead to the next item. Finally, it gave up with a screen left blank, all except for an "Ask Leaf" in the lower right corner. I guess AI won, after all.

I blinked. And I guess I missed it. I tried looking again, starting from the beginning of my search. This time, the announcement box didn't even show up. While I'm hoping that Ancestry delved further into accuracy in predicting close family relationships—I'm just really keen on reading their white papers—I've been quite happy with what they've already provided their DNA customers. But better is always, um, better. Right?

In Early, Out Early

 

What to do when stuck on a research problem? In John Kelly's case, I'm afraid I've worn out all the alternative approaches to finding the roots of my father-in-law's great-grandfather, John Kelly. While I don't know where he was born—other than Ireland—I can say for sure that he was married in the parish of Kilcummin in County Kerry to a woman from Knockauncore named Johanna Falvey. After the birth of a few of their children (and the loss of at least one daughter), the family decided it would be best for them to migrate to America—to Fort Wayne, Indiana, specifically.

Following the trail into their future in America was certainly easier than struggling to find signs of their past in Ireland. After nearly a month of not having much to "write home" about, I've decided: since we entered this chase to find John Kelly on the early side, thanks to a peach of a research project in the previous month, we may as well close out this month's struggle early, too.

In the process of checking all the details I could find this month on John Kelly, I've noted every discrepancy between records—from the multiple years of birth extrapolated from various U.S. Census records to the varying names reported for the townlands where the family lived at the birth of each child. I've tried to see if godparents' names might guide me to clues on Kelly siblings. I've studied the Irish naming patterns to see whether that might enlighten me on possible parents' names. I've turned over every stone in the pathway, in hopes I'd find some fortunate clue somewhere—anywhere.

Nothing yet.

This may be one of those times when it's best to take a break and move on to the next of my Twelve Most Wanted for the year. John Kelly was a tough candidate. I had high hopes for breaking through that research barrier to find his family. But sometimes, setting a problem aside to give a weary brain some rest might be the best policy. John Kelly will be right where I left him, the next time we revisit this puzzle. Next week, we'll pick up with a fresh challenge.

Checking the Pattern

One standard, when researching Irish ancestors, is to check the naming pattern which was held consistently by many Irish during earlier centuries. Since I'm having problems pushing back beyond the generation of my father-in-law's great-grandfather John Kelly, I'm trying every tip and trick I can remember to see whether anything can fill in those missing blanks.

The Irish naming pattern held that a man's first-born son would be named after that man's father. The second-born son would be called by his mother's father's name. For daughters, the pattern would be reversed: the first-born daughter would be named after the mother's mother, with the second-born daughter named for her father's mother.

Though I have not been able to find baptismal records in County Kerry, Ireland, for all of John and Johanna Kelly's children, based on the records gleaned after their immigration to Fort Wayne, Indiana, I think I have a fairly complete accounting of the family constellation.

Here's what I've recorded so far. First-born son was named Timothy. Following Timothy's birth about 1860, there were three daughters. The first of the daughters was named Catherine—the ill-fated woman who became my father-in-law's paternal grandmother, dying shortly after the birth of her only son. Following Catherine were two daughters named Mary; I presume the first of those two died in childhood, thus explaining the re-use of that same name signifying the importance it represented to the family.

Following the three daughters, John Kelly finally got his second son, whom he named Patrick. A final son trailed years afterwards, whom the couple named John.

If we use the Irish naming pattern to find reasonable suggestions for John Kelly's parents' names, we could presume that his father was named Timothy, and his mother, Mary. The fact that John Kelly, after immigration to Fort Wayne, jointly purchased a family cemetery plot with a co-worker named Timothy Kelly is thus doubly enticing. However, whether either man carried forward that Irish naming tradition from across the ocean is anyone's guess. I have yet to find any sign of an older Timothy to fill the shoes of John's missing father from County Kerry.

Another clue for us to ponder, while awaiting appearance of any actual documentation that can provide solid footing for our journey backwards through the generations—though somehow I can't muster the confidence to fly blind solely with this naming concept. I'm still holding out for some form of solid documentation. 

Circles Leading Nowhere

Encouraged by the approach of double-checking documentation for every detail of John Kelly's life, I thought I would continue the trend. I certainly am still in need of finding records to identify my John Kelly from among the multitudes bearing that name in County Kerry, Ireland.

In addition to looking at any details for this John Kelly, I also looked for records involving his wife, Johanna Falvey. Unfortunately, it appears I am now wandering in ever-widening circles, and going nowhere.

I did realize that the places where I found the couple settled—at least long enough for the birth of a child—were in the parish of Killeentierna, rather than Kilcummin, the latter location being where I can at least say with confidence that Johanna Falvey once lived. Indeed, returning to Griffith's Valuation, I can still point to the entry for Anne Falvey, whom I'm certain was by then the widow of Johanna's father, living in Knockauncore, just as her daughter Johanna's marriage record had noted. 

Still hanging on to shreds of hope that I'll discover something more about John Kelly's origin and parentage, I thought I'd return to that old standby, the Irish Naming Pattern, to see if I could extract some guidance there. We'll see, tomorrow, whether that can shed any light for the search for John Kelly's roots.

Double-check Double Take

 

There are some times when you are so sure of something, it never seems to warrant a second look. On the other hand, when we're faced with an unresolvable brick wall, we can't seem to double-check enough. 

John Kelly is getting to be one of those ancestors. I had been so sure of the documents I had already found regarding this man from County Kerry and his wife, Johanna Falvey, that I never looked back. After all, I had baptismal records for two of his Irish-born children, pinpointing their residence down to the very townland. Why take another look?

It was when any forward movement on this family's research had been stalled for far too long that I decided to backtrack and re-inspect every detail. That's when something I noticed caused me a double take: the documents disagreed.

This involves the situation of John and Johanna's daughter Mary, born in 1864, and another daughter, born in 1867 whom they also decided to name Mary. My presumption is that the elder Mary died in childhood, but the name was so important to the parents that they gave the second child the same name.

Because each of these Kelly daughters was born on or after 1864—the date at which civil registrations extended to Irish residents of the Catholic faith—I thus had not one, but two different documents I could access for each child.

Checking the first Mary, I located her baptismal record in the parish of Killeentierna. Her entry in the church register was dated September 25, 1864. There in the entry was mention of her parents—John Kelly and Johanna Falvey—along with the names of her godparents, James and Margaret Fleming. The family's domicile was listed as Currow.

When I looked for Mary's appearance in the civil registration, filed at the registrar's district in Molahiffe, the entry indicated her actual date of birth as 18 September in 1864, and that the registration was filed on September 24. The same parents were named in the civil paperwork, and I could see that John Kelly, not unlike many of his Catholic neighbors of that time period, signed his name with an "X."

For the place of birth, though, a different location was offered: Curraross. How had I missed this before? I took a second look; sure enough, the same residence was given for Mary's father, preventing any attempts at explaining that perhaps Mary's family lived in one place, but she somehow was born elsewhere.

Curious about the variance between the two documents, I tried the same experiment with the second Mary Kelly. Sure enough, her March 24, 1867, baptismal record named the same parents and another Fleming man as her godfather, while listing her family's residence as Barnfield in the same parish, Killeentierna. But the civil registration, filed by her father on March 23, had something different to say about her residence. In this second report, the Kelly family was said to live in a place called Currabarnfield.

Worse, looking up townland listings for Killeentierna gave me neither alternative. No Barnfield, no Currabarnfield—but there was a place called Currabanefield. Do I take that as my answer? One would presume government officials would surely know the official names of their geographic designations—but so would the priests who lived among their parishioners in those same vicinities. 

I am only slightly encouraged to remember that when searching for another Irish ancestor in a different county, the spelling for a townland in Griffith's Valuation differed from the way the place name is currently spelled. Couple that with the propensity for British governmental overseers to prefer writing phonetically the names rendered with a vastly different spelling in the Irish tongue, and perhaps I have my answer.

Or perhaps this is a problem meriting closer examination. After all, there are far more than just one John Kelly in County Kerry. 

Taking the Slow Route

 

There's one thing to be said for choosing to slow down and do that "exhaustive" search for a missing ancestor: you can take in far more of the scenery when you take the slow route.

It's a "stop and smell the roses" kind of search. When we look up our ancestors' records using current-day search provisions, with one click of a button, our search terms are instantly translated into possibilities. Better yet, we don't even have to perform that search; handy "hints" pop up unbidden to beguile us away to a possible record set (which, mostly, serves up the correct answer). But go page by page through that same record set, looking with our own non-AI eyes? That's putting the research brakes on, benefitting us with a more leisurely, up-close review of the bigger picture.

As I looked, this past weekend, for any signs of John Kelly's own baptism, I noticed a few details. For one thing, "FAN Club" surnames back in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where John settled after emigration, popped up with regularity in the parish records I researched. This included Denehy, maiden name of the second wife of suspected Kelly relative, Timothy.

In addition, recalling Irish baptismal traditions, I watched not only for Kelly baptisms, but for any baptism in which a Kelly was named as a sponsor. With several such appearances, I'm noting the families connected to those Kelly godparents, as possible guidance in piecing together a Kelly family tree back in their homeland in County Kerry.

I also began seeing rugged evidence which might explain why I haven't found any record for John Kelly in Ireland. On the records I accessed at the National Library of Ireland, the earliest dates began with baptisms on June 14, 1801. That sounded promising, as I've had several proposed dates for John Kelly's birth reaching back to that time period.

However, by the time I had reached baptisms in August, 1809, I encountered a problem: the next microfilmed page skipped to July, 1823, without any explanation. Gone, suddenly, was my chance to extract any hints about my target ancestor's baptismal sponsors, let alone the names of his parents, if he was indeed born in those earlier years.

For the Kelly records I am finding, I'm taking notes on the implied relationships. At some point, I'll sort these out and see if any patterns emerge. Before that can happen, though, I've got more transcribing to do—not to mention, a thorough search to see whether the missing years of this record set turn up anywhere else in digitized records at NLI or elsewhere.

Not Bad, for Being Stuck

 

It's time for my biweekly check-up. Being stuck on John Kelly—as in, I can't find word one about the man's roots in County Kerry before his marriage to Johanna Falvey—I suspected that the count this time would be underwhelming. Actually, it wasn't.

That fact can be credited to my habit, over the past several months, of not letting go of previous months' research goals. There are always loose ends to tie up into a tidy resolution, and I can't bear to let family history mysteries remain unsolved. So this month became the perfect excuse to pick up a former month's unsolved puzzle, and to continue building on to that branch of my mother-in-law's family.

Thanks to the effort there, 206 more individuals found their place in my mother-in-law's Jackson line, that colonial line from New England which migrated westward through upstate New York, then on to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Boasting a start with a family of thirteen children, that Jackson line is sure to provide our family with many DNA matches, so I'm keen to research all the lines of descent. It was no surprise to learn that a little effort over the past two weeks provided documentation for that many Jackson descendants—all while puzzling over my Kelly brick wall from this month's research puzzle. That brings my in-laws' count to 44,208 relatives stretching back multiple generations.

Needless to say, nothing has been accomplished on the 41,957 names in my own family tree, a task I won't pick up again until this coming October. Nor has there been much to augment the Kelly line. Behind the scenes, that challenge requires some background research. Hopefully, that will yield results over the next two weeks—or I'll face finding myself reaching back to this research goal in months to come, just as I've found myself doing with the Jackson line.

S O S : Saving Our Societies

 

Perhaps blogging has become passe in today's world, but I still follow several genealogy blogs. It's one way to keep up with what's happening in the world of people who still pursue their families' stories. Since I coordinate several local family history education opportunities on behalf of my county genealogical society, I find it important to keep my fingers on that pulse.

I also know what an uphill battle it has been for local genealogical organizations to remain pertinent in an ever-connected yet increasingly isolated culture of technology. Any society board member who might have caught a glimpse of John Reid's post in Anglo-Celtic Connections earlier this week might have found resonance in the title of Tuesday's entry: "Ideas on How to Save my Genealogical Society."

Mentioning an online meeting hosted by a board member of the Stanly County Genealogical Society in North Carolina, the blog post provided contact information for anyone wishing to become part of that meeting. The meeting was open to any society's board members interested in sharing ideas on what goes into maintaining a thriving organization now.

While our local society is still active and, despite losing members ever so gradually over the decades, providing multiple programs and services each month, I was grateful to have spotted the announcement and took up the offer to join in the conversation. In my opinion, it's good for us to share our resources. Granted, what might work well for one community may fall flat in another location, but if we don't gain any inspiration by seeing what others have already tested out, we're likely to continue our own downward spiral.

As it turns out, by attending this past week, I stepped into an ongoing conversation. The group meets online on the third Wednesday evening of each month. I anticipate I'll share some ideas from out here on the west coast, and gain quite a bit of inspiration from others joining in from the south, the east, the midwest, and the north—including two organizations in attendance from Ontario, Canada. We can sit there, isolated in our own communities, and watch our genealogical societies eventually capsize with the weight of our own organizational problems, or we can reach out and connect with others determined to make the pursuit of our families' roots vibrant and pertinent to today's generations in our own communities.

Yet Another Attempt

I confess: I can't give up. Trying every way I can to find any sign of the right John Kelly back in Ireland, I've backtracked to some original sources. In an old-fashioned way: microfilm.

Not that I've really resigned myself to cranking through records on a microfilm record. This attempt is the next "best" thing. (Admittedly, nothing is "best" about having to read handwritten records on a microfilm reader.) 

I've gone back—virtually, of course—to the National Library of Ireland, where lo and behold, there are some microfilmed records for earlier years of some of the locations in County Kerry where I first spotted John Kelly and his wife, Johanna Falvey. Keep in mind that the dates I've retrieved for John's birth vary wildly. Some of those dates reached beyond those available in a crisper, cleaner digitized form at either Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org. Believe me, these older records show their age.

Thus, I now enter the stage of a "reasonably" exhaustive search. While I'm not sure it can be considered reasonable, I'll be reading through the birth entries, page by page, starting with the early 1800s in the parish of Killeentierna.

Though the copy is fuzzy, it is still fairly easy to differentiate "Kelly" from all the other blurry surnames, so progress won't be too agonizing. Much time to search means little time to write about it, though, but if I find something significant, I'll come up for air long enough to tell about it. 

In Search of a Genealogy Happy Dance

 

After rolling around at the very bottom of the doldrums over not finding my John Kelly—as opposed to the thousands of others out there in County Kerry—I now can understand the reason behind the Genealogy Happy Dance. Being so despondent about the possibility of never finding an answer demands an equal and opposite reaction, once the impossible is achieved.

I don't doubt there is some sign out there of that one particular John Kelly. It's just that I haven't been able to find it. Not this year. Not the last time I tried. Try enough times and the quest seems fated for just giving up entirely.

It's not that the "Happy Dance" concept is some Snoopy-esque over-exuberance to be winked at with a smile. It's simply that, when you look that hard for so long, actually finding what you were looking for erupts from impossibility to near-miracle status. No wonder people get so happy when they finally find their answer. I could use a little bit of that Happy Dance energy myself right now.

When in Doubt, Re-read Your Email

 

Yesterday, the wiser approach to my John Kelly impasse was to set the whole search conundrum aside to clear my mind and gain a fresh perspective. Did I heed my own advice? Of course not.

I did, however, recall a file that might be worth revisiting: the one containing old emails I had filed away for future reference. When in doubt, re-reading old emails can sometimes re-invigorate flagging resources. 

Over the years, I've set up a filing system to help me re-locate old emails I had received which were useful to current family research questions and worth saving for future reference. Mostly, I had set up a list of surnames I had been researching, creating the folders by surname within my email program. While I hadn't specifically set up a file folder for Kelly—a much too common name, and one for which I've got at least three different family lines to research—I had set one up for John's wife, Johanna Falvey.

As it turned out, a reader here on A Family Tapestry had sent me a note about a database she had found which contained a clipping about a Falvey death in County Kerry. While I don't think the man mentioned in the clipping was related to my Johanna Falvey Kelly, seeing the note again reminded me to return and take a look at that website.

The website was RootsIreland.ie. Now apparently a subscription-only website, I wasn't sure it would be worth it to test the waters only after ponying up the payment. But it did remind me that there are other websites which might be worth exploring besides the usual states-side companies I'd been using. 

Of course, now I'm kicking myself for not setting up a folder under the label Kelly, after all. That system has helped out for so many other surname questions in the past. But it did give me a needed nudge to see if there are any other new resources out there which can open the door just a crack further to enter the Irish world of genealogical records. Our John Kelly has got to be out there, somewhere. And having a system to review old messages can come in handy, after all.

Null Set

 

Sometimes, no matter how we jumble the terms and try new combinations, those family names simply refuse to appear in record sets. That's how it's gone with my search for John Kelly's roots in County Kerry. Though I have had better results looking for his wife's name—Johanna Falvey—I'm still missing baptismal records for two of their Irish-born children, Timothy and Catherine. And as for his suspected kinship to a co-worker in his adopted home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that Timothy Kelly has yet to appear in baptismal records back home in Ireland, as well. I'm drawing a null set here.

I tried jumping back to the original baptismal records in County Kerry without success—a search which not only yielded nothing, but took an enormous amount of time. If AI could search more successfully for these mystery ancestors, I might actually consider giving it a try.

In the meantime, I'm suffering research fatigue, a good sign it might be more productive to set this one aside, at least for a few days, and try an entirely different research problem. Sometimes, the mind needs some time to empty, and then breathe.

Mind Mapping Kelly

 

This month may have started out with the goal of seeking John Kelly's roots. That quickly changed. After all, even narrowing the search to an Indiana immigrant's homeland in County Kerry, Ireland, coupling such a search with a surname like Kelly didn't advance my position. I had to branch out to learn anything more about my father-in-law's family tree.

Thus entered the sideline of pursuing the history of Timothy Kelly, John's co-worker in the booming Fort Wayne railroad industry, and possible relative. Finding further information on Timothy then led to discovery of his sister Margaret in Toledo, Ohio. And that sister Margaret soon led to nieces and nephews in her home, recently immigrated from Ireland, with the surname Sullivan.

As the surnames piled on, the resultant search presented a case for the use of mind mapping the family connections. I'm not sure yet how John and Timothy Kelly were related—if at all. My plan, over the weekend, to review what could be found in newspaper mentions of the three Kelly names—John, Timothy, and Margaret—led to no more than I had found the last time I had revisited this research question.

This impasse convinced me to re-read all my posts on these Kelly connections, beginning with our family's trip to County Kerry in 2014, when we searched for the actual townlands which had been mentioned in Kelly baptismal records before their emigration. This tour through all I had written on the Kelly line reminded me of some rough times running in tandem with my intended research goals—recalling research collaboration with Kelly relatives now long gone, struggles to continue through Covid casualties and fire threats and serious family illnesses.

Despite the many detours on the path to finding that Kelly answer, I had discovered some connections which still could use additional verification—if there is any out there to find. Bottom line is that in County Kerry, I now have several linked surnames which beg for at least a dotted line of connection. From Timothy's sister Margaret, I had learned her reported parents' names from her death certificate: Timothy Kelly and Catherine Flynn. The reporting party on Margaret's certificate, Katie Sullivan, was a niece who thus provides us with another surname connected to the family constellation. And reviewing farther back in records, baptismal reports for John Kelly's oldest children provided godparents' names yielding a Fleming connection, as well.

With all these surnames swirling in my head, it's time to sketch out a mind map of their connections—and keep an eye out for their repeated mention in records drawn up, back in County Kerry.

Asking the Question

 

What makes a person ask the question about their roots? What prompts someone to decide the answer will only come through a personal commitment to the search?

I've always had my own thoughts about a possible answer to such questions, but when the discussion led that way in a local genealogical society meeting last week, it was interesting to hear what prompted other members.

One member began the conversation by noting that it was when one of her grandparents had died that she realized the additional implications of that loss: a personal repository of family remembrances of bygone generations was lost as well. Others agreed and added their illustrations. For another member, the oldest in her generation in that family, she realized her position as natural-born resource when any of the cousins wondered about a family detail; they would come calling her for information. She, correspondingly, complied by finding answers.

It has long been my conjecture that it is those for whom family details were hidden—versus out in plain sight for all to know—who felt a compulsion to seek out the real story on their roots. That was always my case. Despite my mother's ample supply of family stories—recounted to my generation, thanks to her mother's Aunt Fannie—there was an absolute vacuum when it came to reports about my father's family. Though amply filled with oral heritage on one side, the silence from the other side sucked me in.

As we move well into an era of instant online access to a wealth of information, including digitized historical records, I'm realizing it might be helpful to reach out to others and ask what motivated them to begin their family history pursuit. Technology introduces secondary changes to life—how we access information shifts whom we depend on—and sometimes we don't even realize how we, as a collective, are responding. Returning to our roots as genealogical organizations as well as individuals might help put us in touch with the original motivations which brought us here in the first place.

Saying Goodbye

 

We had an interesting conversation the other morning, the few of us who lingered after our genealogy society's special interest group meeting. A longstanding member asked, "What do you see as the future of our organization?"

Perhaps a question like that might seem reasonable, considering what prompted it was news that the three thousand volume collection of reference material we had amassed over seventy years was possibly headed to a future of being "purged" from the public library's bookshelves. Was it all over? Was it time we were saying goodbye?

Goodbye must have been on our members' minds for a season. Over the past few months' meetings, members had been bringing their personal books, journals, even unused pedigree charts—"free to good home"—for anyone who could use them. The reason? Members just wanted to clean up their personal office. Only problem was: everyone was hoping to do the same thing.

We talked about some of our longstanding members. These were people who were so fascinated by their own family's history that they had stayed committed to finding the answers to their questions for decades—and then helping others to learn how to do the same. They talked about reasons why they first were drawn to family history—for many, it was when they started losing their own grandparents—and wondered how to find the next generation of answer seekers. Were they even there?

Over the nearly seventy-five years since our local genealogical society was first established, the world of family history research has changed in ways so far beyond our wildest dreams. So has the world of volunteer action and dedication. And so have the individual members who had made all this possible for us to share.

In their own way, some of our most dedicated volunteers were ready to say their own personal goodbye—but hesitant to let go...to whom? To multi-national corporations with the power and resources to digitize all the handwritten records of the ages but limited reach into the world of face to face relationships? To a volunteer partnership of local residents in an age plagued by the curse of Bowling Alone?

In an ambience more befitting a late night conversation around a campfire, a mellow mood enveloped our morning coffee time gathering. We didn't come up with any answers, this gathering of researchers who, over the years, have become friends. In the hush of contemplating what could come next, we eventually said our goodbyes and each of us went about our day's schedule. But I couldn't seem to let go of the question that sparked the conversation: what do we see as our future, those of us who still want to gather to pursue our family's stories? Is it time for us to say goodbye to an era of collective effort?

Tracking Timothy Kelly

 

Sometimes, being stymied with a brick wall ancestor means wrestling with a person for whom we can find no further documentation, especially concerning the earlier years of his life. When that happens, discovering a cluster of possible family relationships—or at least friends, associates, or old neighbors—can help us bypass the impasse. In John Kelly's case, my father-in-law's great-grandfather, that key connector would be his co-worker, Timothy Kelly.

Before we can even decide whether Timothy Kelly might have been the linchpin bringing John Kelly and his family from County Kerry, Ireland, to a job in Fort Wayne in the United States, we need to piece together what we already know about Timothy's life into a timeline.

We've already discussed some of the key dates from Timothy's later years, such as his marriage in Fort Wayne, late in 1860, or his death in 1901. What I'm keen to do now is push back the man's personal history to the earlier years of his life. For that, all we have so far is a note in his obituary mentioning his work on the "Fort Wayne Road" in 1857.

Pinning a date on the opposite end of Timothy's life proves difficult. Depending on which document we use, Timothy could have been born as early as 1827 or as late as 1839. His death record on September 21, 1901, gave his age simply as sixty two years. That would yield a year of birth in the fall of 1839.

However, depending on which census record we rely on, Timothy's year of birth could have been in 1830 (from the 1870 census), or 1828 (according to the 1900 census, taken right before his death), or even in 1827 (if we rely on the 1880 census). To complicate matters, Timothy's headstone added the inference of another date: 1829.

When he came to this country, on the other hand, is only provided by one date—so far. The 1900 census noted that Timothy arrived in the United States in 1854. That record also indicated that Timothy was a naturalized citizen—though that is an event for which I have yet to find documentation.

If Timothy Kelly did work on the Fort Wayne Road as a "very young man" in 1857, we'd have to take that phrase with a genealogical grain of salt. If the death certificate had his birth fixed accurately, that would mean the "very young man" would have been about fifteen years of age at the time. But if the earliest date held true, he simply would have been a worker aged about thirty, no age to be surprised or concerned with at all.

Regardless of how old Timothy Kelly was when working on the railroad, the real question—at least for me—is how I can find signs of the rest of his family, if they had also immigrated along with him. For a young worker of fifteen years of age, we might expect to see parents, or at least a sign of older siblings. If, on the other hand, Timothy did turn out to be closer to thirty at that point, it would be no surprise to find he had immigrated on his own as a single man, seeking a better life in a new country—not unusual for many young Irish immigrants at any time after the devastating Irish famine years.

Despite this date quandary, it still would benefit us to look for any further connections between our Timothy and that sister Margaret mentioned in his obituary. An exploration of newspaper mentions next week might help point the way for a next step in this search for a possible collateral Kelly line.    

Revisiting a Personal Track Record

 

One positive aspect of writing about our research progress is that, eventually, we build a track record detailing what we've already tried. Whether successful or a miserable failure in answering our research questions, the log of our research wanderings charts details we won't need to revisit. It also, thankfully, can point us to spots in our previous searches which do need to be revisited.

In the case of Timothy Kelly, the co-worker and Fort Wayne, Indiana, neighbor of my father-in-law's Irish immigrant great-grandfather John Kelly, I had worked on his line in the past. Part of my task now is to review everything I've already written on him, both back in 2016 and more recently in 2020.

I'm hoping to zero in on gaps in that research and look for signs of possible additional record sets which could add helpful pointers. After all, a lot of digitized documentation has been uploaded to websites both in the United States and back in Ireland in the past ten years. I'm hoping to spot those gaps, discover which newly-added record sets could fill in the blanks, and then recap what's been discovered with this iteration in researching Timothy Kelly. And that, in turn, will hopefully point out any further connections between the two Kelly families.

Thankfully, those clues about a sister for Timothy named Margaret and family connections pointing back to Toledo, Ohio, were details I had touched on in past years' posts. It's time to recap the family's story by reviewing that material, then step out to fill in the remaining blanks. From what I've reviewed of past posts, though, it looks like the journey won't be entirely straightforward. It's time to set out a timeline of what's already been found.

The Fort Wayne Road

 

Perhaps it was a mild form of presentism which struck me when pondering the early years of Timothy Kelly. Since he was a contemporary and co-worker of my father-in-law's great-grandfather John Kelly, I've been trying to discern whether there was any further connection between the two Kelly men. Finding information on Timothy Kelly, I hoped, could fill in a few blanks regarding how the two were connected.

Timothy Kelly's September 22, 1901, obituary in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette mention his work, back in 1857, on "the Fort Wayne road." Since I had been unable to find Timothy in census records before 1870, I was keen to locate his whereabouts. A sighting in the 1860 census, before his marriage to Ellen Hannan in October, might provide the names of his parents, or at least a mention of siblings.

Wondering what the "Fort Wayne Road" might have referred to—here I was thinking of something historic like Zane's Trace, admittedly a too-far stretch into the wrong period of history—I took my question about the road to the search engines. When the responses mentioned routes far too early for Timothy's participation in a construction project in 1857, I added that specific year to my search terms.

Suddenly, the results were no longer discussing the early roads of stage coach travel, but a far different kind of road: rail roads. Of course it made all the sense in the world, once my mind shifted to the realities of that era. Even more than that, putting it in context with a man who spent the rest of his working years employed by the railroads—oh, duh, how could I have missed it?

Stuck in my own timeframe.

The Fort Wayne Road, if you're curious, was part of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Rail Road, later reorganized as the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway. Fort Wayne, as a city, played a large role in the development of railroad lines through the midwest, something I should have surmised from my research visits to the city over the years. The Allen County History Center mentioned in a social media post that Fort Wayne was considered one of the most important railroad centers in the nation.

While it was helpful to get reoriented to what was considered the prime "road" in the city during that time period, knowing these railroad details didn't quite pinpoint where I might find young Timothy Kelly. The entire railroad operation extended westward from Pittsburgh through Fort Wayne and on to Chicago. In fact, researching the term, "the Fort Wayne road," I found one mention which identified the Fort Wayne Railroad Bridge as crossing the Allegheny into Pittsburgh—certainly far from Fort Wayne itself. If the entirety of the tracks was dubbed the Fort Wayne road, that would make pinpointing Timothy's location quite a puzzle.

On the other hand, mention of some of Timothy's family residing in Ohio might make more sense if the family had moved with the expansion of the work project. It might help to turn our attention to mentions of the Kelly family in various newspaper reports over time. 

Floating

 

When faced with charting an unexplained connection to a possible relative, my first step has always been to set up a separate family tree. On Ancestry.com, I usually created an entirely new tree, often making it private and unsearchable while my doubts yielded the upper hand. Once my sandbox experiment made it clear to me that I was on the right track, only then I might add the person as a "floating branch" in my own tree.

Once I caved and signed up for Ancestry's ProTools subscription, "floating" became a far easier proposition. While, yes, I could always create a floating branch in any family tree, the ProTools arsenal helped me tackle that a bit more easily. By creating a "network," I could link a person to a known relative in my tree, beginning the process by clicking on "Networks Beta" at the bottom of the "Relationships" column.

Though the next step offers several options, I simply named the network, specified the person I wanted to add, and that was it. In this case, I named my network Kelly FAN Club, wrote a descriptor for the network's purpose, and entered my first candidate, Timothy Kelly.

While it is true that I will be duplicating some effort—after all, I already had set up a small tree headed by this same Timothy Kelly—it was effort expended several years ago. With all the improvements in accessible resources over that time period, I am hoping more digitized records will help point the way to Timothy's family. After all, he did not come alone. I want to know not only who his siblings were, but whether his parents also migrated from County Kerry. Such a discovery as that, alone, would be a gift, especially if he turned out to be a close relative of John Kelly, his co-worker and my father-in-law's great-grandfather.

The next step, then, is to find any new additions to record sets, both at American resources such as Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, and also back in Ireland, and add them to this new floating branch. But first, I'll be following up on that newspaper obituary clue about Timothy's work on the Fort Wayne Road in 1857. I'll be looking, first, for signs of his residence right there in the same city where that other Kelly family was soon to arrive at their new home.

A Kelly Connection, Far From Home

 

When seeking clues on the roots of an Irishman with a name as common as John Kelly, any Kelly connection is tempting to follow. As it turned out, my father-in-law's great-grandfather John Kelly happened to move far from home in Ireland to a city in America where one of his co-workers turned out to also have the surname Kelly.

Imagine that.

This co-worker, by the name of Timothy Kelly, also happened to live around the block from where John Kelly settled in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with his wife and family of three surviving Irish-born children: a son who was also named Timothy, along with daughters Catherine and Mary Ann. 

By the time John and his family had arrived in Fort Wayne by 1860, Timothy had married Ellen Hannan and soon had a growing family of his own. Oldest daughter Catherine was welcomed by Timothy and Ellen in 1861, followed soon after by Mary in 1863, Andrew in 1868, Timothy in 1869, Richard in 1871, and Deborah in 1873, before Timothy's wife Ellen died in 1875.

A list of names like that was enough to also give me pause, as here was another Kelly whose namesake choices for his children echoed that of our John Kelly. Though there were many more years of life lived by Timothy Kelly before his own passing in 1901, what I had already found about this other Kelly man gave me much to ponder.

Unfortunately, Timothy died just before governmental record-keeping mandates sought the kind of additional personal information that makes genealogists do the research happy dance. Information on Timothy's death record, as reported by his son Andrew, did confirm he was born in Ireland, but as to any other details, Andrew was unable to say.

Fortunately, the wordy obituaries of the era helped to fill in a few blanks. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette of September 22, 1901, explained that Timothy was born in County Kerry and that he "came to this country when he was a small boy." Though not fixing a date for his arrival, the obituary mentioned that "as a very young man" he "assisted" in the construction of the "Fort Wayne road" in 1857—three years before his marriage to Ellen Hannan.

The only other detail provided by the obituary, besides his work history and his regard as one of the senior members of the Fort Wayne community, was that he was survived by a sister named Margaret Kelly.

When I first attempted following Timothy's family line, it was likely a decade ago, if not earlier. I did try searching for Margaret Kelly, and through details provided in newspaper reports, I had traced her to a residence in Toledo, Ohio. At that point, inability to access archived newspapers from that location stalled my progress. It's certainly high time to pick up that chase once again, to see if we can isolate enough details on this Kelly man to pinpoint who his own family was, and where in County Kerry they may have had connections with our John Kelly—if any.  

When There's No One to Look Back to

 

Yesterday was a day spent observing people ask each other where their ancestors were in 1776. For some, the answer was a proud, "right here in America." For my father-in-law's Irish roots, the answer could only have been a guess: somewhere amidst the green, green hills of Ireland.

Truth be told, as I tally my biweekly count once again, the amount of progress I made on my in-laws' family tree this time was not owing to a momentous discovery concerning my father-in-law's Irish forebears. For that question, I am still squarely stuck in the mid 1850s; there are simply no records available to pull me deeper into history.

I did, however, manage to add 373 additional documented relatives to that family tree, but only thanks to work done behind the scenes on the relatives from my mother-in-law's side, ancestors I had puzzled over this past spring. I'm still on the hunt for the parents of her brick wall second great-grandmother, Lydia Miler. Besides that, I did realize that her Jackson side did handily pull me back before that mesmerizing 250 mark on yesterday's calendar, so I worked on descendants from that line in hopes of confirming some DNA matches. There are so many yet to work on there.

That tree, as you can imagine, has been growing steadily despite the brick wall research obstacles. Right now, I count 44,002 documented relatives on the combined tree for my in-laws. On the other hand, not much has happened on my own side of the equation, where the tree count is still holding at 41,957. Come this fall, we'll turn our attention to that side of the family, but next week, it will be time to return to the question of John Kelly and his origin in County Kerry, Ireland.

Beyond 250

 

Celebrating 250 may be acknowledging a significant historic landmark—and I hope fellow Americans' festivities today are enjoyable (and safe!)—but as genealogists know, there is much that goes into any story that comes from our roots. And there is much that will be required of us to move with any significance beyond this 250. But for this one day, may you, family, and friends enjoy together what the day means to you. Happy Fourth!

Family? Or Friend?

 

When researching a brick wall ancestor with a name as generic as John Kelly, we sometimes need to reach beyond the usual tactics. In this instance, not knowing for sure where in County Kerry our Irish immigrant John Kelly originated, nor having the luxury of any documentation on John's parents from his adopted home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I'd be at a loss in discovering his roots except for one tantalizing detail: John stuck close to another Irish immigrant by the name of Timothy Kelly.

There were some tantalizing parallels between John's family and Timothy's family. Each man had named their oldest daughters Catherine and Mary. Both had a son named Timothy. They both worked for the railroad in Fort Wayne, living around the corner and down the block from each other. And—I couldn't help noticing—Timothy lived next door to someone named Daniel Falvey who had the same surname as John's wife's maiden name. Could these folks be family? Or merely friends who coincidentally shared a surname, job, and other similarities?

The similarities reached farther than those details. I discovered that, in the aftermath of the unexpected loss of John's daughter Catherine after the birth of her son, she was buried in a family plot co-owned by John and Timothy, likely purchased in 1875 after the death of Timothy's first wife. Perhaps it's time to pull out some old notes drawn up when I visited the Catholic Cemetery in Fort Wayne to ascertain who else was buried in that family plot. 

Perhaps, too, it's time to revisit this unexplained connection between two Kelly men and their (coincidental?) neighborliness following a migration of over three thousand miles. It's likely been well over a decade since I last puzzled over this relationship. Though I can't yet tell whether these two were Kelly family members or simply good friends through thick and thin, the question warrants a closer look.

Looking for the Rest of the Family

 

In the quest to find the origin of an Irish immigrant named John Kelly—I pause while you laugh—I had hoped to find additional baptismal records for the rest of his family. 

In the decades following the Irish famine years, John Kelly had married and begun a family. His marriage to Johanna Falvey pinpointed the sacrament's location in County Kerry as the diocese of Kilcummin, and noted their residence to have been in Knockauncore. Baptismal records for two of John's children provided locations within the Killeentierna diocese: Barnfield and Currow. Other transcribed records mention Molahiffe, possibly a civil registration rather than a religious record.

The various locations given for the family have long seemed confusing to me. I remember pondering that very puzzle before leaving on our family's research trip to Ireland, over a decade ago. (Hint: the trip not only didn't help resolve the issue, but had some locals puzzled over the designated townlands, too.)

One way to resolve that issue about geographic designations was to simply graph the distance. My first stop was to the National Library of Ireland's entry on Catholic parish records, where I found a sketch of County Kerry's dioceses, from which I drew a close-up of the locations in question.

It was easy to see how close the three in question were to each other. Molahiff, mentioned in one transcribed record for daughter Mary Ann's birth, lies to the west of Killeentierna, diocese in which both Kelly daughters' baptisms were entered, and also to Kilcummin, where parents John Kelly and Johanna Falvey had been married in 1859. And as a point of reference, though it is not included in that map excerpt, Kilcummin lies directly north of Killarney, an easily-recognized name to many people.

Next, it was to Google Maps, to outline the distance between the locations mentioned in the records: the townland of Barnfield and the village of Currow in Killeentierna, the townland of Knockauncore in Kilcummin, and Molahiffe. If all locations were put into a circle route, it would mean a journey by foot lasting nearly six hours. However, I doubt Molahiffe was mentioned as a place where the family lived, but possibly where they needed to file a civil report of the birth. Eliminating that outlier from the map meant a trip of about three and a half hours to travel between the other locations, a very possible distance to travel by foot.

The key, I hoped, would be to find records for the rest of the Kelly children, but though I tried searching through the Irish Catholic Parish Registers collection at Ancestry, I was unable to find any further records for Timothy, Catherine, or even Patrick Kelly, whose birth has been listed in subsequent American records as both Ireland and the United States.

Lacking any further Irish records for John Kelly's children, I still have other ways to search for John's origin. One way, which I had tried years ago with little success, is to examine the one close associate of the family who had also migrated to the United States and lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, same as John and Johanna. Perhaps it's time to revisit that connection once again.

Map above courtesy the National Library of Ireland entry on Catholic Parish Registers.

Before the Journey Began

 

One way to trace the route of immigrant ancestors is to look to their children. Not just the locations where those children were born, but the year of their arrival can give us a sketch of their parents' meanderings.

Before the journey began for John Kelly, he had married Johanna Falvey and the couple had at least four children before leaving their homeland in County Kerry, Ireland. The baptismal records help pinpoint the family's whereabouts before their final decision to set sail for America.

John and Johanna were married in 1859, and by the next year, they had welcomed in their oldest son. They named their boy Timothy, and as practicing Catholics, the Kellys surely had him baptized, but where is the question. I've yet to locate that record, as well as that of the second-born child, a daughter they named Catherine, who eventually became my father-in-law's ill-fated paternal grandmother. 

For their third child, however, John and Johanna chose to have that daughter baptized at the Catholic parish in Killeentierna in County Kerry. The September 25, 1864, record noted that the Kelly family was residing in the village of Currow at that time. The only other bit of information was the note concerning the godparents, James and Margaret Fleming, surely one or the other of which would be a sibling to either parents.

From that discovery, we now have a Kelly couple named John and Johanna who have been said to reside in either Currow, as we saw for this one baptismal record, or the townland of Knockauncore, as we saw yesterday for Johanna's entry in her marriage record. At any rate, these two locations help us zero in on the vicinity where John Kelly and his wife once lived—or remind us that there could be more than one couple with a husband claiming a name as common as John Kelly, urging us to look further for more information on the family's whereabouts for the baptisms of their other children before they left Ireland.