Revisiting Johanna

 

Every time I research Johanna Falvey, my father-in-law's great-grandmother from County Kerry, I think this time I'll finally discover who her parents were. Even a year ago, my last time to wrestle with Irish documentation, I thought I was close, but ended the month without any solid record. And yet, these Falvey DNA matches keep beckoning me to try just one more time. This month is that one more time.

What I do know about Johanna mostly comes from her three decades of residence in Fort Wayne, Indiana. With her husband and three—possibly four—Irish-born children, she made a straight course from Ireland for the midwestern United States from an undisclosed port. I have yet to find any passenger records, though two different obituaries indicated that she came from County Kerry in Ireland. One, in fact, mentions that she had "several sisters and brothers" still remaining in Ireland, while another asserted that not only were there several sisters in Ireland, but one who lived in New Zealand.

When she died in 1903, her death record gave her age as seventy seven, as did her obituary. Her headstone on the other hand, chiseled in the verdict as seventy four, giving the years as 1828 through 1902, proving that even details set in cement need a copy editor. Finding Johanna in Irish records will not be a matter of an exact science.

Unfortunately for this month's quest, marriage information may not be helpful. Johanna married a man named John Kelly, a quintessentially Irish name ripe for multiple name twins. Their marriage was back in Ireland. No documents that I have been able to find provide any details on the names of Johanna's parents. And if she ever was in touch with her multiple siblings back in Ireland—or even in New Zealand—I have no record of that, not even through family letters or remembrances left by her children or grandchildren.

The only clue I have of parents' names may come from an old Irish naming tradition, in which the second son of the family was customarily named after the mother's father. Tomorrow, we'll take a closer look at Johanna and John Kelly's children, both in Indiana and in Ireland.