Playing the "What If" Game

 

When DNA testing presents us with a possible family relationship—but doesn't explain how those two people are connected—it's time to start playing the "What If" game. Now's the time to look more closely at collateral lines connected to that brick wall ancestor. In fact, it might be appropriate to take a deep dive into that someone else's family tree—not just reviewing what a DNA match might presume is the family tree, but going so far as to do our own work in building that family tree.

In the case of my father-in-law's great-grandmother, Anna Flanagan Malloy, that is exactly the tempting point where I'm standing now. I can't find any record of her parents' names, but I do have some other information. As far as collateral lines go, I already know that when Anna migrated from County Limerick, Ireland, to Chicago in the United States, at some point she was joined by her brother William. A further collateral line springs from another, as yet unnamed, Flanagan brother whose daughter Johanna also ended up in Chicago. And now, to add to the possibilities of collateral lines, I have a DNA match whose Flanagan ancestor also hails from that same townland in County Limerick—Cappananty—who was known as James Flanagan.

Before I start searching for documentation to confirm or reject this James Flanagan as a possible family connection, let's run down the property record paper trail that I discovered during my trip to Ireland a decade ago. While I wrote about my research in the Valuation Office in Dublin at the time I had found the records—I'll provide the links in this synopsis—I'll just give a quick overview here.

Basically, records used in Ireland for property taxation came in big ledgers with each resident's name in the left column. As the years moved on and changes to residences occurred, the original resident's name was lined out, and—with changes marked in a different color ink—the new resident's name was entered. Thus, going through the property ledgers provides us a house history, so to speak, as the property changed hands.

Back in 2014, I provided the photo of the ledger page where I had found a Catherine Flanagan listed, living in the same property identified as 7f that had been labeled William Flanagan's place on Griffith's Valuation in 1853. Keep in mind, that property would have been within the boundaries of the Catholic parish Ballyagran, which our William, himself, had stated was his native home.

Following the trail of that property labeled 7f through the years, here is the progression of residents' names:

• 1853: William Flanagan
• 1855: Catherine Flanagan
• 1866: Catherine's name lined out, James Flanagan entered, labeled "68."
• 1906: Property now listed as owned by James Flanagan
• 1939: Property in probate (possible date of death for James?)
• 1941: Ledger entry states property "in ruins" with tax only for land, not structures

My "What If" question: what if Catherine Flanagan were William's mother? And what if James Flanagan were a brother to William? Or what if Catherine were a sister to William and James? Or mother to James? 

There could be all sorts of permutations to that "What If" game, and a thousand ways the unsuspecting genealogist could be led down the wrong branch of the family tree. Despite the risks, though, it warrants a closer look at any documentation we can find on this James Flanagan and his family—including the results found among those DNA matches who tie my father-in-law's line to the descendants of one James Flanagan of Cappananty. 

The Gift of Collateral Lines

 

Genealogy is a process of pushing backward through the years, one generation at a time. Eventually, we run into a brick wall that impedes our research progress. Then what? 

I've found one approach to making an end run around those brick walls is to research an ancestor's collateral lines—those brothers and sisters who might have been more fortunate to have their life's story captured by documentation. Using that research technique has been more than just another process; for me, collateral lines have often become a research gift.

With this current puzzle about my father-in-law's great-grandmother Anna Flanagan Malloy and the siblings who traveled with her from County Limerick in Ireland to, ultimately, Chicago, one key collateral line has been Anna's brother William. He was the one who made sure to leave behind a record—carved in stone, no less—of his origin in Parish "Ballygran." Once I took the search for the Flanagan family to that very parish in Ireland, I couldn't help but notice the entry in one 1841 record book signed, in a very clear hand, as Jacobus Flanagan, pastor of Ballygran.

It is in that same parish, whether you spell it precisely as Ballygran or Ballyagran, where the ancestors of one DNA match also happened to live. The ancestor, named James Flanagan—yes, that name, too, would be Jacobus in Latin—may have been born about the same time as Anna and William.

What is further interesting is to see how the names of the next generation echo those of the families of the Flanagan relatives who left Ireland for Chicago. While traditional Irish naming patterns may have been forsaken by those emigrants who left Ireland far behind, those who remained on the home turf were more likely to keep up a tradition which, in turn, could help solve our puzzle—with an added boost from genetic genealogy.

A further point to consider is to trace the changing hands of the property we had found, whose resident was, in 1853, listed as William Flanagan. As a first step in delving into this question about possible collateral lines, we'll take some time tomorrow to review my discoveries from that Ireland trip over ten years ago.

The Lay of the Land

 

It may seem an abrupt jump to leave Chicago and head straight to Ireland in our quest to discover more about the extended Flanagan family of my father-in-law's roots, but there is a method to this meandering: eventually, I hope to explore some collateral lines. To do this, though, we first need to zero in on the lay of the land, back where William Flanagan and his sister Anna, deserted wife of Stephen Malloy, once lived.

Though there were many key Irish documents destroyed in political struggles of the early 1900s, there are enough left us which, combined with that precious saved personal letter to Anna, may point us in the right direction for research in the Flanagans' Irish homeland.

Stephen's letter to Anna, for instance, was addressed in care of a man named John Mason in the townland of Cappanihane. If we pull up records from Griffith's Valuation, which was completed in County Limerick in 1853, we can see, first, a John Mason listed as the holder of several plots of land in that same townland. More helpful to us, though, is the entry above that listing on the same page, where William Flanagan himself is listed on land in the townland just to the west, known as Cappananty (see line entry 7f).

In the property valuation, William's property is listed as a house, office, and garden. It is doubtful the edifice was of much value; driving by the location during our visit to Ireland, of what little we saw still standing in that area, all were modest—and decrepit—structures. But what is beautiful about that discovery is that, if you fast forward through time by visiting the Valuation Office in Dublin to consult the property records from that time onward, you can see one occupier's name lined out and replaced by another, then another, over the course of time.

The first line which replaces William Flanagan's name was that of someone named Catherine. After that point, the next name was lined out and replaced by yet another name as the property changed hands again.

Is this mention in Griffith's Valuation naming our own William Flanagan? I can't yet be sure. However, what is curious about that progression of names seen in the valuation records is that it is echoed by the ancestors named by some of my husband's DNA matches. While we have yet to figure out the Flanagan DNA connection, it may be worth our while to revisit this puzzle once again.

Pulling Out Those Old Files

 

The Flanagan, Malloy, and Lee connection to County Limerick is one that has had me stumped for well over twenty years. That means, of course, that I have files dating back that far—notes that I've kept along this research journey to remind me of what I've already accomplished, what helped, and what still needs to be done. For the past decade, I can safely say that most of those old records have been kept online or in some digital format. But those others? Well, it was time to pull out those old file folders and take another look.

Frankly, I'm stumped on this search. I remember having one printout, faxed to me by a helpful office worker in one Chicago cemetery, which outlined just who was buried in the Flanagan family plot. I remember one of the names on that chart being Edward Flanagan, a puzzle piece I never did manage to connect with the rest of this family.

I went looking for that old Flanagan record, and found...something else. Those old file folders included notes from twenty three years ago, as well as other records gathered in preparation for my research trip to Ireland ten years ago. There were printed copies of death records and census pages and obituaries—all the stuff we are more likely to store digitally, now.

Among those records were notes about the gap in William Flanagan's story. A printout from my visit to the National Archives of Ireland, with penciled-in notes by the archivist who helped me with William's puzzle, listed his trial date for "stealing trousers and former convictions" as March 23, 1851. The trial took place in County Cork, and the sentence was indeed, as the family had insisted, transportation to Australia for a term of seven years.

Underneath that readout was a typed addition: "Convict ordered to be discharged" on May 9, 1855. The archivist added the comment, "shows up in Chicago by 1860," possibly making the note from my report during the archives visit.

That file folder I retrieved also contained a copy of William Flanagan's death certificate. Apparently, William died at 6:00 a.m. Chicago time on August 14, 1893, at the home of his niece Catherine Malloy (by then Tully), so I am fairly confident that the reporting party for that record would be Catherine, herself. In answer to the question, "How long resident in this State," she had responded that William had been in Chicago for eighteen years.

That would date William's arrival in Chicago as approximately 1875—and yet, we had already seen him listed in Chicago in the 1860 census. It's little conflicting notes like this which make me wonder whether more such discrepancies are what cause the man—and the rest of his family—to be so invisible.

However, other notes in that old Flanagan file folder remind me that, in Dublin, I had searched in governmental offices for records showing the location of possible property where the Flanagans may once have lived. At the time, I couldn't be sure my discoveries were of the right family, but now, looking back, I'm ready to reconsider. 

That change of mind is owing to one other observation. I checked my husband's DNA matches again to see who might be connected to that Flanagan side of his father's Irish roots, and was reminded of one contact who, like me, was stumped about the connection—but agreed that there definitely had to be one. Perhaps this time, we can figure out how that connection was made.

But For a Letter Saved

Here I am, grinding slowly through the microfilmed and digitized baptismal records of Flanagan descendants in 1870s Chicago. The pace is slow, despite the awesome advances in online search over the past few years. Even so, this may be no more than a dreary exercise in going through the motions; there is no guarantee I will find any more records from this family, once I move on to the 1880s. 

Thinking of this particular Flanagan line, it occurred to me that I wouldn't have been able to delve any deeper than I have into these Chicago records had it not been through one item: a letter sent in 1849 from Liverpool to County Limerick in Ireland. More to the point: but for that letter having been saved by its recipient, I would now be sorely lacking in any research direction for Anna Flanagan Malloy's roots.

How slim a thread upon which the realization of our family's history may hang. Yes, family research is indeed a case of here a little, there a little—but some of that information gathered here and there wouldn't make sense without the glue of some additional personal material. In Anna Flanagan Malloy's case, that otherwise missing glue would be the letter from her husband.

I've written before about that letter and what it revealed about Anna's possible home in Ireland. I first presented a copy of the letter in the early years of this blog, only months before our research trip to Ireland. Following that post, I added a copy of the actual envelope, which provided the location where Anna Flanagan Malloy was staying in her husband's absence. Only four years ago, I had revisited that letter once again, hoping to find anything more about Anna's husband Stephen Malloy. So far, I've drawn a blank, both about Stephen himself, as well as the Flanagan family.

The lesson that was missing from those experiences has been impressed on me as I revisit this research problem yet again: if it weren't for even having the letter to refer to, I would be hard pressed to move the search anywhere before Anna's appearance in the 1860 census in Chicago.

For those who are fortunate enough to have "packrat" relatives, that pile of hoarded papers may be just that—junk to be quickly discarded—or those papers could be the rare and precious key that links us to our family's otherwise obscured past. 

Sometimes, All You Get Is an Initial

 

I may be focusing on my father-in-law's Flanagan family for July, but behind the scenes for the past two weeks, I've still been trying to build out the family tree of Simon Rinehart, last month's research project. Since I had discovered the name of several more of his children, one goal was to build out the family tree so that I'd find hooks to connect with those mystery DNA matches. Such a process can sometimes be tedious, moving from parent to child to grandchild, and on down through multiple additional generations for each line of descent. If you've worked on a family tree, you know the drill.

For some branches of the Rinehart tree, the process these past two weeks went rather smoothly, but for others, it was a difficult slog. Reviewing document after document, there were instances where the effort yielded very few additional details. Sometimes, despite hours of searching, all that is gained might only be the addition of a person's middle initial. Our tiniest battles are often hard won.

Eventually, though, that puny middle initial gets added to another tiny detail, and then another. Over the course of several searches, we see that mystery ancestor's being take shape before us in our database, and the fuller picture allows us to connect the dots on a family's composition, or point us to the answer we didn't even know we were seeking. We are conjuring up ancestors, data point by data point. Eventually, there is enough data dust accumulated for that ancestor to take shape.

I remind myself of this, every time I weary of the routine—that tap dance in front of my computer screen, reviewing census enumeration after enumeration, or digging through wills or juggling sequential tax records, looking for that elusive connection to the others we can family. For every middle initial we do find, the search brings us one step closer to an answer. It's in the incremental advance that we journey towards finding the completed family picture. 

Where the Flanagan Family Worshipped

 

While we are struggling to determine more about the Flanagan family members after their arrival in Chicago, perhaps it might help to pause the search and explore what we can find on the place where the family worshipped. 

We learned from the baptismal records for three of Johanna Flanagan Lee's children that the family's church was known as Holy Family Catholic Church. Upon learning that name, you might have—as I had—presumed it was yet another of many Catholic Churches in the area. Come to find out, it was worth the effort to learn a bit about the people and places important in our ancestors' lives.

Holy Family Catholic Church was apparently the second-oldest Catholic Church in the city of Chicago. In addition, it has the claim of being one of the few buildings to survive the 1871 Chicago fire—despite the rumor that the barn of one of the church parishioners was where the fire actually started.

More to the point of our inquiry, Holy Family Catholic Church was originally a congregation comprised mostly of Irish immigrants. Eventually, the church grew to claim over twenty five thousand parishioners, so it is no surprise to learn that some estimate one third of today's Chicago Irish-American residents can trace their roots to this church. Should any family historian care to research their roots via the baptismal records from the church, they would be in great company; since the parish opened in 1857, there have been over fifty six thousand people baptized there.

The church itself, located at 1080 West Roosevelt Road, once was a parish encompassing a distance of nearly seven miles, far beyond just the downtown area. However, looking at a map of the area, I can spot some of the streets named in our search for the godparents mentioned in those baptismal records we've reviewed. And Johanna and her husband, John Lee, had moved their family to Fourteenth Street by the time of the 1880 census, still within the boundaries of the church parish.

However, whether the Lee family still lived near the church by the time of the 1881 birth of their daughter Lillian—the first of their children whose baptismal record I could not find listed in the church's index—I haven't yet been able to determine. This will, I suspect, require a second search through those listings or those of other Chicago Catholic Churches, all which will take time. The goal, as before, will still be to see what family-linked godparents might have been identified on those baptismal records—if we can find them at all.