Meet Margaret

 

Margaret Flannery is an ancestor whose very name—let alone the details of her life story—I am fortunate to know. She took her position on the not-very-long maternal line of my father-in-law only after I discovered two of her children conveniently needed to request verification of their baptism. (Or maybe they were just one of us who find it hard to dispose of any records of our past.)

Margaret was wife of Denis Tully, an Irish emigrant from County Tipperary who brought his family to "Canada West" before the 1851 census. Only you wouldn't know it: that year's enumerator for the village of Paris insisted on cataloguing each of the married women as "Mrs."

Gone were my chances to discover Margaret's given name in the subsequent Canadian census, for she had apparently died by that point; her husband Denis Tully reported himself to be a widower, though I have yet to find any trace of her buried remains. It was only by diligently tracking each of her descendants that I eventually encountered a death certificate reporting parents' place of birth to be Paris, Ontario. That was how I learned the Tully family's stopping place, before the next generation arrived in the south Chicago neighborhood I always knew they called home, was in Canada.

Now, thanks to this clue delivered with her son John Tully's baptismal record, I've not only learned her given name—hint: it wasn't "Mrs."—but I was gifted with her maiden name, as well. Take that information that Margaret was a Flannery and combine it with discoveries in County Tipperary, and we have just been handed the keys to permit our first steps in her homeland.

Better than that, we learned that the specific parish in which her children were baptised was called Ballina—a village small enough to make stab-in-the-dark searches a little less impossible. From the Canadian census in 1851, we learned that "Mrs." would have been forty three years of age at her next birthday. Knowing the Irish propensity to report their age in their own favor, we'll give that number a wide berth, but hang on to any date close to 1808 on the chance that her estimate was close to reality.

I originally guessed Margaret's year of marriage based on her daughter Johanna's 1832 birth, though nothing yet has appeared to substantiate that estimate. I subsequently discovered Denis and Margaret had a son, Michael—partially confirmed, thanks to DNA testing of a descendant—whom I found in the 1861 census not far from his father's home in Paris. But even such calculated guess work is no longer necessary, since so many Irish records have since come online. Now, not only can I trace her children Patrick, John, Margaret, and William based on their records later in life in Chicago, but I can also locate their Irish baptismal records online for all but the family's youngest—William, who was born in Canada.

That online asset affords me the opportunity to once again put collateral lines to work in my favor. Given the Irish tradition of naming specific relatives as the baptised child's godparents, it will be my next task to inspect each of those baptismal entries to see if we can glean enough names to build an extended family network for both the Tully family and Margaret's own Flannery folks.   

A New Month, a New Ancestor

 

This year marks the second year I have organized my family history research goals around the monthly pursuit of what I call my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors. Well into 2021 now, I've completed three months focused on my mother's family, followed by three months devoted to my mother-in-law's family. July brought the exploration to Ireland with the first of my goals related to my father-in-law's forebears, and this month continues that series.

While I have researched each of these ancestors in the past, there is one other detail they all hold in common: each of them has previously stumped me. Whether for lack of online records, or enigmatic details—try differentiating several Kelly ancestors from Ireland, for instance—each one has seen me set aside their challenge for a more opportune time. The hope has been that new record sets will be digitized and brought online, or that I'll be able to travel to the ancestor's home location to inspect documents which couldn't be found online.

This month, our focus will be on Margaret Flannery, one of my father-in-law's great-grandparents on his maternal side. While each of my father-in-law's eight great-grandparents were born in Ireland, when I first started researching that particular line on his mother's side, I didn't even know that Margaret and her husband, Dennis Tully, were the great-grandparents I needed to focus on in that line. Moreover, I had no clue that before their children appeared in Chicago around the time of the great fire there, they had lived in Canada. All I had was the presumption that of course they had originated in Ireland.

It took thorough research of all the collateral lines I could find to discover that Margaret Flannery's immigrant Tully children stopped first in a tiny village called Paris in the county of Brant in Ontario, Canada—using a research process similar to the job I'll need to complete this month before I can achieve my goal of discovering more about Margaret's origin. More than that, I didn't even know her maiden name until a fortuitous turn of events provided a handwritten copy of a baptismal record for her son John and corroborated those details with an almost identical such note provided to the family of her daughter Johanna.

The beauty of all those serendipitous discoveries was that they filled in the blanks concerning Margaret's maiden name and the location where her children were born in Ireland, a valuable discovery, indeed. That, however, doesn't mean the search is over.

My hope, of course, is to push back the line yet another generation on the Flannery side. With lack of documentation during that era for Catholics in Ireland—we're pushing back to the 1830s and beyond by then—the process will again require careful analysis of collateral lines and other village and parish information in the hopes of finding clues.

With that challenge facing us, let's take the relatively easy first step of an introduction to our Most Wanted Ancestor challenge for August. Tomorrow, we'll meet Margaret Flannery and review what little we do know about her life's story. 

 

Above: A handwritten verification of John Tully's 1842 baptism, providing his mother's maiden name of Flannery, drawn up by a priest at the Catholic parish at Ballina, County Tipperary (by then consolidated with the parish across the river in Killaloe, County Clare), dated March 7, 1887; original letter in the author's possession.

 

Postscript on the Irish

 

Some research projects are hard to let go. Count my failed search for my father-in-law's Kelly ancestors in Indiana among them. Yet let me add just one more word before we move on to August's research challenge.

There was so much to glean from William Giffin's book, The Irish, that I couldn't say it all in one post. Nor does this one tidbit I found necessarily connect to the immigrant Kelly family upon their arrival in the vicinity of Lafayette, Indiana. It does, however, provide a glimpse of circumstances which might have influenced the choices made by their future in-law, John Stevens.

I already had learned about John, who eventually married Catherine Kelly, that he had filed his Declaration of Intention in Tippecanoe County, which document serendipitously gave me the exact details of his immigration route.

The Declaration provided his stated age—twenty seven at the time, though who knows whether that was framed in the Irish tendency to minimize such numbers during those vital working years. The record also told me that he was born in County Mayo, and that his route to America was through Liverpool in England, eventually arriving in the city of New Orleans in Louisiana.

What I failed to pay attention to—and had to go back and check today—was the date in which the Declaration was completed in Lafayette. Here's why.

William Giffin's book on the Irish in Indiana went into detail on several aspects of immigrant life during various time periods throughout the state's history. Noting the evolution of acceptance of Irish common laborers in the state, Giffin noted that the Irish were active in state politics long before 1860. Almost unanimously, Irish immigrants supported the Democrat Party, and for good reason: the party's line was sympathetic to the cause of immigrants. In fact, because of that Democrat control of the 1850 state constitutional convention, delegates voted to "ease voting requirements for immigrants."

Giffin noted that the catch was that "aliens could vote providing that they declared their intentions to become citizens and met a minimal residence requirement."

Apparently, there was a rush among those Irish immigrants to file their first papers of the naturalization process. Giffin cited a study of one Indiana city in which many such Irish declared their intentions in the week leading up to the general election itself.

That made me curious. As it turns out, I have a copy of John Stevens' Declaration of Intention, so I took a look to see. Sure enough, apparently as soon as he could, the Irish immigrant from County Mayo fulfilled the requirement on August 4, 1851. 

I don't have any way to know whether taking that act indicates anything on John Stevens' part, but I like to think he was certainly attuned to current events in his new hometown of Lafayette, Indiana, and possibly even keen on the twists and turns of local politics.

Above: Copy of the Declaration of Intention of John Stevens of County Mayo, having arrived in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, via New Orleans in December, 1850; copy on file in author's records.

Off the Shelf: The Irish

 

In a move of absolute research desperation earlier this month—trying to answer the question, "Why the Irish in Indiana?"—I found and bought a book published by the Indiana Historical Society Press. History professor William Giffin took on that same question in one of the volumes in the "Peopling Indiana" series, which he entitled The Irish.

In his introduction to the slim volume, William Giffin observed that earlier books on the history of the Irish in America tended to focus on arrivals in the northeast and to America's largest cities. While some later works did address specific other destinations, Giffin's study is a welcome addition.

Since my motivation in purchasing the book was in seeking to answer my question—specifically concerning my father-in-law's Kelly ancestors arriving in Lafayette on the western side of the state—I found it gratifying to see Giffin's inclusion of several passages specifically addressing that city and surrounding county of Tippecanoe.

Among the confirming passages were notes on the role of the Catholic Church for Irish immigrants, including specific quotes from reports on the first Catholic parish in Lafayette. You can be sure I've taken note of those passages, as well as gleaning the footnotes for further sources of information.

Yet the book was not specifically about my Irish arrivals in Lafayette in the mid-1800s. The book covers the entirety of the state, and is divided by time periods, as each span of time seemed to have its own specific qualifiers.

The first section on "Colonists and Settlers" spanned the time period between 1740 and 1832. While I'm fairly certain our Kelly ancestors did not arrive as early as that era, the chapter did set the stage for understanding the French influence in Indiana and the initial impetus for the Catholic church's arrival in the region.

The second section was where I believe our Kelly family was firmly pinpointed. Headlined "Newcomers in an Age of Mass Immigration," the chapter dealt with the time span between 1832 and 1860. The Kelly family certainly arrived within this timeframe. The chapter covered the many canal schemes and calls for laborers—as well as adequately painting the picture of living conditions for the Irish (and others) who heeded the call to work on such projects. While such descriptions add much on the "soft" side to a researcher's empathy for the human condition, such understanding is essential for those of us seeking to break out beyond the bounds of "genealogy-only" and into the more contextual details of family history.

Beyond this chapter—where I primarily camped—the book continues with a review of more recent time periods. One chapter moves beyond 1860 to the post-World War I era, classifying it as "Urban Community Building." A following chapter takes up the natural progression from Irish immigrants to descendants of immigrants, and the resurgence of an "Irish Identity," bringing the book's narrative up to the year 2000 at its close.

Complete with numerous photographs, several charts, and an extended bibliography in one slim volume, The Irish provides me with ample direction for a next step in my Kelly research—as well as painting a picture of the likely circumstances those Kelly family members may have experienced upon their arrival in their new home.

 

Dim Light at the End of a Very Long Research Tunnel

 

One last hope for direction—given my research quandary concerning the roots of my father-in-law's Kelly ancestors in Lafayette, Indiana—was an article I found through a last-ditch Google search. Published in the BYU Family Historian back in September of 2007, the article, "Irish Emigration and Immigration to North America" provided a promise I couldn't resist. According to authors David Ouimette and David Rencher, "there were numerous ways to immigrate to North America and each course had the potential to create the records needed to identify a home county or parish."

What I missed, at first, in that introductory statement was the qualifier, "the potential."

Granted, the ten page article was full of advice on useful resources to trace those difficult Irish immigrant ancestors back to their homeland—well worth your while to read. I read it twice, just in case.

As for emerging at the end of this month of research, answer in hand as to which parish in Ireland James and Mary Kelly bid goodbye on their journey to a new land, that has not happened. Yet. 

Sticking to my research plan for this year—pursuing my "Twelve Most Wanted" for 2021—means that come Monday, I will be on to a new research challenge. While I will still attempt to solve this Kelly question, it will have to step to a secondary position until further documentation, or at least clues, come to hand.

In the meantime, my foray into the background information on Irish immigration to Indiana has been helpful in a more general way. Moving from searching through databases to absorbing information from articles and genealogical or historical journals, I've now stepped into the world of books, one of which I will share with you tomorrow as I close out this Kelly chapter.

It is difficult to give up on a research chase, but I've found that sometimes, we need to develop the knack of knowing when to close the books on one particular problem. There will always be more digitized records added to collections, more scholarly articles published, more books printed with helpful information. Once we exhaust all currently-available resources at hand, we need to accept the grace to take our leave and commit to returning at a more advantageous time.

I'm positive, in that up-beat attitude that helps researchers move forward in a productive way, that there will be more to be found...someday.

 

An Offer They Couldn't Refuse

 

When I'm stuck with a research question—those pesky brick wall ancestors!—I have to pull back from that laser-locked focus on that particular problem to take in the bigger picture. That's when I reach for an overview of the situation which that ancestor might have been dealing with.

In the case of my father-in-law's great-grandmother's Kelly family, that meant being an Irish immigrant who, arriving in America, opted for the unusual choice of settling in the midwest.

Of course, I have questions. I still don't know exactly when the Kelly family arrived in Lafayette, Indiana, though it was at least by 1853, when Catherine Kelly's father was buried in that city. Nor do I yet have an idea of how the family arrived in Indiana—it could have been over land or, just as easily, via rivers.

In such a research pickle, I search for broad categories in genealogy-friendly resources. Prime among them is the FamilySearch.org wiki, which provides clues for possible next steps. This time, I looked for topics on immigration, Irish in America, and particularly Irish immigrants to Indiana or, more broadly, the midwest.

Between the FamilySearch wiki and some exploration on Google, I stumbled upon some scholarly articles in journals, and suggestions for books—some of which I'll mention later this week. But the first point that caught my eye was information which made it quite clear that the midwestern states, in seeing the flood of immigrants arriving on New York and Boston shores, did not sit idly by, hoping, "Oh please, oh please, pick me."

They went hunting for customers.

While the lore in many Indiana counties was that the Irish came there to build the canals, there were many Irish who arrived in Indiana long before the canal era. According to an article in The Hoosier Genealogist, "Irish Immigrants in the Hoosier Hills, "Those pre-canal Irish joined an already-established Catholic settlement that had its inception here in the early nineteenth century."

Indeed, contrary to the prevalent understanding that the Irish came to America in the 1850s on account of the famine there, the Potato Blight itself occurred in 1845—and even before that time, a large number of Irish had left their homeland as early as 1820.

While that 1820s immigration pattern was likely too soon to include our Kelly arrivals, such information helps to paint a picture of a pattern of settlement. Keep in mind that the river areas in what is now Indiana were once roamed by French trappers and traders with the Native American population there. The subsequent influx of French settlers brought with them their religious traditions, and thus the Catholic church followed.

With that initial step, Catholic immigrants from the British Isles, having previously settled in Maryland, traveled overland, first to Kentucky, then onward to Indiana. Among them, of course, were a number of Irish settlers. Eventually, communities of Irish Catholics formed around those initial French Catholic settlements in Indiana.

Closer to 1850, another factor influenced Irish immigration into the area: agents sent by midwestern state governments to entice Irish immigrants to settle in their state. In "Understanding Midwest Migration Patterns to Further Family History Research," an article by Rhonda McClure published in the BYU Family Historian, by 1850,

The states were just gearing up with their representatives and other efforts to entice immigrants to come and settle in their states. Eventually, thirty three states and territorial governments created immigration bureaus.

While Indiana wasn't the first to do so—that honor went to Michigan, followed by Wisconsin—several of the midwestern states sent agents to large ports like New York City with the sole purpose of recruiting arriving immigrants to settle in the state they represented. This was followed by publications designed to entice immigrants to settle in specific midwest locations and, eventually, advertisements in newspapers in European cities. Even further, one state governor suggested that "emigrant agencies" be set up in "chief towns in Europe" to attract specific immigrants to his state.

Of course, given the literacy rate of many of Ireland's poorest emigrants, written documents designed to target these arrivals may not have been the prime instrument to influence their choice of final destination. But it gives an idea of why many who followed the typical immigrant path at first—to New York or Boston—might have instead ended up, inexplicably, in Indiana. 

 

At the Far Reaches of the FAN Club

 

Could it be that the Irish stuck together in such an unlikely immigrant destination as Indiana? Searching through the census reports for each of the Kelly brothers—my father-in-law's great-grandmother's siblings—revealed nothing more than "farmer" or "laborer" for occupation. There had to be some way to deduce their origin in Ireland, and why they chose to migrate to Indiana.

Pressing my way through every branch of the extended Kelly family, looking at every census record and every other document I could find, I found myself far removed from the immediate family when I finally stumbled upon a clue. But was it a clue about the Kelly family? Or just a detail about the family of an in-law?

The youngest Kelly sibling was Ann, the one whose birth year kept changing with each decade's enumeration. She was the one who married Barnard Doyle, the son of neighboring Irish immigrants. While Ann was still living with her widowed mother and siblings in nearby Warren County in 1860, Barnard was at home on his parents' property in Tippecanoe County.

The head of that household was an Irish immigrant farmer by the name of Joseph Doyle. Unlike the few other Irish settlers in the area at that time, Joseph owned the property he was farming. He also had arrived in America earlier than the Kelly family, best I can tell, for his son Barnard had been born in Ohio about 1840.

What was handy about finding Barnard in his parents' household in the 1860 census was the confirmation of his father's identity, for at the end of their lives, both men ended up far from Indiana, buried in Kansas. Although Barnard's 1882 headstone was not helpful in that it mangled the name of the place in Ohio where he had been born, locating his father's memorial in the same cemetery proved more useful—if, that is, he turns out to be a part of the Kellys' "FAN Club" that led them to settle in Indiana, the Friends, Associates, and Neighbors in their personal circles.

Why? Because, like so many other Irish who died in America, Joseph Doyle had one detail included on his headstone: his origin in Ireland. Dying in 1885, only a few years after his son, Joseph made sure that anyone considering his final resting place knew that he was "born in Ferban, Kings Co. Ireland."

Of course we'll have to unpack that statement somewhat, before we can determine the place he once called home. The name Kings County is not what that area is called in the country of Ireland today. Now, it is known as County Offaly.

The designation of "Ferban" needs some revision, as well. A slight spelling rearrangement yields the currently correct town name of Ferbane.

That, however, is only the origin of my father-in-law's great-grandmother's youngest sister's father-in-law—admittedly a stretch. The question then becomes: did the Irish coming to Indiana immigrate as a cluster? Or independently of their fellow townspeople? Could Joseph Doyle have been a front runner for several of his neighbors back in County Offaly, leading them to a better life in the improbable destination of Lafayette, Indiana? This may be a challenge to determine, but there are more resources to consider.

Such is the process of research.