Church Record Sunday/McGarr Sisters

     I've written about my McGarr ancestors of Ballyraggan, Kildare before so I'm just going to show you the church records of the three oldest McGarr sisters today.  If you want more background you can find it here.  The oldest daughter was Catherine.  She married John Hore in Baltinglass, County Wicklow Ireland.  I don't have an image for that marriage, only a transcription from the IFHF website:

 29-Jan-1845
Parish / District:    BALTINGLASS      County. Wicklow    
 Husband     John    O'Hara       
 Wife     Catherine    McGra
Denomination:     Roman Catholic    
Witness 1   Peter  Hara        
Witness 2     Bridget  Donohoe

     Note the bizarre spelling. I'm sure it's them however, Peter was John's older brother, and Donahoe was Catherine's mother's maiden name.  Also, the couple's daughter Mary Hore was born in February of the following year.  I rented the Baltinglass film from the LDS to assure myself the transcription at IFHF was correct, (you can't be too careful).  

     The first failure of the potato crop, a harbinger of the devastation yet to come, occurred eight months after Catherine and John were married.  Shortly after their daughter's birth, they emigrated and settled in Aurelius, New York near Auburn. 

     The next McGarr daughter was Maria, who is my great, great grandmother.  She also came to Aurelius.  Maria  married James, the brother of John" O'Hara" at Holy Family RC Church in Auburn, New York in 1852.  The O'Hara/Hore family was from Ricketstown in County Carlow, just across the border from Ballyraggan.

 

McGarr Hore Wedding

     The other sister to come to America was Bridget.  She married at Holy Family in 1854.  Her husband was Martin Kinsella who was also a native of Kildare.  The Anastasia Farrell who witnessed the marriage was a cousin of Bridget Maria and Catherine.

    

McGarr Kinsella Nuptuals

      Maria and Bridget along with their families, eventually moved westward to Shortsville, New York  near Rochester.  From all newspaper accounts they were respectable wives and mothers.  Catherine was a little different.  Perhaps it was circumstances -- her husband died and left her with a large family, but Catherine strayed from the path a bit; it seems '94 was a particularly bad year--

Auburn Weekly Bulletin
1894 --Catherine O'Hora and daughter Kate, Seneca St.,  arrested for keeping a disorderly house, and the latter for disorderly behavior. [What constitutes a disorderly house?  I'm not sure, but I would love to know.]

1894-- Catherine O'Hora was interrogated over chicken theft.  William Travers and John Shea were arrested at her home in Seneca St. [These were Catherine's grandsons, sons of her daughters Ann and Mary respectively, who were both deceased by that time]

     It's interesting that only the three oldest daughters of Daniel McGarr came to America.  The two youngest daughters, Sarah and Anne, married in Ireland, and the two sons, Richard and John, who were the last born in 1839 and 1842, disappear without a trace.  I cannot locate a marriage or death for them in civil registration records though of course those didn't include Catholics until 1864.  If they died in childhood there would be no record of it since the Church was pretty lax about death records.  Sarah and her husband Thomas Hughes took over the lease on Daniel's farm, so I have a sad suspicion they may have perished in one of the epidemics when the famine hit, they were quite young at the time.