Some Green Irish DNA

     
 

     A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about Mary White, newly proven relative of my great-great-grandfather James White. With the help of a DNA match found on Ancestry.com, who turned out to be a cousin,  the tale of Mary's life has slowly come to light.  We now know she was born in Ireland, almost certainly in County Laois (Queens) and came to America, settling in the same area of upstate New York as her uncle James, where she married Dennis Driscoll, a native of County Cork, in the Catholic Church at Palmyra, New York.  We know Dennis died and was buried in December of 1880, within months of the birth of their sixth child, and that Mary then married a man named McDuff, since the 1900 census of Canandaigua, New York, lists her as the widow Mary McDuff with a son named Joseph McDuff who was born in Pennsylvania. In that census Mary and Joseph are living in the household of Mary's eldest daughter Catherine Driscoll MacAniff and her family.

     That left a lot of questions however, which the lack of the 1890 census only exacerbated. Like when did they marry?  Did they marry in New York or in Pennsylvania?  They aren't in the NYS Marriage Index, but would the widow Mary leave New York and travel to Pennsylvania on her own? Where did they live in Pennsylvania?  When did Mr. McDuff pass away?  There was so much more to Mary's life after her first husband's death until her own in 1917.  I first checked the 1892 New York State census and found no trace of Mary though I did find her oldest daughter and her son John Driscoll still in the Palmyra area. John was living with Mary Lawler Floodman and her family, the same Mary Floodman at whose home Mary White Driscoll McDuff would pass away twenty-five years later.

  Pennsylvania of course had no 1892 census so it looked like church records were going to be needed, but which church?  That's when Joseph's social security application came to light showing his name now as Martin Joseph "MacDuff", his birthplace as Conshohocken Pennsylvania, and his parents as Martin MacDuff and Mary White.  His marriage record from 1916 gave his name as Joseph MacDuff and his parent's names as the same Martin  & Mary! That was progress.

Joseph's marriage 1916

        Conshohocken in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania was built on the Schuylkill River which provided power for various mills and other industries.  No doubt jobs were what drew immigrants to the area, but I was still curious about the circumstances of Mary's move there.  St. Matthew's was the Catholic parish in Conshohocken so I wrote to them-- and received no reply, but after much searching I discovered Ancestry held the cemetery records for St. Matt's.  Searching them I came across an infant born in January of 1890 in West Conshohocken named Rose McDuff who passed away in July of 1890 from cholera infantum.  While not contagious, this disease marked by severe diarrhea and vomiting, was fairly common in the summer months before refrigeration became available and was deadly to small children.  This could be another child of Mary's, no parent's names were listed but in the 1900 census Mary said she was the mother of 8 children, only 6 of whom were living.  Rose could be the missing 8th child.

     After much more searching for St. Matt's records online, I found some Diocese of Philadelphia baptisms on Find My Past.  There was Rose McDuff, parents Martin McDuff & Mary White and Joseph McDuff, his parents also Martin & Mary.  As it turns out, West Conshohocken had it's own parish, St. Gertrude's, which is where the baptisms took place.  Little Rose's burial said St. Matthew's only because both parishes shared St. Matthew's cemetery.  St. Gertrude's is no longer open, their registers are at St. Matthew's now but it doesn't look like they are going to respond to my email and so the search continues.  Martin and Mary's marriage date and place are still unknown as is the date and place of Martin's death, but now the groom's name is known and their place of residence in the early 1890's.  I'm closing in.