With my local Family History Center locked down tight due to the pandemic, my to-do list grows ever longer. While many of the records filmed by the LDS over the years are now online, those of the Catholic Church are not among them for the most part. And naturally, those are the records I need.
Ever since I found my cousin three times removed, Oliver Ryan, I've been curious how he came by that name? Oliver seems an unlikely moniker to be chosen by an Irish Catholic family in light of the notoriety and hatred, rightly directed at Cromwell. How did Oliver's parents, Cornelius Ryan Jr. and Anna Hennessey, come up with that one? Then one day, while browsing census records I came across Oliver Hennessey spelled, "Hnnisse", age 25, born in Ireland. He was living in Walworth, New York just one town over from the other Hennessey's in Palmyra, New York. His age was close to Anna's, could Oliver Ryan be Oliver Hennessey's namesake?
Looking back through my notes from St. Anne's in Palmyra I found the 1868 burial record of Oliver Hennessey, son of Kieran. That settled it, when Anna married Cornelius, the record gave her parent's names as Kieran Hennessey and Bridget Gorman, Oliver was definitely her brother. When Anna's son Oliver Ryan was baptized in January of 1870, Oliver Hennessey had been gone less than two years. Instead of choosing one of the baby's grandfather's names for him, as tradition would have dictated, he was named in honor of his deceased Uncle Oliver. That solved that question, but another remained, who married Jane Quinlan?
That is why I need to see those church records. I've always thought it was probably Oliver who married Jane and was the father of her child Anna Belle Hennessey, born in 1865. There is however, a memorial on Find A Grave that contends Jane Quinlan was married to Thomas Hennessey and that Thomas died in 1867. No photographs of the markers on the grave site are included on the family's memorial page even though a stone for Jane's daughter Anna Belle does exist, I've visited it. There is also one on the plot I believe is Jane's but it says only, "mother" and the birth and death dates; another marker there reads just, "father" and the dates. As you can see below the death date is 1867.
Returning to burial records, there is an entry for Thomas Hennessey, son of Richard, who was buried on 7 April 1868. There is also a memorial on Find A Grave for that Thomas who rests with his father who indeed was named Richard. This one has a photograph but while there is no date of death the marker does give his age as one.
It should be mentioned that in the 1860 census of Palmyra there was a Thomas Hennessey from Ireland of the same generation as Anna and Oliver Hennessey, so it is somewhat possible Thomas was the one who married Jane, but I think Thomas from the census of 1860 is the Thomas Hennessey enumerated in the census of Walworth in 1870. The same town where Oliver Hennessey was living in 1860, just seven miles from Palmyra. After checking every available censuses for Wayne County, where Palmyra and Walworth are both located, there is only one Thomas Hennessey of the right age in any of them, and none after 1892 when this Thomas died. It was clearly not a common name in the area. Oliver Hennessey appears in no census but the 1860.
The lack of photos on the first memorial makes me wonder if it was put together using just burial records? The stone reads "1867" and if one checks the burial register at St. Anne's for a Hennessey who died in 1867, Thomas' name at 1868 is going to fit the bill considering tombstone dates are often a bit off, but so does Oliver. If I could just get a look at marriage records, or even the baptism of Anna Belle Hennessey I'd probably have an answer to who Jane married. It would take me fifteen minutes at most, tres frustrating!
No comments:
Post a Comment