Update On Oliver Hennessey Or, We Could All Use A Genealogical Fairy Godmother

 

     This post will make a lot more sense if you read my first blog about Oliver before this one, so here it is.  If not, here is the synopsis-- while pondering how my cousin Cornelius Ryan Jr. and his wife Anna Hennessey, two Irish immigrants, came up with the name Oliver for their son born in 1870, I chanced upon the badly misspelled name Oliver "Hnnisee" in the 1860 census.  Using previously copied church records, I was able to deduce Oliver Hnnisee and Anna Hennessey were siblings, children of Kieran and Bridget Gorman Hennessey.  Oliver passed away in 1868 according to church burial records, not long before his sister Anna's son was born, clearly Oliver Ryan was named for his uncle.

     It was my belief Oliver Hennessey married just a few years before his death,  a young woman named Joanna Quinlan, also known as Jane Quinlan.  Their daughter, and only child, Anna Belle was born in 1866.  I had no solid proof Oliver was Anna Belle's father, just a feeling.  The widow Jane Quinlan Hennessey married again in early 1870 and she and her daughter Anna Belle can be found living with her new husband Martin Rigger in the census that same year.  It made sense that Jane's late husband was Oliver.  The thing was, a memorial on Find A Grave claimed Jane Quinlan had married a man named Thomas Hennessey and that he was Anna Belle's father.  The memorial had no photos or any proof, though photos would have been useless in this case anyway because all the stone in question says is "Father" and the dates.  Church records did show a Thomas Hennessey being buried in 1868.  He wasn't anyone's father though, he was only one year old.  Also, the 1860 census did record a Thomas Hennessey of the right age to be Jane's husband.

     I still believed I was right about Oliver being Anna Belle's father, but a tiny shadow of doubt had crept in.  Maybe the person who created the memorial had more informaton than I did, a family bible?  A copy of Anna Belle's baptism that I did not have?  You never know.  But the individuals posting on Find A Grave are after all, just researchers like you and I and they can be mistaken at times.  I was sticking with Oliver.

     With the Family History Centers still shut due to the pandemic I had about given up on finding the answer to this question any time soon until, while browsing the net to see if there were any updates on reopenings, I found an offer from the manager of one such center volunteering to do look ups!  While I have quite a few I could have requested, this is the one that really nagged at me, so I sent an email asking for a look up of Anna Belle's baptism.  Just a few days later I had an answer from this wonderful lady, complete with an image. Thank you Ms. Volunteer! 

    Anna Belle was born the 16th of January in 1866 and baptized on the 24th.  Her Godparents were Daniel Walsh and Catherine Gorman.  Her mother was Joanna Quinlan and her father...OLIVER Hennessey!   I'll come out and say it, I love it when I get it right.

Down To The Wire

     

     Only one day left, my Rootsireland subscription was about to expire. To what should the remaining hours be devoted? I settled on the Travers family. My third-great-grandmother Mary Travers has long been without a definite birthplace, it was past time to remedy that. When the NLI published it's Irish Parish registers to the net a few years ago I spent hours looking for Mary. I knew she was married to Michael O'Hora at Rathvilly Parish in County Carlow in 1814 so odds were good she had been born near that place but it could have been any of three counties. Rathvilly is uniquely situated on Carlow's borders with counties Wicklow and Kildare.  After a long search the closest I ever came was a Maria Trevers born in 1794 to John Trevers and his wife Margaret Lawlor in the Parish of Castledermot, County Kildare, a stone's throw from Rathvilly. This couple had four other children in the Castledermot baptism register, two Michaels, a William and a John. It didn't help that the pages were so faded they could barely be read, which may be why none of these records were found at Find My Past.  I would bet there were additional children but until the FBI gets around to applying their image enhancement technology to these records, (a long held dream of mine), they remain beyond reach.

Mary Travers O'Hora 1794-1869

    Another clue collected along the way, Mary's granddaughter, Anna O'Hora, married an Irishman named Michael Travers in Auburn, New York in 1868. Mary herself was living in Auburn by that time, and from news articles it was clear Michael Travers spent a good deal of time with the O'Horas, even before his marriage to Anna.  I recall wondering when I found all this if Michael could be a nephew of Mary's?  In later years when Michael Travers found himself a resident of the Onondaga County Almshouse near Syracuse, their admittance form asked his birthplace.  Michael responded he was born in County Kildare!  More information was found in land records in Ireland, many of the Travers families in Kildare were found in the Castledermot area, including John, James and "the Widow Travers", all in the townland of Ballyvass.  Also in Ballyvass were almost all the surnames of sponsors and witnesses contained in the Travers church records I was about to find in this final project with Rootsireland.  It seemed this was a likely area for Mary's hometown. 

    Pulling out all the clues I had for Mary, I opened the site and began hunting. When Michael Travers married Anna O'Hora, their marriage record gave his parent's names as John Travers and Catherine Bede. That seemed like a good place to begin so I tried a marriage search; there they were, getting married in 1836 in Castledermot.  Next stop, baptism records which I searched using only their names in the spaces for parent's names. I didn't find Michael but I did locate his sister Julia Travers who was baptized in 1838 in Castledermot Parish. Julia and her husband James Brennan along with several of their children also immigrated to Auburn, there is a picture of her at Ancestry, copied below...

Julia Travers Brennan 1838-1918

     There was also a Mary Travers around Julia and Michael's age living in the Auburn area in 1860 but I can't locate her after that and cannot connect her to this family.  I'm sure there were more children born to John Travers and Catherine Bede besides Julia and Michael, who wasn't born until 1843, so Mary may well have been another sibling.

     The baptism records of John and Margaret Lawlor Traver's children, John Jr., (husband of Catherine Bede), and the firstborn Michael do not contain addresses.  Those of William, the second Michael, and Grandma Mary however, give the townland of Kilkea, which borders Ballyvass, as their home so I've penciled that in as Grandmother Mary's birthplace.  It feels good after searching all these years to finally know where she was born and I must say, Kilkea seems like a fascinating place.

     Within it's environs lies a ringfort, (where the fairies dwell), sited upon a hill in Mullaghreelan Wood.  Also located there is the imposing Kilkea castle.  Built in the 12th century it became home to the FitzGerald family, prominent landlords in Kildare. One who resided there was Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare, born in 1525 and known as the "wizard earl", who supposedly practiced magic in the tower.  Gerald reputedly haunts the place, appearing astride a white horse every seven years.  Nearby Castledermot boasts an ancient round tower and the ruins of an abbey.  This must have been an entrancing place to grow up, where a child's imagination could run wild.  Imagine the tales told of the Earl's ghost gamboling through the countryside with his band of horsemen, the stories of the capers of the mischievous Mullaghreelan fairies and monks in their towers.  

The abbey at Castledermot

          The townland of Kilkea, another place now added to my must see itinerary!

The Beauty Of Old Irish Records

 

     While sorting through my files today, something I try to do once a year just to see if any bits of information I came across in the past make more sense today than when first discovered, I came upon the Irish census of 1901.  The person enumerated in the census was Thomas Hughes of Ballyraggan in County Kildare and it really brought home to me what could be achieved sitting here at my computer desk thousands of miles from Ireland.

     It all began with finding my third-great-grandfather Daniel McGarr in land records, Griffith's Valuation and the Tithe Applotment books.  After those discoveries I sent a request to the Valuation Office for their records pertaining to Daniel.  A few weeks later I received copies of the cancelled books held at their office that told an amazing story of Daniel's occupation of the land and revealed he actually had a tenant of his own, Patrick Kane, who leased a tiny portion of Daniel's holding.  It also confirmed the number of his lot.  Using that number and old maps at the OSI site, I located his holding then switched to the satellite map where I could get a bird's eye view of the terrain.  Even on the modern map the outline of Daniel's land as seen on the old map was clearly visible.  Switching to Google Maps streetview, the site took me to the lane where the cottage sat but it wouldn't allow me to travel down that lane.

     Enter dear Dara from the Black Raven Genealogy blog, who kindly volunteered to traverse that lane for me and even took snapshots, which I cherish, of the remains of the old cottage, now transformed as part of a shed.  One of the photos, seen below, shows the remnants of a wall and window sill.  I gaze at it and wonder, how many time did my great-great-grandmother Maria lean on that sill to peer out the window?  Perhaps even sit upon it while waiting for her beau James O'Hora from the next townland over to visit?

Old window sill jutting out from the wall

     So many other records played a part in the hunt, baptism records that allowed me to reconstruct Daniel's family there in Ballyraggan, his daughter's marriage records, Daniel's death registration which I had to send for but which is now freely available online.  They all added up to give me an incredible picture of Daniel's life that I wouldn't have dreamt possible when I began researching my family back in pre-computer days.

     So where does Thomas Hughes fit in?  In the year 1872, six years after the death of Daniel's wife Anne Donahoe, their youngest daughter, Sarah, married Thomas Hughes.  The couple made their home with Daniel and after his passing Thomas Hughes inherited the holding.  The records from the Valuation Office spell that out.  And the census record that so excited me?  There were several forms attached to old Irish censuses, one of which was form B1, the House And Building Return which contains a wealth of information.  

Tomas Hughes at number 6

     While land records showed the size of Daniel's lot, what he paid for it yearly, and when Hughes took it over, this form told me what the house itself was actually like!  I learned the home consisted of four rooms with three widows gracing the front.  It was made of  mud or wood according to the form, but from Dara's photos it appears it was a combination of stone and mud.  The roof was thatch. 

     This is the only instance where I've been able to find so much detail about the home of one of my Irish ancestors.  It was my good fortune that some members of the McGarr family remained in Ireland to create records when most of the others immigrated, along with the fact these wonderful records that allowed me to put it all together not only still exist, but, with the exception of the cancelled books, are online.  And not least, that I made the acquaintance of my generous friend Dara.