A New Source. In Which a Seduction is Revealed and a Connolly is Cornered

  

     Last week I purchased a one-month subscription to a site featuring Irish newspapers.  I've came across several articles that mention family members so I can say I've found the small investment well worth it.

     One such member is Ellen Crotty, a perennial sticking point here at Ellie's Ancestors.  I'm not sure what to make of the clues I've discovered about her, though I have a pretty good idea.  I've written before about Ellen here and this blog will make more sense if you skim that blog, but here's the synopsis; Ellen was born around 1848 at Cullen Castle in County Waterford to Bridget O'Brien and David Crotty, the brother of my third-great-grandmother Honora Crotty Power.  Their townland is part of the Catholic Parish of Tramore.  Unfortunately, Tramore has a large block of missing records, from November 1831 to January 1857.  Given that loss, it's important to find any available scraps of information about even distant family members in the hope something may turn up relating to those closer.

     After sifting through conflicting, contradictory evidence concerning Ellen, I came to the conclusion she was, how do I put this?  A fallen woman?  It appears all three of her children were born out of wedlock, and though illegitimacy in Ireland was not as rare as I'd been led to believe, I would think three such births would make the neighbors sit up and take notice.  Especially since Ellen's children were born in the second half of the nineteenth century, after the devotional revolution, when the number of births outside marriage was declining.*

     The article I found in The Waterford Standard, 6 April 1867 edition, doesn't specifically mention Ellen, but her father David Crotty is named, and his residence is given as being within two miles of Tramore.  That fits, as Cullen Castle is indeed about two miles north of the town --

     

          

     It's interesting that in April of the previous year, Ellen gave birth to a son she named Patrick.  His baptism does not mention a father's name.  One might think the above-mentioned Patrick Connolly may be a good candidate.  It's a shame the Standard was so prudish, I would have liked to read the unfit particulars.

     Ellen gave birth again in 1876, to a son whom she named David.  This time a father's name is recorded in the church baptism register, it's David Connolly.  The forename could be a mistake by the priest or the transcriptionist; only transcriptions are available online for Tramore during this time period.  The following year Ellen delivered a baby girl, Bridget, whose father's name is absent from her baptism record altogether.  None of the births are recorded in civil records.  Later, the deaths of the two youngest children appear in civil records, but under the surname Crotty, not Connolly.  The oldest, Patrick, immigrated to America so he doesn't appear in the civil records.  However, the common tombstone erected by, "Nellie Crotty", uses Connolly for all three of her children.  The stone notes that Patrick died in America.  Likewise, the 1901 census shows Ellen Crotty and her son David Crotty living in a 3rd class house in Summerhill in Tramore.  Bridget had died of consumption two years earlier, and David would perish from the same disease in five more.

     The ten years between the births of Patrick and his two younger siblings makes me wonder if Patrick Connolly was the father of Patrick, and David Connolly fathered the two younger children?  I may never figure that out, but who can say?  I never thought I'd find an article like the one above either.

       

* This source-- Illegitimacy and Pre-Nuptial Pregnancy in Ireland before 1864: The Evidence of Some Catholic Parish Registers, can be read for free by registering at the JSTOR site.