Records Across the Sea

    

      Working on my tree today I came across a very useful fact pertaining to my White family from Queens County Ireland, now known as County Laois. My newest find is a small article, just a few lines, noting that James White of Marion, New York was notified of the death of his cousin Judith Flynn Durkin. It doesn't seem to offer much, but oh my goodness, it in fact bears out my theory that the Whites of Palmyra, where my James lived, and the younger group of Whites living in nearby Marion, were related to each other. The White family has been among the most challenging I've traced. The root of the problem lies not only in the destruction of Irish census records, but also the loss of church records in their Parish of Rathdowney, covering exactly the years when famine era immigrants would have been being baptized and their parents married.

     Fortunately, upon arriving in America, the Whites clustered around the town of Palmyra, New York. The records they created at St. Anne's Catholic Church in that place survive and are actually more useful than the Irish version would have been. Almost all of them contain parent's names, even the burial records for men and single women. With few exceptions, married women's burial records tended to include their husband's names rather than their father's. Try finding the burial record of a Catholic in Ireland in the mid 1800's.

    One thing I've been interested in, was the relationship between my second-great-grandfather James White and the younger James White who lived in Marion. Both were born in Ireland, but married in Palmyra. James the younger's church marriage record identified his parents as William White and Anastacia Delahunty. My James' parents, (again from marriage records), were James White and Margaret Keyes. As it turned out, James the younger's birth in 1850 came late enough that his baptism was recorded in Rathdowney, it confirmed his parent's names as found in his marriage record.

     I had pieced together a tree for the Irish born Whites, but a good part of it was guesswork. Educated guesses, but with the Irish records gone, there was nothing in black and white connecting them all. Using parent's names found in those Palmyra records, that I had spent hours in the church office copying, I was able to identify several groups of Whites in the parish. I searched for those families in Rathdowney records with minimal success, only a few later born siblings turned up, but it was progress.

 

In St. Anne's Cemetery, Palmyra, New York

     The article reporting the death of Palmyra born Judith Durkin tied her and young James White of Marion together in a very real way.  Why does that matter?  Because Judith was the child of Michael Flynn and Mary Fitzpatrick, whose mother was Julia White and her father Andrew Fitzpatrick, as seen in Mary's marriage record.  I was 99 percent sure Mary Fitzpatrick was a close relative of  my James White, as upon her arrival from Ireland she resided in Palmyra with Catherine White Ryan, my James' sister.  She also acted as sponsor to one of Catherine's children, with Catherine returning the favor after Mary's first child was born.  Mary's husband Michael Flynn was born in County Leitrim, well over one hundred miles from Rathdowney, it seemed doubtful they knew each other in Ireland.  That meant the only way the deceased Judith Durkin could be a cousin of James the younger, was through her grandmother Julia White and his father William White.  

     Church and census records in Palmyra and naming patterns suggest Mary Fitzpatrick's mother Julia White along with William White, Catherine White, and my James White were all siblings, children of James and Margaret Keyes White.  William who remained in Ireland named his first son and second daughter James and Margaret, as did my James in America; he also named his fourth daughter Julia and fifth son William, while Catherine named her first and only daughter Margaret.  I couldn't find baptisms for the elder Julia's children in Ireland, their names are unknown except for Mary Fitzpatrick, but that one I'm sure of.  In addition to Mary's marriage record, the St. Anne's baptismal register reveals the priest there originally wrote Mary's maiden name as White when recording the baptism of one of her children, later crossing that out and writing Fitzpatrick instead.  It seems in his mind she was closely associated with the Whites.

     While I'd give my eye teeth for those Rathdowney parish records, or even better, the census records, I'm ready to say this whole group were relatives from Rathdowney Parish, and my second-great-grandfather was known to Mary Fitzpatrick and young James in Marion as Uncle Jim.