At various times I've applauded and cursed the Irish Naming Pattern. A name like John Ryan in Tipperary renders it practically useless if not a hindrance due to the lack of originality in names, while more uncommon given names can make it a gift. The thing is, there are times when the pattern falters. A sickly infant not expected to survive may not be given the typical name, one born soon after the loss of a family member may be given the deceased's name out of respect, a child born on the feast day of a locally favored saint might bear that person's name; there are a number of reasons the pattern may not have been followed to the letter, but most often it was.
For instance, my great-great-grandmother Anna Ryan, born in Goldengarden, Tipperary in 1831, was the daughter of Cornelius Ryan and Alice O'Dwyer. Anna immigrated to America as a young woman, followed later by her parents. In New York she married James White, from Queens County, the son of James White and Margaret Keyes. Their first child, a son, was born a year after their marriage and predictably was named James, after his paternal grandfather.
Two years later Alice, named for her maternal grandmother arrived, followed by the births of Margaret named for her paternal grandmother, Mary named for her maternal aunt, and Julia named for her paternal aunt. Then at last another boy was born and finally, Anna's father, now in New York, would get his namesake. Only he didn't. That child was not christened Cornelius, but Thomas. What the what?
Had I somehow missed a child? Julia was born in November of 1864 and Thomas on the first of December in 1866. It's possible a child was born in 1865 and didn't live long I suppose. The New York census of 1865 for Wayne County is not online, nor is the mortality schedule for that year, and the newspapers were silent on the matter. This puzzled me for quite a while. It wasn't until 1876 that a son to be named Cornelius White entered the world, after the birth of two brothers before him. He was born when Anna was forty-five years old, and probably thinking her child-bearing days were behind her.
A good deal of time was spent looking for any trace of an earlier Cornelius White, there had to have been one, didn't there? But none was found. Then I had the opportunity to visit the Family History Library in Rochester and was able to view the registers of Saint Anne's Catholic Church in Palmyra, New York where the family were parishioners. There among the baptisms was this--
Please excuse the orange highlighter, I was pretty excited about this find at the time. The first baptism was for Cornelius White on December 9, 1866, son of Jacobo White and Anna Ryan. The second was that of his twin brother Thomas. Thomas' sponsors were Cornelius Ryan Jr., (Anna's brother), and his wife Anna Hennessey. So, there had been a baby named Cornelius after all, the pattern had not been broken! In fact, this family was almost a textbook case. Their only deviation was in not naming their third daughter Anna after her mother, but that wasn't really uncommon.
Of course, now I wanted to know what had happened to Cornelius so I began collecting clues. He would have been three in 1870, but only his twin brother Thomas appeared in the census that year. Ditto the 1875 NY census. I scoured the 1870 mortality schedule, but he wasn't listed there. The burial register from Saint Anne's doesn't commence until 1868, but he's not there either. We know Cornelius was alive to be baptized in early December of 1866, the last mention I've ever found of him. All of which leads me to believe Cornelius likely passed in 1867. The causes of death for young children in the 1870 mortality schedule for the family's location were scarlet fever, lung congestion, and diphtheria, in that order. Of course, I can't say what illnesses might have been circulating in 1867.
There is very little I can say. But I have questions. Were you called Connor like the grandfather whose name you bore? Were you a happy baby, or were you fretful and not thriving? What caused you to leave so soon? With no obituary I'll most likely never know what befell wee Cornelius, but at least I know he was here and lived for a short time in an age when it was ridiculously easy for small ones to slip away...
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