Return to St. Pat's Cemetery

    He wasn’t there, he just was not there!  And neither was she.  Spring had sprung and I had returned to the mountain known as St. Patrick’s Cemetery.  Some kind soul had cataloged the tombstones in the cemetery and posted the list online, and John Crotty was on the list.  Only he wasn’t there.  His wife was not on the list, but she should have been, where else would she be?  I had been up and down the cliff twice now, searched high and low, (excuse the pun) and nothing.  My family had a time honored tradition of leaving their loved ones final resting places unmarked; their thoughts seemed to be, we know where we planted them, why waste good money on tom foolery like a tombstone.  Far into the 1900’s few stones were placed.  But John must have had one, he was on the list. 

     John Crotty was the brother of my g.g.g. grandmother Honora Crotty.  She and John were born in the early 1800’s to Patrick and Ellen Crotty in County Waterford, Ireland.  John came to the US around 1854; Honora, the widow of Edmund Power didn’t arrive until almost 1880. Both lived in Farmington, NY, John with his wife Ellen and their daughter Mary while Honora resided with her daughter and son in law Ellen and Thomas Mahoney.  (That’s three different individuals named Ellen; I used to dislike my name, which is also Ellen, until I discovered how much the Irish appeared to like it.)

     Walking back towards my car I noticed an overgrown area two thirds of the way up and figured I may as well check it out, and there he was.  Under branches and vines, surrounded by weeds I found Uncle John.  I set about clearing the debris then pulled the weeds, and there on the side of his tombstone I discovered an inscription for Aunt Ellen Crotty, nee Mullett.  When the cemetery was being cataloged no one had looked at the side of the monument, not that I could blame them, it wasn’t easy to get to even by St. Patrick’s standards.   I wound up setting some flat stones into the hill by their plot as steps to make the climb easier.

     After my exertions I descended, (tripped) to a lower point and as I stood under a large pine tree looking back at their graves, musing on John and Ellen’s lives I heard a tinkling sound.  Looking up I saw someone had placed a small wind chime high in the tree.  How nice I thought, and then I looked higher … there sat the biggest bird I had ever seen in my life!  This raptor creature was as big as my entire upper body, and it was silently staring at me.   I am not a superstitions woman, but being Irish I have enough sense not to fool around with known harbingers of death!  Yet again I beat a hasty retreat from St. Patrick’s.  Maybe next time I’ll bring a body guard.

    

New Records Coming

   

Fantastic news Irish researchers!  To wit:

Irish Times   Friday, 29 October 2010   John Grenham   
     The National Library of Ireland (NLI) is planning to scan all 520 microfilms that make up its collection of Roman Catholic parish registers and put the scans online.  While they won't be transcribed (so genealogists will still be going cross-eyed and pulling their hair out with frustration at the many illegible pages of records) nor indexed, this step would be hugely beneficial.  The project is still some way off, but scanning and uploading 520 films to the web isn't an enormous undertaking and should be achievable within a year from now.
       Within a year?  This is literally the answer to a prayer, no longer will we have to travel to Ireland or pay others to look for Catholic records that may not even exist.  No more choosing between spending our limited time in Ireland pouring over microfilm or touring the country of our fore bearers.  Anyone who has done research in unindexed microfilm knows how long it can take to locate relevant entries; especially when the original records were old and in the case of Catholic records, in Latin.  I’ve become fairly proficient at reading Latin by now and I can tell you every priest had his own version.  They are all similar though, so after reading a few entries you get the hang of each writer’s usage.

     As for Irish history centers, my experience is limited and mixed.  I contacted Waterford’s center and was told there was a good chance the records I needed did not exist and for $132 they would confirm this.  On the other hand, I had great luck with Tipperary Family History Research (http://www.tfhr.org).     For around $23 they will do a single search for an ancestor’s baptismal or marriage record; if the person sought is found, further searches can be carried out.  This organization has the records for the 46 parishes that comprise the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly.  I found them to be reasonably priced, and prompt when I contacted them for help in trying to locate the townlands of my Ryan and O’Dwyer ancestors who from US records, I knew came from Tipperary.  

     Early in my research I thought, “With a name like Cornelius my Ryan great-great grandfather should be easy to find”.  Ha!  What a fool I was.  While not overly common in the US, Cornelius is anything but rare in old Ireland.  Add the fact that Ryan is the most common surname in Tipperary and my chances were dimming.  Fortunately I knew the maiden name of Cornelius’ wife, Alice O’Dwyer from her death certificate in the US.  I also had most of their children’s names; TFHR was able to locate the marriage record and the baptisms, along with two formerly unknown children.  I now know they were living in Churchfield in South Tipp when they married and their first child was born there, others being born in Goldengarden and Alleen.  I also learned their nicknames were Connor and Allie, one of those delightful bits of information that make them seem more three dimensional.  That leaves just one set of great great grandparents townlands yet to be discovered.  I hope they start scanning soon.

     Hello and welcome to my blog.  The name that appears on my birth certificate is Ellen Mary, but most people call me Ellie; I live in upstate New York, near Rochester with my husband, youngest son and two nutty Yorkies.  I'm researching among others:

•  Ryan and O'Dwyer County Tipperary
• White and Keyes  County Laois
• Gunn and Brown County Kerry
• Power and Crotty County Waterford
• Hore/O'Hore County Carlow

     As you can see, I have half of Ireland covered.  This blog will be about my obsessive never-ending search for any scrap and I mean ANY scrap of  information about my long departed relatives, hence the name, Ellie's Ancestors.  My main focus will be on Irish ancestors and Irish genealogy along with upstate research and resources. 

   
     Since it's Friday I think we'll start with something I like to call "Funerary Friday", and Lord knows I've had some interesting experiences in that department.  For instance, St. Patrick’s Cemetery is located in Macedon, a small NY village on the Erie Canal where many Irish settled.  St. Patrick’s is an old Catholic cemetery perched on the side of a steep hill; more like a cliff actually, holding around 340 terraced graves. From a grave at the very top, their priest watches over his former parishioners.  

     The photo above shows the foothills of Mt. St. Patrick.  They were mostly poor Irish immigrants and as the Catholic Church was not well established here in the 19^th century, this piece of property was probably all they could afford.  

     
     I’ve spent many hours in this particular cemetery; it’s filled with tombstones any genealogist would give his or her hanging files to find, those giving a place of origin.  Envy the descendants of Mary Clavin Casey buried next to her husband John, her stone reads, born Mitchelstown, Co. Cork Ireland, died Mar. 30, 1897, 50y.  Why do my relatives never have stones like that or a stone at all half the time?

     
     Though located on the edge of the village, there are no houses near this cemetery and it is surrounded on one side by deep woods, (of course).  Never one to let anything as mundane as personal safety dissuade me, I often go there alone.  One summer I was going almost weekly to photograph stones when I noticed something decidedly odd.   About halfway up the hill, (cliff) is a plot about 10 X 10 feet, surrounded by a low iron railing.  As I approached I saw something laying on one of the graves.  Upon closer inspection, (you didn't really think something lying on a grave in a deserted cemetery would cause me go in the other direction did you?) I found it to be a cushion from a patio chaise lounge.  Strange place to sunbathe I thought, but as no one was in sight I went about my photographing.  The next time I visited, creepy plastic flowers and mosquito netting had been added.  

     Now I was getting a little nervous.  Actually I was pretty freaked out, but I had a job to do.  A few days later, still more creepy flowers were in evidence along with an excavation in which the chaise cushion now rested, the netting arranged over it.  Someone had been digging!  That was too much for even a dedicated genealogist such as myself; and while I would welcome a ghostly visit from an ancestor, provided they filled in some gaps for me, I had no desire to meet a living ghoul.  It was a very long time before I returned to that cemetery, but when I did...well that’s a story for the next Funerary Friday. 

      I invite you to join me on the trip while I share my genealogical finds, tips and photos; I hope you find them helpful.