Dear Carolyn: Many family stories were told about my dad’s poor aunt, his mother’s sister, who was married to an abusive man. The fact that this uncle by marriage was a wife beater and a “violent man” is well documented both orally and in written recollections by my side of the family. My grandmother was distraught about her sister and even said he caused my great-aunt’s death. Recently I took a DNA test and the results have connected me to the great-grandson of this unhappy couple. This new cousin never knew his great-grandparents, but he is interested in learning what I know about our shared family history. They have all been dead for many years, although my 95-year-old aunt is still around to corroborate. When we talk, should I mention these terrible stories about his great-grandfather?

Carolyn says: Absolutely. History is history. I don’t see the need to whitewash it. Plus, owning what is in our own ancestry is an important way to improve on it. That includes the good as well as the bad: You find out your great-grands were unusually generous, for example, and that gives you a chance to see yourself through that lens and maybe cultivate your own way of giving. You find out your great-grand was a violent abuser, and you pay extra mind to your own tendencies – maybe even take on domestic-violence prevention as a cause. Sort of an “It stops here” frame of mind. Or an Abraham Lincoln frame of mind. He’s credited with saying, “I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” Even if you don’t see taking anything that far, I don’t see much value in an anti-information approach. Why do we have to believe everything is rosy? One caveat: In my personal life and through this column, I have run across people who disagree about this, who prefer to shield others and to be shielded themselves from bad news. I don’t think it’s important to do so in this case – since we’re talking about long-gone relatives the great-grandson never knew – but it can be a kindness in general to consider a person’s bad-news preferences before you make a delivery. If possible, of course; otherwise all you can do is follow your conscience.  

Another view Re: Awkward Genealogy My father was a cruel, physically abusive man who was a terrible alcoholic. I didn’t know until I was in high school that his father was the same way, as was his father. Having that information helped connect the dots for me with genetics and behavior. As Carolyn said, I have made sure that it stopped with me, and it’s possible your new cousin might be able to do the same if any of that behavior has been reproduced. Also, if he never had to experience anything like that, it might help him appreciate his family even more for rising above something that could have consumed them. Information is power, right?

Carolyn says: Right, and also a responsibility. It sounds as if you used yours well.

 

Stephen Colbert, late-night talk show host, has been in the news lately. Did you know he is said to be 94% Irish? 

 

According to genealogist Megan Smolenyak, Colbert is "about as Hibernian as they come." Fifteen of his sixteen great-great-grandparents were either born in Ireland or of Irish heritage, with three subsequent generations of his ancestors intermarrying solely with other Irish-Americans. 

 

In 2015 Smolenyak detailed facts about her research into Colbert's ancestry in an Irish America Magazine article. Curious? Or just like to read about Irish family history? Click here to find out more.

Mark Miner, a lifelong resident of southwest Pennsylvania, has built a remarkable family history collection since he began the project back in 2000. A newspaper article commemorating his website's 25^th anniversary summarizes the effort:

“The site traces the descendants of Miner’s fifth great-grandparents, Jacob Minerd Sr. and Maria Nein, who moved to Fayette County in 1791. The couple had 12 children, who married into other Pennsylvania German families; at least 87 grandchildren; 469 great-grandchildren; and countless other descendants. Miner’s website documents the lives of more than 1,000 of them.”

Read about his impressive accomplishment here.

Take time to check out minerd.com. Way more than names and dates on a family tree! You may discover you’re connected to the extended Miner/Minerd family. Lots of Irish and Scots-Irish emigrants among the biographies in the database.

 

 

"For 11 seasons, Henry Louis Gates Jr. has sat across from his guests on the popular PBS series “Finding Your Roots” and led them through secrets in their family tree. On Tuesday, it's his turn.

The Harvard scholar learns a long-buried puzzle about his great-great grandmother, Jane Gates, information which scrambles his ancestry and opens up a new branch that goes back to Ireland..."

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year! 

January 1 means college football at the Rose Bowl. The game’s nickname, "The Granddaddy of Them All," was coined many years ago by broadcaster Keith Jackson.

That nickname might apply to a probate record I saw on Facebook at Genealogy Tip of the Day. The document pictured at right could also be called "The Granddaddy of Them All," genealogically speaking. One rarely finds that many names of relatives--and Irish addresses--on a U.S. probate court document.

This listing came from an estate settled in 1914 in Hancock County, Illinois. According to the posting, the individuals (except the last three, who were attorneys) were first cousins (or children thereof) of the deceased.

While information on the Facebook page was limited, supposedly the (unnamed) decedent was born in the U.S. to an Irish immigrant father who had many siblings, including several who remained in Ireland. The decedent had no children and was an only child; therefore all the first cousins were heirs.

The posting feels like an invitation to a mystery. I couldn’t restrain myself from taking a closer look. Can you?

 

 

 

Yesterday I spent several hours walking in the footsteps of CeCe Moore.

 

I’m helping my good friend M.J., whose mother Rosemary (1924-2001) was adopted as a baby in rural Minnesota.

 

M.J. and her siblings would like to know more about their biological grandparents. While DNA evidence points to three brothers who could be her grandfather, which one is it? So many DNA matches and so many different surnames! To assist, I created a family tree with 96 names (so far).

 

A surprising coincidence came to light. First a little background: M.J. and I met nearly 50 years ago while we were living in Aberdeen, South Dakota. In the 1980s, I moved to Chicago and later to Minneapolis/St Paul. In the 1990s, M.J. and her family returned to their native Iowa. We've remained close friends; she was ‘matron of honor’ at my wedding in 1991.

 

My husband Bill grew up in north Minneapolis. I certainly didn’t expect his family history to intersect with M.J.'s – but it did in a small way.

 

Back to yesterday's research: The ‘most-likely-grandfather-candidate’, whom I will call Grandpa X, married a woman who was not M.J.’s grandmother in 1926. The birth of this couple’s first child was announced in the April 27, 1927 edition of The Minneapolis Star and included the parents’ home address: 4207 Fremont Ave N.

 

A bell rang in my head. My mother-in-law, Violet “Vi” (1910-2001), frequently talked about growing up in a home on Fremont Ave in north Minneapolis.

 

When I reviewed the 1920 census, nine-year-old Vi's name appeared at the top of a new page, after the enumeration of her parents and older sister on the prior census page. Vi's parents owned their home at 4211 Fremont Ave N, which is next door to 4207.

 

 

 

 

William Anderson was born in Ireland in 1868. Finding where sounds hopeless, right?

 

William (no middle name or middle initial) Anderson was the paternal grandfather of my friend, Margie. After coming to America as a young adult, William settled in Kansas City, married, raised a family, and died there in 1937.

 

Her question to me this weekend revolved around exactly where the family lived. I helped her decipher the census-taker's notes for 1910 and 1920. The censuses didn't tell the whole story, but Margie's research ultimately confirmed the families of her father (the Andersons) and her mother (the Blacks) resided on the same street in the 1920s. That's how her parents met! The two houses still stand on Lydia Ave, per Zillow.

 

While Margie didn't inquire of me about William Anderson's Irish origin, I couldn't resist looking. William's widow provided reliable birth details about him on his death certificate. Date of birth: April 7, 1868. Birthplace: Ireland. Parents: William Anderson and Elizabeth Fife. 

 

With that information, his birthplace was amazingly easy to find on FamilySearch:

 

 

 

 

Ancestry trees created by someone in England claim the townland is Ballylummin. No source is cited, but it seems reasonable based on this map from townlands.ie. Ballylummin comprises just 1.78 acres.

 

 

 

Last week an acquaintance asked me to help locate her father. She'd had no contact with him since she was a toddler, after her parents separated/divorced in the early 1950s. She assumed he was deceased.

 

She gave me the name and birthdate of her deceased mother and the name of her father. (I'll exclude the surname here, but her parents' first names were George and Harriet.) She thought her paternal grandparents were named Lester and Ruth and that they may have been from Tennessee. She'd heard her father remarried and had a family. What an intriguing mystery and what a blessing to be involved in solving it!

 

A lucky start. Her parents (George and Harriet) were together in the 1950 census where I found them living with their young daughter in Oregon. Next door was a couple about 20 years older with the same surname, Leslie and Ruth. Leslie reported his birthplace as Oklahoma; Ruth was born in Missouri.

 

The dominoes fell quickly going backwards. Ancestry.com helped me fill in names and dates going back to George's grandparents and great-grandparents. Obituaries found at newspapers.com provided hints about relatives and where they lived. Ruth died in a car accident in 1953. Her husband was a passenger in the car; she was driving because her husband's eyesight was too poor to permit him to drive. Ruth was reported as being survived by two sons, George and Don.

 

Leslie was killed by a train in 1963. A newspaper article reported he was partially blind and taking a shortcut to a relative's house when struck by the train. A sister who lived in a nearby suburb survived him as did two sons, Donald of Sunnyville, CA, and George of Chicago, IL.

 

With that tidbit, I found George's 2019 obituary including the names of his deceased (second) wife, his three daughters and one son. The obit reported George was a grandfather to thirteen and a great-grandfather to ten. Obviously--but sadly--his obituary did not acknowledge his daughter and son (born after 1950) who live in Minnesota or their children. 

 

I now have lots of information to share with my friend, including a few photos I found posted on Ancestry and newspaper stories to fill in some blanks. While  I've done a fair amount of reverse genealogy over the years, I've not been successful (so far) in tracking down contact information for George's three daughters and son or brother Don. Finding living descendants is more difficult than it used to be.

 

You'll find many interesting articles in the June-July issue of Ginealas, IGSI's e-Newsletter, including this story from Co-President Donna Jones:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

… the first to cross the threshold   Of that isle of hope and tears   Was Annie Moore from Ireland   Who was only fifteen years

 

 

 

 

I recently solved a long-standing family mystery after discovering a new DNA match to other descendants of my mother’s Irish great-great grandparents, Dominick and Bridget (Flynn) Counihan. One of their children, with the surname “Cronan”—who I long thought to have moved to Clearwater, Nebraska—actually lived in the Boston area for forty years. Understanding how I (literally) misplaced Dominick and Bridget’s daughter, Jane, baptized on 21 July 1839 in Abbeydorney, County Kerry, and failed to connect her to husband Daniel Cronin, requires some unfolding of previous research.

The Counihans present a fascinating study of global migration from poverty-stricken County Kerry, Ireland in the 1860s. Baptismal records of their seven known children show movement among four townlands within a radius of thirty miles. On 21 March 1863, daughters Margaret and Ellen Counihan, among 600 passengers, sailed aboard the Beejapore from Cork to Keppel Bay, Queensland, a journey that took 140 days. Their passage, undoubtedly funded by the Catholic Church, was granted with the expectation that they would marry and raise Catholic children. They did indeed marry, and between them produced twenty children! Australia’s records of birth, marriage, and death document these families in extraordinary detail. Of course, Margaret and Ellen never saw their parents and siblings again. But, as revealed below, Ellen kept track of her relatives in Massachusetts.

By 1867, Dominick, Bridget, and children Bridget, Mary, Maurice, Patrick, and William Counihan all left Ireland and immigrated to East Boston. In 1877, my ancestor Mary Counihan, with a canonical dispensation, married an English Protestant widower named William H. Rhodes and had thirteen children with him, the last one born when she was 48...  (continued)

What family historian hasn't gone down a rabbit hole because our curiosity was piqued, subsequently spending hours researching someone who wasn't an ancestor? It happens to the best of us.

 

Even John Grenham, as it turns out.

 

When John recalled an Irish ditty his father used to sing, he couldn't resist chasing the true-life account of "Bould Thady Quill." I guarantee you'll enjoy reading his April 20th blog posting, and you'll likely identify with the moral of his story.