Under the potato bush, Part 2

This much I know… John McCarroll boarded a ship and came to America in 1884. Mary Duffy, in 1887, set foot on American soil. They came from different sides of Ireland… County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, County Meath north of Dublin.  Different ships, different departure location, different years. How did they ever meet, let alone get married and have 7 children?
 

There is so little out there about the New York McCarrolls. To the best of my knowledge they stayed in the New York, NY, and Detroit, MI, locales. To the best of my knowledge, John and Mary didn’t return to Ireland. Does that mean that their parents had passed on… maybe even before John and Mary left their homeland? In the days of fairly large families, did John really have only one sister? I was given the names of three siblings for Mary, were there any more? Any tiny bit of information would be so appreciated!

A family cousin wrote that John had a sister, Elizabeth, who came to the US and stayed. Mary had sisters, Jennie and Kate, and a brother, Otis. Jennie and Kate came to America and settled in Locust Valley, NY. John’s sister, according to my questionnaire, married someone named Prendergast and she lived in New York City.  But when did she come across the pond?

The questions are always the same… when was she born, who were her parents, when did she come to the US? Was she Elizabeth, Beth, Lizzie, Libby? Did she have any children? Who was Mr. Prendergast? Did she know Mr. Prendergast in Ireland? Did they grow up together? Were they childhood sweethearts?

An important record… actually two… popped up in during a search in Ancestry. Having no hope of anything being of importance in that record, I clicked on it anyway. And… Voila!!! A hint!

All of the hours and years of searching finally came up with a Declaration of Intention in 1936 and a Petition for Naturalization for Elizabeth Prendergast in 1939. Further inspection of the first document netted another find. She came over as Elizabeth McCarroll. My luck seems to have changed.

Studying the two documents gave me so much information. A memory of a photo in my grandmother’s boxes had me thinking that I had a great find. 

Elizabeth was born April 22, 1866, just two years after John. It’s a complete birth date, for John it’s only a month and a year. She was born in Glenhordial, Ireland… in County Tyrone.  A physical description has her as white with blue eyes, brown hair, 5’ 10”, tall for a woman in the early 1900s, and weighing 140 pounds. The photo in my memory and in that box is of a very wholesome looking woman and tall, much taller than my grandfather who is standing next to her. The resemblance in my mind in comparison to the one on the Declaration form is uncanny. Hopefully my memory doesn’t fail me. On both forms, she’s listed as a housewife. While her nationality gave me pause for a bit, I realized that she really was British, as a resident of Northern Ireland.

I’m on my way!

So, what about James? According to the Declaration, he was born in Glenhordial, Ireland, on June 28, 1871, only a few years younger than Elizabeth. He arrived in 1892 and they married in 1909. There were no children for Elizabeth. Sadly, James is listed as having died in 1935 and not naturalized.

The only discrepancy between the two documents is that Elizabeth left Ireland from Derry on the SS Furnessia, and landed in New York, NY. In the 1939 document, it’s recorded that she left from Londonderry. But the dates remain the same.

Elizabeth was awarded naturalization on Dec. 29, 1939, at 73 years old.

The search is on again for John’s information. But I have more than I started with. The next step will be finding Elizabeth’s marriage license. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to find out her parents names and, maybe, John’s. 

One can only hope.

Under a potato bush... Part 1

I am half Slovak, a quarter Irish, just under a quarter French and a skoshy bit English… this last bit a recent discovery. 

While I’ve found or have been given information on the Slovak, French and English ancestors, finding the Irish in us has been a major challenge. I keep telling everyone that they must have been born under a potato bush because finding my great-grandparents has been virtually impossible. 

Searching for John McCarroll from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, has been a major test. Mary Duffy is even more difficult because of her common last name. She was born in County Meath, Ireland.  So many questions… What prompted them to come to America? What was going on in the two parts of Ireland… not near to one another, but the same dilemmas? Did they each come alone or did they travel with family members? Was it a result of the potato famine in 1845? Was it politics? Was it religion? Was it that the roads were paved in gold in the United States? They didn’t land at Ellis Island, it wasn’t there yet. Was it Castle Garden? How do I find those records? Or did they even land in New York?

My father told me one my great-grandparents spoke Gaelic, something he tried to learn but it was too difficult. Mary came to Detroit a few times. I have photos of her sitting by the Belle Isle fountain with my grandmother, father and uncle. But I don’t have any photos of John in Detroit. There are photos of family trips to Long Island and the beach, photos of the family group around the home on Maple Avenue in Glen Cove. People in photos were identified, thankfully. 

Based on the 1900 census, the couple didn’t arrive together, or even married. Thanks again to the 1900 census, John came in during 1884 and Mary in 1887. The fact that they settled on Long Island in New York presents another challenge. That state has next to no digital images online. So it’s a drive to a Family Search center or a trip to the Big Apple to find out more information.

In 1997 I wrote to my father’s cousin, the oldest of that generation and about 75 at the time. I sent along a questionnaire and a self-addressed stamped envelope. 

She kindly filled out the form and added information I didn’t think to ask, like the birthdates of her father and his siblings, the year John and Mary were married and a story about her grandparents that only she could tell.

What I don’t have is the names of their parents or the cities they were born in. Their siblings were identified by first name only, except for John’s. Dad’s cousin gave me a name for his sister and her married name. I have the names of the cities where the siblings settled.

So where do I search? Who can I contact? The Irish generation before me is almost gone. There’s only one of my father’s cousins left and he’s 87. Growing up in Michigan with occasional trips to New York also proves to be an obstacle to overcome. So each trip to ancestry.com includes another search for any iota of information on John and Mary. This is the genealogist and family history writer’s worst nightmare. 

And then… a hint… a record… and hope. 

My father is Etienne Rose...

“My father is Etienne Rose born in Montreal, Canada, in the year 1790, being of French descent and Mary Burt his wife born in the year 1794 in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., being of English descent. Etienne Rose and Mary Burt were married in the city of Montreal, in the year 1816, and had 12 children.”

So starts the story of Etienne and Mary, my fifth great-grandparents. Written by their first-born son Stephen, born Feb. 4, 1817, in 1897, it holds an incredible amount of information on life in the early- and mid-1800s Michigan. It’s been published a number of times and is related online through many family trees.

“Etienne and Mary left Montreal in September 1830 with 7 children. They arrived in Detroit middle October of that year in time to catch white fish all along the river and we lived in Detroit about two months and he, Etienne Rose, looking around for a place to settle, there was much land all around Detroit that could be bought for $1.25 per acre, and plenty of other land that could be bought for $500.00 for 80 acres within four miles of the city, all of Detroit there was not over three hundred houses in the city then and he did not like to live in Detroit, so his brother Peter Rose lived in Swan Creek on the Indian Reserve and he thought he would go and live there too. They lived in the same log house for nearly two years till the summer of 1832 the year of the first cholera.”

It’s a wonderful story about our family, how they survived, who they lived with and what they did, and a genealogical listing of ancestors that any researcher would cherish… births, marriages, maiden names, children, deaths. But there is so much more in the story that triggers questions about Etienne and Mary and what isn’t in the story.

One fact is that Etienne Rose and Mary Burt were among the first landowners in St. Clair County when Michigan became a state. They were in Michigan by 1837. Having not found the land records to 1830, I will trust the story written over 100 years ago by an ancestor who was about 13 at the time of the immigration as my “record” until I find the correct one. I know they were here when Michigan became a state and I know that they purchased land.

“But thank God there was some Missionaries sent all over the world, there were Priests sent to our place every six months to administer the poor people at their own home as early as 1830 till the year 1845 the year we built the same church that now stands at Anchorville… But before now in 1839 my father, my brother Joseph and I owned a piece of land that contained 200 acres between us so in '43 I bought Joseph's share, and in '45 I bought my father's share, in the spring we began to build the same church that now stands there, but we did not finish it until 2 years afterward.

The first Priest that was sent us by Bishop Lefebver as our pastor was Fr. Chambile and he made his home in one of my houses for two years, until we built a good farm house for his residence, shortly he was sent to Detroit, and his place was next occupied by Fr. Buyse, and he held the place about 12 years.

Before I bought my father's land, with our consent he deeded the lot where the church now stands and the lot for cemetery, and it happened the deed was wrong on account of a wrong description given on deed so I secured a new deed and enlarged the lot of the cemetery to one half of an acre of land, that is the reason I own a lot in the cemetery where my wife is buried and myself will be very soon, I am 80 years old.” 

A second piece of land was deeded for another cemetery. The first cemetery was built on the lake side of the church was covered by Lake St. Clair during a period of high water. This second cemetery is located behind the church, out of harm’s and the lake’s way.

Being one of the first in the United States, the church was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary on October 15^th, 1853.

The story holds many other facts and stories that make you picture in your mind’s eye life as a settler.

But the interesting thing about this family is the assumption of future generations who thought their grandmother was 100% French. Every name called out to its French roots. Even though Mary’s name is given as Burt, it’s often been written Bourg… a French name. But all things are not as they seem.

Mary Burt “being of English descent” was born in Massachusetts. When England took control of Canada, Mary Burt's father from Massachusetts took a job as a bailiff in Quebec and moved the family there.  Etienne’s family had been in Quebec since about 1661 when my ninth great-grandfather came to North America.

Mary’s family was in Massachusetts forever, it seemed, until another family researcher, my oldest son, asked me why I didn’t tell him about a fact that was very important. Having no clue, I went back in time through Mary, her father, her father’s father, and so on, only to find that way back when the family began in England. Nothing interesting in that.

When asked, my son said, “Not the father.” So off I went again from mother to father to mother to father to mother… and it appears. My 12^th great-grandparents came over on the Mayflower. At first, I thought there was a mistake. But now I see the truth… we are part of the Mayflower families. I can’t say how many of our family knows this little bit of history but they will shortly!

“The number of my children is 13, they are all married and after a very careful and strict search, the number of my own family and of their children and their descendants make a total number 128 living, total number dead 32, and taking the whole of my brothers and my sisters and their children's grand children it makes a total of 584 living; or the total of 806 living and dead since the year 1817 till the year 1897 in February the length of time being 80 years.

I am today 80 years and 2 months and 8 days and in good health. I thank our almighty God for it.

Very Truly Yours,
Stephen Rose.”
By my calculation, the story should be dated April 12, 1897
 

I love an heirloom…

Grampa's piano circa 1940s

Music has been woven through my whole life. Brother, cousin, father, grandfather, great-aunt… they all played the piano and the memories of listening to them bring a smile to my face and heart. Some of our musicians took formal lessons, but most may have been self-taught. 

An old Grinnell upright piano with a faded black walnut finish and chipped ivory keys provided enjoyment for generations of our family. Fond memories come to mind of one of those  afternoons with grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles and the old upright piano with Grampa playing, everyone singing… all of the joy preserved by dad by means of an old wire recorder in the very early ’50s.  I remember sitting on that stairwell watching Grampa play and hearing the old, old songs… “Toot Toot Tootsie, Goodbye,” “Margie,” “If You Were The Only Girl In The World,” to name a few. We listened to the great-aunt with the quivery voice, the great-aunt who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket and the myriad of others who sang, or should we say performed, for us with heartfelt fervor. My great uncle would change the words to “Margie” while he sang to mourn the loss of a love that didn’t happen. He was from New York and met one of my Gramma’s cousins when he visited his brother in Detroit. He was smitten from the beginning by the young woman and planned to marry her. Unfortunately he was already engaged to a woman in New York. As the story goes, he went to a bachelor party before he broke off the engagement and woke up married to the New Yorker. He never forgot his Michigan love. 

Years later, sitting in the family basement rec room at a communion or graduation party… or just a gathering, we heard those same songs sung by many of the same singers, but with a different piano player… my dad, my brother or my cousin. 

I have those songs today… a tribute to our past. They were transferred from that very old wire recording to reel-to-reel tape to cassette tape to CD… and as I listen to them, I’m a little girl again seeing my loving family spend such wonderful times together. 

My Grinnell piano circa 1900

I was given a piano at 19, not that upright piano, but one from a generation even earlier. One of my very special great-aunts was given the piano from her beloved aunt and she gave it to me, she felt I was the one in the family who would cherish it and love it as much as those before me. It dates back to about 1900 and it’s still in my basement today (and in tune). This old Grinnell upright has served four generations now and will go to the fifth generation when we downsize our home. 

And how many kids did they have?

        

The William Rose family, based on census records, had six children. We have Julia, Eva, Joseph, William Jenny and the youngest Mabel. Searching for records to validate information showed three more children who were born to them. One is listed on the 1880 census as one month old. The other two aren’t documented. Without the 1890 census, so many people have fallen through the proverbial cracks. Did the two missing children, twins, belong to my family or one of the other William and Malenda/Matilda families. I accepted there were only six children in the family. I recognize that there was one more.  But the other two children bothered me. Who did they belong to? One family tree showed one of those children in their Ancestry tree, but not the other six shown above. Why isn’t there any other record except from a birth or death record?

The census records hold a lot information, as long as you read them with open eyes and an open mind. The 1900 census helped to answer some of my questions. One census question asked were how many children did you give birth to and the next one was how many are still living. Malenda gave birth to ten children, in 1900 six were still living.  

The good news, if there can be on in this instance, is that the children were born in 1880 and the twins in 1887. All three died in 1889. Causes of death included croup, blood poisoning and cholera infantum, most easy to cure in later generations. With the 1890 census destroyed, there would have been no accounting for them. 

So now I have nine children accounted for. Where is the tenth? Could it be a stillborn child not reported, a miscarriage? Will I ever find that last child?