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.