Patrick Cullen : Short Biography

References

Patrick Cullen 1849

Ardcarn (Roscommon)

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Patrick changed his name to Kelly when he walked across the Canadian border into the US in 1868. Legend has it that he was active in the IRB and there was a warrant out for his arrest, as well as a bounty on his head.

Patrick and Evelyn Cullen

Patrick moved to Rock Island, Illinois in 1869 when he married a West Clare girl, Ellen Daly. This portrait was taken in 1888 after the birth of his 3rd child.

Patrick was born February 1849 to John Cullen and Bridget McGreevy Cullen. He was baptized at the RC parish of Ardan and Tuanam (sp). He died in 1924 as extremly successful businessman. Patrick was angry his whole life becasue he could never go home, not even to visit.

We just discovered his real name through a YDNA test on a direct line male descendent as there was NO record of Patrick prior to 1868 when he changed his name to Kelly from Cullen (Kelly was his IRB hero.) The whole family left the Glen in 1867/1868 around the time of the Fenian upraising and appears to have stowed away on ships to Canada. WE think there are brothers Berhnar, Thomas, perhaps a John. There were sisters Jennie, Mary, Catherine and Eiizabeth, (that we know of.) John Cullen died in the Boston area in 1887, We cannot located a death record for Bridget in Ireland, Canada or the US.

Additional Information
Date of Birth	8th Feb 1849
Date of Death	20th Dec 1924

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Found this on Ancestry.com. It appears Bridget died in 1900 in New Hampshire

New Hampshire, Death and Burial Records Index, 1654-1949

DEATH, BURIAL, CEMETERY & OBITUARIES

Name

Bridget Kelly

Birth

Death

Civil

mlschaff

Sunday 30th September 2018 09:12PM

Thank you for trying. My Bridget McGreevy Cullen did not appear to make it to the US. Her husband John, and father to all the children she bore which is documented on the bapticsiml records of Ardcan/tuuanman, show a Bridget, MvGreevy Cullren. The 1880 US federal census reflects John Cullen in North Adams MA, as a widower, living with his daughters (shown on baptisimal records from Roscommon). So we presume that John died a widower and that Bridget did not make iot to North Adams. The YDNA has matched my brother, a direct line male descendant, with the Myles Cullen clan of the Glen in Roscommon, related to Wiliam Patrick Cullen who was transported in 1837 for a crime he was later fund to have NOT committed So there is family in New South Wales. Northern Ireland, YDNA matched in Geevagh , Sligo and in Arigna, Roscommon. The Bridget Kelly that you refer to does not appear to be mine. The only one to have changed his name was my Patrick. Thanks for trying.