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I am still looking for information on my great-grandmother, Ellen McCormick's family. She came to America with a nephew, Owen Monaghan. I rec'd the following info from a contact on ancestry.com. Can someone help me to unravel this? I would love it if Mai Fitzmaurice (McCormack) would get back in touch with me: peggy.karr0@gmail.com.

In the small townland of Gallowstown in County Roscommon, there were only about a dozen houses in the early 1900s.  

In the 1901 census (http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Roscommon/Roscommon/Ga…), several of these houses were occupied by the families we're looking at:

  • House #2 was my great-great-grandparents: Owen Monaghan and Mary Daly.  They lived there with five children, including my grandmother Theresa.
  • House #4 was Michael and Mary Monaghan.  I do not know how they are related.
  • House #6 was Tim and Mary Monaghan.  They lived with Thomas and Maria McCormack, who are listed as Tim's in-laws.  They also had six children.  One of those children was Owen, age 2.
  • House #8 was my third-great-grandmother, Anne Daly.  One of Owen and Mary's children was living with her.

In the 1911 census (http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Roscommon/Roscommon_Ru… wstown/), several of those families remained:

  • Owen and Mary were gone from house #2.  They had moved to Carrownabrickna nearby.
  • Michael & Mary were still in house #4.
  • Tim & Mary were still in house #6.  Maria McCormack was still living with them at 87 years old.  Presumably Thomas had passed away.
  • House #8 no longer had Anne Daly (presumably, she passed away), but the Finnerans lived there.  Susan Finneran (who was 18 at the time) is a name that keeps popping up in family records from the US as a wedding witness, etc., so she must have been a close friend.
  • House #13 was John Daly, the son of Anne Daly who was in house #8 in 1901.  I'm guessing that the house numbers may be arbitrarily assigned by the census taker and this might be the same house passed down in the family.

If you recall, in the 1930 US census, there was an Owen Monahan living with Ellen Tynan listed as her nephew.  He was 30 years old, which would roughly match up with Tim and Mary Monahan's child.  Given that Mary's maiden name was McCormick, it may be that Owen's mother Mary was Ellen's sister, but I can't prove that yet.

There is plenty of circumstantial evidence that the Monahans of house #2 are related to the Monahans of house #6, which would be the link between our two families.  Obviously, they lived near each other in a very small town.  The name Owen also appears in both families.  Theresa (my great grandmother) also lived with Ellen when she came over and listed her as her aunt.  So my guess there is that Owen in house #2 and Tim in house #6 were brothers and Tim's wife Mary was Ellen's sister.  But that's just a theory at this point.  

Best regards,

makarr

Wednesday 11th Dec 2013, 08:25PM

Message Board Replies

  • Hi,

    Thanks for your message.

    I hope that someone with information on this family is able to help you.

    In the meantime, have you tried getting any church records pertaining to the family? Often times links can also be established between people on such records where someone may be listed as a sponsor at  a baptism of witness at a marriage.

     

    Most Catholic records are held locally so you may need to write to the local parish priest for possible assistance. One website that you may find useful is the Irish Times where they give an overview of what records are available in specific parishes. It also shows you where copies of the records are available. For Roscommon parish, follow this link:

    http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&CityCounty=Roscommon&parish=Roscommon&churchid=564

    All the best,

    Genealogy Support

     

     

    Emma Carty

    Wednesday 12th Feb 2014, 12:34PM

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