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Elizabeth Malone

I'm trying to find the family of Elizabeth Malone, born circa 1830.

I have found many documents, some contradicting, but I believe she emigrated to the U.S. in 1847.  One census record, 1900, from LaSalle, IL. has an immigration year of 1847 and the 1910 census has an immigration year of 1846.  I have census records from 1860-1910 but the other years did not list an immigration year.

Her obituary says she immigrated as a 15 year old with her parents.  Her parents were Michael Malone and Anna McNamara(these names were listed in the St Pat's marriage register to her first husband, Michael Farrell in 1851).  I have found zero evidence that her parents immigrated.  No Michael Malone with a family from 1845-1850 in ship registers.  I found an Elizabeth Malone in 1847 on the ship Brooksby, as a 17 year old, along with a Margaret Malone, 19 and a Susan Malone, 18.  After her first husband (Michael Farrell) died, she married Edward Foley also at St Pat's in LaSalle, IL in 1857.  This register had his parents names, John Foley and Ellen Cavanagh, and witness names of Ed Hayden and Margaret Malone. Ding,ding,ding!

Would there be any records in Ireland regarding citizens emigrating that would have their birth place or prior residence?

Thank you in advance for any help in this matter.

Pat Foley

Pjkfoley

4 replies

Hello Pat, I doubt there are any records for those leaving Ireland at that time, often they would go to Liverpool and on to the USA, probably not in your case as I think they were from the south west of Ireland, Liverpool would be local travel at the time, often on to Canada as this was in the Empire and passage was cheaper. 

I could not find your Elizabeth's baptism nor any children to that couple, however a search between 1830 to 1850 revealed about 6 marriages of a Malone / McNamara, all in counties Clare or Limerick, adjoining counties. I also searched baptisms for this period and found 14 in all, 7 in Clare and 6 in Limerick and one in Tipperary, this one was in the Ballina parish (not Mayo where the bigger Ballina is) and this Tipperary place is literally across a short bridge from County Clare. I found no baptisms or marriages back to 1820 and did not search further.

I think an educated guess would say they were from this area, you can see surname distribution on this site, you can check for free but it is a subscription site https://www.johngrenham.com/surnames/ ;

At least you could probably narrow it to a couple of counties there, often these counties have Facebook pages dealing in Genealogy, apply to join etc If you were willing DNA testing may assist but it is not always easy to be definitive even with this.

Good Luck

Pat

newohalloran.p…IrelandXO Volunteer

Hi Pat,

Elizabeth was born circa 1830.  She died in 1919, and her obituary said she was in her 90th year.  The Malone girls that arrived on the ship, Brooksby, said it departed from Glasgow, Scotland.

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My parents made three trips to Ireland in the 1980's and concentrated in the Kerry/Cork region, but had no luck.  If the screenshots above are visible to you, it's my AncestryDNA ethnicity estimates.  My siblings and I always considered us to be 5/8 Irish, 2/8 French and 1/8 German.  My mother's maiden name was Boyland and her mother was a Jacoby(whose mother was a Skeffington) and my father's mother was a Gehant(French).  The Boyland's were from Meath and I believe I found my great grandfather Thomas' baptism in Athboy in 1823 and his parents marriage.  Thomas' gravestone says he was from Royal Tara, County Meath, born Aug 15, 1823.

There seems to be little DNA related to the SW of Ireland where Foley's seemed to be concentrated.  I've been concentrating in Leinster.  My gggrandfather, Edward, was a miner in Pennsylvania and then moved to Illinois where he was also a miner.  Elizabeth Malone, her first husband Michael Farrell and Edward Foley all ended up living in LaSalle, IL circa late 1840's/50's.  I've been hoping there was a connection back in Ireland that allowed three people of similar age to end up in the same small Illinois town.

Another "connection" I've been trying to track down is the McNamara name.  Elizabeth's last will was witnessed by a William McNamara, who at one point was the mayor of LaSalle.  Since her mother's maiden name was McNamara, I'm hoping William was related.  So, I have a Foley/Cavanagh, Malone/McNamara and a Farrell/Lynch whose three children ended up In LaSalle, IL. and I can't find where any of them came from!

I've been through about 50 parish registers looking for any of their baptisms.  The closest I've found was a John Foley and Eleanor Cavanagh having two sons in 1813 and 1815.  The parish register is missing the years 1818-1828.  Edward Foley was in the 1850 census in Pennsylvania and listed as 28 years old.  In the 1860 census in Illinois he was listed as 30, as was Elizabeth.  He died in 1863 and was listed as around 40!  So many contradictions and missing documents!

I hope I haven't completely confused you because I started with the search for Elizabeth Malone, trying to find Edward Foley and his parents John Foley/Ellen Cavanagh.

Thanks again for your efforts.

 

Pat

Pjkfoley

Hello Pat, I had another look for Elizabeth but to no avail, even tried for other children with the same parents and drew a blank. 

Your DNA locations look a lot like mine actually with mine a bit more midlands. I live in Louth, a small county and your have indications to border counties, Ireland to Northern Ireland. We had visitors today so only having a quick look, I searched a website on County Louth and there are a number of McNamaras in it including a list of church donors from Canada and they were two from Halifax and one from St John, New Brunswick, there was a lot of migration from Louth, north Louth Cooley Penisula are to the area late 1820s, by the way Joe Bidens maternal line are from North Louth. The site is here and you will find Malones too. This is the site https://jbhall.clahs.ie/ I think we will have to take it that she was born in a parish without records for this period. It just occurs to me that we should consider looking at variants of Elizabeth as not all site use that tool, I tried to see if I could find the emigration record on My Heritage and noticed that I got a lot of Elizabeth Malones and separetly a good few Bessy Malones. Will try for the Cavanagh angle later, have guests coming to stay over the next couple of weeks so will be hit and miss.

Regards

Pat

St Peters LouthIrelandXO Volunteer

Hello Pat,

Thank you very much for your efforts.  Please don't feel like you need to spend a lot of time on my search.  I've been searching regularly over the last ten years and been beating my head against this brick wall for at least the last five of those years.

It's nice to have a second brain thinking about other avenues to attack this search.

FYI, I've searched through Griffith's valuations searching for every John Foley and have somewhat decided he probably wasn't a land owner or lessor.

Have a happy new year.

Pat

Pjkfoley

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