I'm currently researching my wife's 3rd great-grandfather, Denis Collins,

PauI,

Do you hoId any baptismaI or census or other records that you couId post for us to Iook at? That wouId be a heIp.

One thing that strikes me is the three chiIdren being born in three different pIaces, none of which are particuIarIy cIose to each other. So I'm wondering if they are actuaIIy from the same famiIy.

Do you have any actuaI records for Denis? Or is he just mentioned in someone eIse's record?

Thanks!

Hi Paul,

I did some research on this for you.

What I've confirmed (as best I can)

I found Denis. He was buried 31 October 1848 at Cardiff St Mary's parish, age 36, of Whitmore Lane (the notorious Famine-Irish slum quarter of

Cardiff). The civil death is registered Q4 1848 Cardiff district, GRO Volume 26 Page 241. He died during the 1848 typhus/cholera epidemics,

within about three years of arriving in Wales from Cork.

I also located the Cashman family in Cork. Three Cashmans (Thomas twice, and Margaret) appear in 1853 records at Kilcummer Upper townland — the

parish right next to Castletownroche, in the same Catholic chapel union. Margaret was likely Hannah's widowed mother. So Hannah Cashman almost

certainly came from Kilcummer Upper.

A separate Denis Collins appears at Ballyadeen townland, Castletownroche civil parish, in 1853 — but that's a different person (a relative or

cousin), since Denis was already dead in Cardiff by then.

The "Ballyholey" of family memory is actually Ballyhooly, a chapel-of-ease in the Castletownroche Catholic union — about 2 km north of

Ballyadeen.

Strong candidate, one certificate away from confirmed

There's a Hannah Collins who died Q1 1908 Cardiff district, age 90, GRO Volume 11A Page 284. The age fits (born around 1818, close to our recorded 1815). I think the family record's "March 1898" for Hannah's death is actually a 10-year typo for 1908 — there's no Hannah Collins

death in Cardiff 1898 matching her at all.

The puzzle

I cannot find baptism records for any of the children — Mary 1837, John 1833, or Catherine 1842 — with parents "Denis + Hannah Cashman" in any

indexed Cork Catholic parish register. Same for the marriage. Either:

- The surname "Cashman" was recorded as a variant in the original handwritten register (something like Casheen, Cussen, or Kissane)

- Hannah's first name was recorded differently (Honora, Margaret, or Mary)

- The family was actually in a different Cork parish than Castletownroche, Ballyhooly, or Carrigtwohill

I hope this helps.

Ok well this got very interesting and I had to keep researching.

I found the American grandchildren..

The three sisters in Wood River didn't just settle — they raised whole families there, and the names tell their own story.

Mary and Anthony Moore had eight children, all on record. John and James B. stayed in Wood River and farmed. William P. moved to Ivesdale,

Illinois. Dennis J. — named after his Irish grandfather — went west to Ogden, Utah. Peter M. ended up in Portland. Mary Honora married John

Kinney, carrying her grandmother's name into a third generation. Anna Theresa married John P. Fagan and settled in Pocatello, Idaho. And the one

who stands out: Father Anthony A. Moore, who became a Catholic priest, eventually Rector of St Joseph's Church in Salem, Oregon. The same

Father Moore who returned home in 1911 to officiate at the funeral of his uncle Edmund O'Brien — and the contemporary account of that funeral

explicitly identifies him as "a nephew of the deceased". That one printed phrase is what stitched the three Wood River sisters together as

siblings in the first place.

Eliza and John Maher's daughter, also named Hanora, married William Brennan in 1881 at St Mary's church in Wood River. The contemporary record

of her own life tells the rest: eight children, last years in Omaha, buried back in Wood River. Her pallbearers included her cousins John Moore

and J.W. O'Brien — and that cousin attendance, captured in writing at the time, is the second independent piece of evidence tying the three

Collins sisters back to common parents. Her brother Mathew Maher had moved out to Grand Junction, Colorado.

Ellen and Edmund O'Brien had six children, but the family memorials in St Mary's cemetery tell a brutal early story — four of their first five

children (William 1857, John 1858, Edmond 1862, and one named Dennis) died as infants or toddlers in the 1860s. Only Dennis John O'Brien of that

early cohort survived to adulthood. The two who carried the line firmly into the next century were Mary Ellen, who married an O'Neill and lived

until 1958, and James William O'Brien — the J.W. who pallbore for his cousin Hanora Brennan in 1931, and who himself outlived everyone else,

dying in 1961.

One pattern jumps out across all three branches, and is documented in writing for each one: in every household there is a Dennis named after the

Irish grandfather, and in two of the three a Honora named after the Irish grandmother. The names of the couple who started in a small townland

in North Cork are stitched right through the third generation in Nebraska.

A few threads still hanging

There was a Father J. Collins celebrating marriages at Castletownroche in the early 1830s — his signature appears repeatedly as the officiating

priest in the parish records I've been through. Castletownroche is small, and the odds that an unrelated Collins priest just happened to be

there at the same time as our Collins tenant family are slim. He was very likely Denis's brother or uncle. His ordination record would name his

parents, and that would name Denis's parents in the same line.

Honora's maiden surname is genuinely contested between two contemporary documents. One firmly says Cashman. The parish baptism entries from the

1830s and 40s firmly say Kelleher. The cleanest reconciliation is that she was a young widow Cashman before she married Denis Collins around

1820. There happens to be a small cluster of Cashmans on the next ridge over at Kilcummer Upper in the property records of the period — they

could be her first husband's people, in which case Mary's American descendants have a step-cousin branch on the Cork side that nobody has

chased.

And then the two children whose stories go dark. Catherine, the youngest, supposedly stayed in Wales after Denis died — but she only really

exists in the family record; she doesn't show up in any civil index for Glamorganshire under either her maiden name or any married name. Either

the death year is wrong (the family's "1898" for Honora turned out to be 1908, so there's precedent) or she married and is buried under a

different surname. John, the older son in the family record — born 1833 at Carrigtwohill — appears that one time and then vanishes. If he

survived the Famine and the move to Cardiff he should be findable in a Welsh census, a Nebraska census beside his sisters, or a marriage record

somewhere in between. He's the most obvious blank space in the tree.

Any one of these would be a decent afternoon's work. All three together would probably reshape the tree.

I hope this help you.

This just keeps on giving. This is my last post on this, I promise.

And remember, this is my best efforts from research, I could well have misinterpreted things, so please take with a pinch of salt.

Update — what's turned up since

A few of the open threads have closed since I last wrote.

John (1833) and Catherine (1842) have surfaced. Both of them are with their widowed mother in the 1851 census, in a Famine-Irish tenement on

Mill Lane in the St Mary's parish of Cardiff — exactly where Denis had been buried three years earlier. John was 18 and working as a labourer;

Catherine was 9. So they survived the crossing and the early Cardiff years; the family record was right that they were there.

The "Kinsale" puzzle has a different answer than I thought. The 1851 census records Honora's own birthplace as "Kinsale" — the family record had

attached the place to the wrong person, to Catherine. It's almost certainly a loose Cork designation by the census enumerator rather than

literal Kinsale parish, but it shifts where the search for her birth family should focus.

The biggest new development: Honora remarried. By the 1861 census she's no longer a widow — she's the wife of a Daniel Collins, also born in

Ireland in 1811, the exact same year as Denis. Same surname, same age, same Cardiff parish. The likeliest explanation is that Daniel was Denis's

brother and Honora married within her late husband's family, which was a recognised pattern in Famine-era Irish Catholic communities. They were

living at 11 Ellen Street, also in St Mary's. Catherine, by then 20, was still in the household working as a servant. John had moved out —

likely married, somewhere in Cardiff or Glamorgan.

Two new names in the 1861 household. A son Patrick Collins, 17, born in Ireland, and a daughter Johanna Collins, 9, also born in Ireland.

Patrick's age (born 1844) makes him a candidate to be a previously-unrecorded son of Denis and Honora who was placed with relatives during the

1851 census. Johanna's birth year (1852) rules her out as Denis's child — she has to be Daniel's daughter from a previous Irish marriage,

brought to Cardiff when he emigrated.

The Honora maiden-name puzzle has firmed up toward Kelleher. The 1853 land valuation has zero Kellehers in Castletownroche, Ballyhooly, or

Kinsale parishes — but six of them living in Glanworth, the parish immediately north of Castletownroche, and the same parish where Eliza's

husband John Maher came from. That's a cluster that fits perfectly: a Glanworth Kelleher girl marrying a Castletownroche Collins boy, and their

daughter later marrying back into a Glanworth Maher family. The whole network is tight and local — three or four contiguous parishes between

Mallow and Fermoy.

So the loose threads list shrinks: John, Catherine, and the Cashman-vs-Kelleher question are largely answered. What's opened in their place is

the Daniel Collins thread — figuring out which of Denis's brothers he was, which would name the previous generation in one stroke.

Top-tier evidence I have:

1. Mary Collins Moore's 1907 obituary (Grand Island Daily Independent newspaper clipping). The keystone document. Explicitly names her parents

as "Dennis and Hanora Cashman Collins" of Ballyhooly, Co. Cork; her birth (1 May 1837); her marriage (2 Dec 1854, Peoria, Illinois, to Anthony

Moore); her two surviving sisters; and her eight children, including the priest Rev. Anthony A. Moore.

2. Two Castletownroche RC parish baptism entries — Johanna Collins (20 May 1839) and John Collins (17 Aug 1842). Both list father Denis Collins,

mother Honora Kelleher, residence "B Mclaurence" (= "Bally McLawrence"). These are the smoking-gun records establishing the actual townland and

the mother's actual maiden surname.

3. Hanora Maher Brennan's 1931 obituary — names her cousin pallbearers as John Moore and J.W. O'Brien. That single sentence is what proves the

three Wood River sisters share parents.

4. Edmund O'Brien's 1911 obituary — describes Father Moore (Mary's son) at his funeral as "a nephew of the deceased". A second independent piece

of writing tying the sisters together.

5. The 1848 Cardiff burial entry for Denis Collins — age 36, Whitmore Lane parish. Closes the loop on Denis's death.

6. The 1851 Welsh census household record — Honora as Widow at Mill Lane, Cardiff, with John (18, labourer) and Catherine (9). Independent

confirmation of both children outside the family record.

7. The 1861 Welsh census household record — Honora remarried to a Daniel Collins at 11 Ellen Street, with Catherine still at home as a servant.

Establishes the second-marriage thread.

8. Honora's 1908 Cardiff death registration (GRO Volume 11A, page 284), age 90. Confirms her death and corrects the family record's "1898" by

ten years.

9. Eliza Connens Maher's FindAGrave memorial — uniquely records her birthplace as "Ballyhooly, Bally McLawrence, Co. Cork" — independently

corroborating the townland that the 1839 and 1842 baptism entries name.

10. The 1853 Griffith's Valuation cluster of six Kellehers in Glanworth parish — the immediately-northern parish to Castletownroche, and the

same parish where Eliza's husband John Maher came from. The geographic cluster supporting the Kelleher hypothesis for Honora's birth family.

Together, these ten pieces are what the whole reconstructed tree rests on. Items 1–4 are the keystones; 5–8 anchor the Cardiff side; 9–10 anchor

the Cork side.

I really hope this helps you.