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Need Help with Donnelly Family (potentially from County Galway)

Good morning, first time posting, someone suggested posting here. - apologies if I mess up.

  • Please provide feedback if I did.

This may be a long shot because I am missing some critical information. But trying to locate my Great Great Grandma & her brother's family. First time posting so not sure if a Link to Family Search or Ancestry is helpful. Some groups (other countries) are picky about links.

What I know, or think I know :)

  • Per 1900 census: John Donnelly was born May 1837, his sister Anna (Aka Anne or Annie) was born Dec 1842 in Ireland.
  • Someone suggested County Galway, but I have found no record source to support that assumption. Maybe there is one, and I am just overlooking it.
  • John and Anne lived in Bloomington, Illinois. John Never married, Anne was married first to Thomas Doyle, then to James Gilwee.
  • Both of Anne's marriages were in a Catholic Church, as well as funeral services for Anne, her husbands, and John.
  • Neither of Anne's marriage records have her parent's names or her place of birth.
  • In the 1900 census, both John and Anne report immigrating to the US in 1855.
  • This is 5 years later than John's obit suggests (give/take a year).
  • John passed away in 1904 at his sister's home as a bachelor, so his obit info likely was provided by his sister Anne.
  • Per John's obit, he was 14 at the time he and Anne immigrated. Anne's obit reports a similar story of just the two of them immigrating to the US when they were 14 and 9, placing immigration in 1850/51.
  • Searches did not find a naturalization record for John, despite he reported being a Naturalized Citizen in the 1900 census.
  • I went to Family Search and filtered on John Donnelly, with estimated birth year, and range of 1850-1856 for immigration. Then did the same for Anne. Matching up the two, because both obits say they arrived together. I came up with only 1 manifest listing both of them - The Packet Ship Plymouth Rock, leaving Liverpool on 8 Apr 1850 and arriving in Boston Harbor on 9 May 1850.
  • Ages ling up (+/- a year), but Boston Harbor took very little info at this time, and they did not have a processing center.
  • Anne shows up on the manifest 3 pages before John does. But, this may make sense for 2 young children trying to figure out the process in a strange country and being separated in the confusion.
  • Aside from the two of them, there is a lady with the surname of Donnelly with 4 children. But searching on her in 1860, she is living with her husband in Massachusetts, ruling her out as a family member.

Suggested theories about what happened:

  • Per Marine Intelligence reported in New York and Massachusetts newspapers of the time, there is a reference to the ship in quarantine. But the manifest only references 1 death enroute, so likely not that their parents died enroute, unless the manifest did not report all deaths.
  • This was during the great potato famine, and a large number of children were orphaned at the time, and workhouses were overloaded and so they shipped children off to the US, Canada, or Australia. John being 14 could qualify to take care of his younger sister.

With all this said, not sure where to go to find their parents, or if I will ever find parent's names, or confirmation of where they were born. Not even 100% sure they arrived on the packet ship Plymouth Rock, just was the only manifest that I could find that aligned with the two of them.

Thoughts?

Please and Thank you in advance!

jmossing

8 replies

jmossing:

You did not mess up!

You have done a great job researching but without the parents names, it will be difficult to find possible baptismal records. In the mid-19th century, Donnelly households were most common in Co. Tyrone and Co. Armagh but found in great numbers in some other counties. See chart below. I did check Roots Ireland and there were 28 John Donnelly baptisms in 1837 and 18 Anne Donnelly baptisms in 1842. I could not find a brother/sister combination. What were the names of Anne's sons?

Have you taken a DNA test?

Roger McDonnell

County Number   
 Tyrone 593  
 Armagh 301  
 Antrim 138  
 Dublin 134  
 Derry 133  
 Louth 101  
 Wexford 77  
 Down 77  
 Monaghan 71  
 Leitrim 67  
 Roscommon 66  
 Fermanagh 65  
 Meath 56  
 Cavan 52  
 Longford 51  
 Galway 47  
 Offaly 44  
 Mayo 41  
 Laois 37  
 Kerry 37  
 Wicklow 37  
 Kilkenny 36  
 Kildare 31  
 Tipperary 28  
 Westmeath 28  
 Cork 21  
 Clare 19  
 Donegal 18  
 Limerick 11  
 Waterford 7  
 Carlow 6  
 Sligo 5 
Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

John's obit on FindaGrave (no source given) shows that he was in the CiviI War. Have you researched miIitary records? Maybe he got a pension--and pension fiIes can hoId a Iot of info about a person, incIuding birthpIace and reIative's names.

Have you seen the headstone? Have you gotten his records from the OId SoIdiers Home in Quincy?

glanvil3@aol.com

Thank you for your thoughts.

First, thanks for confirming I did not mess up posting. I have others I am researching and want to make sure I am doing this right for future posts.

Second, It does not appear I can reply to individual posts. If I can, let me know please.

Regarding the commonality of the last name, I was told that before. I know I trying to match up baptism records will not likely be easy, especially since I am not even sure Galway is correct. Trying to confirm location is definitely top of my research for them.

Regarding Anne's children. She had the following children (potentially named after)

  • Margaret (Husband's Mother's name)
  • Anne (Her name)
  • John (Husband's father's name, and her brother's name)
  • Sarah (Husband's sister's name)
  • Catherine
  • Gertrude

Regarding John's military service,

  • I have the obit, but thanks for confirming.
  • I have Company H, 94th regiment.
  • Pretty confident that is correct, because Anne's husband served in the same one.
  • Pension records, I have not found any for him. All the ones I find have a different company or regiment, different state, etc.

I have not seen the gravestone and it is not on Find A Grave as you likely noticed.

Regarding the Old Soldiers Home, I have not explored to see if they have any records for him. Need to explore this.

Thank you!

jmossing

I located the source for County Galway - Anne's son John's Death Certificate references his mother was born there. I do not have her or John's death cert.

I located a pension Index card, but little to no info is on it.

I located a record for his admission to the Vet's home, and a link to Illinois website to request a copy, but the website says they only provide copies to Illinois residents, which I am not. :(

Unfortunately, nothing that helps too much.

jmossing

Jmossing:

I checked the John and Anne Donnelly baptismal records on Roots Ireland. I did a ten year search from1832-1842 for John and 1837-1847 for Anne. There were four John records and three Anne records. There were no matches on parents names. Likely they were baptized in a parish which does not have records back to 1842 and earlier.

You made this comment "Second, It does not appear I can reply to individual posts. If I can, let me know please." Do you get an error message? If you are logged-in to the web site, you should be able to comment.

Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Hi, Thank you for this. I had a feeling this was a long shot without parents or a narrowed down location in Ireland.

Questions:

  • I am logged in, and I can post a general reply like this, I just was not sure if there was a way to reply to a specific reply, or tag someone I am replying to.
  • I have been using Family Search, Ancestry, Irish Genealogy, and the NLI Catholic Parish Registers. I also have links for Griffith's and the Tithes. What does Roots Ireland provide information to?
  • I have seen some people share images from there but was not sure what they provide information on.

Thanks!

jmossing

When you make a reply to a message thread, all prior commenters on the message receive an email notification of a new comment so in effect you are tagging a poster.

Roots Ireland is a subscription site which has available baptismal/marriage/death records for all of Ireland.

Records are complete for some counties but a few counties are incomplete. Co. Clare, for example, does not have all RC parishes. Co. Cork has data for only one of the two dioceses. Other counties also have gaps.

You can get a one day, one month or or one year subscription. In your case, if you only have one family to search, it may not be helpful.

Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Thank you everyone for all the insights, and I appreciate the feedback on my posting.

I like to know if I am posting correctly and providing the info needed, etc.

Have a great day!

jmossing

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