Dawn:
Thank you so much that that exciting reply. Obviously, you've read my posts above about this Howard-Cusack family. I have just reviewed them and that is ALL we know about my great-grandmother, Elisabeth Howard Breen. There are a FEW other clues that I have not definitely associated with her. The main one being that I MAY have located her in the Washington, DC City Directory, apparently living alone before she married my gr. grandfather, Mathias in Cumbrerland, Maryland in 1857 (he was there working as a stone mason on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad which was building a line over the "gap" between Maryland and Pennsylvania, we are almost certain).
The story of association of her "Howards" with a line of Catholic royalty was passed down in at least 2, probably 3 lines of the descendants of she & Mathias. The most complete, but very fragmented and hard to follow story comes from my father's sister, Elizabeth Prendergast McQueen, told to her son, who wrote a very brief memo about it, on her death-bed. I have synthesized what seems a somewhat coherent story from those notes and it is related in the posts above.
There's no question that SOME of the Tudor Court were granted a degree of grace for their persistent adherence to the Catholic Church, but mostly it seems the relief was the chance to emigrate rather than lose their head! It certainly is POSSIBLE that some of the Howards took flight to the relative Catholic refuge of Western Ireland, from what I've read. It certainly is possible that there's more known of the story of these Howards but I have not found any detailed history. So it is somewhat specualtive for sure. In my posts above, I have outlined the POSSIBLE, and interesting if true, association with the Lamberts of Athenry parish. It would be very interesting to review what is known of the history of that part of Galway with an historian well informed about that part of Irish history (the Cromwellian displacement of Catholics and the creation of the large estates for loyalist English families from the formerly Irish lands).
IF my theory is true, then the fact that Elisabeth, apparently as a single woman, chose to emigrate to Maryland (which contains Washington, DC) is also very interesting. Certainly, single women DID emigrate, but I am of the opinion that very often it was with the knowledge of some previously emigrated family that would be there to take them in. Maryland, as you may know. was originally chartered to be the colony with "freedom of religion" and it was created by the efforts of Lord Calvert (a Catholic but Elizabethan loyalist I've read) to provide a place of relative refuge from the anti-Catholic, loyalist sentiments of Virginia, whose settlers were very much under the sway of the Anglican church.
Some people named Howard were amongst the earliest settlers of Maryland and played a role in forming some of the early estates there as well as in the founding of Baltimore city. I'd like to think that PERHAPS Elisabeth Howard emigrated to Maryland (settling in Washington, DC) because she had family connections there. But that is PURELY SPECULATION at this point, given that I have not found her in any ship list, immigrant list or associated with any local family before her marriage to Mathis. The witnesses to their wedding were Mathias's sister (Margaret Breen who emigrated from Clare with him in 1851 when she was only 14) and a James Mulligan (who emigrated, probably from Clare, with the name Madigan but changed his name after arrival, along with his brother. Margaret went on to marry this James Mulligan, by the way). The fact that apparently no family of Elisabeth Howard was listed as a witness to their sacrament of marriage suggests the possiblity that she had no local family member available, but again that's speculation.
So, now you know all the facts, thoughts and theories I have about the origins of Elisabeth Howard Breen, b. Co. Galway in 1838 (from her gravestone in St. Paul, MN).
Since you have a similar Howard Catholic royalty story in your family, it would indeed be VERY interesting to explore the possibility of our realtionship. Have you done DNA testing? I have tested with BOTH Ancestry and Family Tree DNA. I have uploaded my DNA results from both to the website GEDMatch. If you have tested autosomal DNA with almost ANY testing company, you can probably upload your results to GEDMatch and we can compare to see if we have any matching DNA. On Ancestry DNA my DNA entry is labelled WPrendergast and I am William Prendergast on FTDNA. My GEDMatch Kit Numbers are T902809 for my FTDNA autosomal test and A046400 for my AncestryDNA test. Even if you have NOT yet done any DNA testing, I would be VERY interested in corresponding with you. My personal email address is: nesika42@earthlink.net
Bill Prendergast
Portland, OR USA
