Who was Margaret C. O'Neill Brennan?

I started this post as somewhat of an electronic worksheet.  A DNA relative on Ancestry.com had a tree that showed some ancestors Nicholas T. Brennan and "Margaret Ella".  There was little information about them but one thing was clear, they lived in Baltimore.  Although I could not know for sure which branch of the Ancestry member's family I was related to, I thought this was the best place to look as my family goes back five generations in Baltimore.

From the list of DNA relatives that we shared, I knew that the member was connected through my McGovern / Dixon branch and she was estimated to be my 4th to 6th cousin.

It took three hard days of work but eventually, I was able to build this tree around Margaret and Nicholas:

nc - no children

nm - never married

c - had children but not named here for confidentiality reasons

SMG - St. Mary's Govans Cemetery

NCC - New Cathedral Cemetery

BNC - Baltimore National Cemetery

SAE - Saint Augustine's Elkridge Cemetery

Some of the pieces of evidence to prove the family, with notes from when I found them)  include:

This is the index card from the Maryland State Archives where wedding licenses and weddings were recorded.

This is the 1900 census form showing Margaret O'Neill and Nicholas Thomas Brennan family.  Note the last name in the home: Jane O'Neil, born in August 1823 in Ireland.  She was listed as "mother" but it is most likely Margaret's mother, rather than Nicholas'.

This is the obituary for Margaret C. O'Neill Brennan who died on 29 September 1911 in Baltimore.  Note that she has a sister named Ella O'Neill.

Nicholas Thomas Brennan appears to have died in Baltimore around early August, 1939.

Interestingly, Nicholas appears to have married again after Margaret died.  I am willing to bet you a dollar to a hole in a donut that his second wife was Margaret's sister, Ella, based on the following obituary:

The sister shown as "Mrs. Christopher Maddox" in Margaret's obituary was Catherine Alice O'Neill (12/1862 Md. - 9/26/1934 Md.).  Christopher died on 2/22/1907 in Baltimore and is buried with his wife in New Cathedral Cemetery.  They had three sons, only one of whom appeared to have married.

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The obituary of the mother of the three girls leads me to believe that she is the link to my family.  My great-great-grandmother was Catherine Dixon, the sister of Joseph Dixon, the prelate of Ireland.  I knew from Joseph's biography that their mother's name was Jane Casey and that they also had a sister named Jane.  This sister though was born about 1815 and she had married James Magill and stayed in County Tyrone, Ireland when her sister Catherine came to the US.  Based on the name and date of birth, I suspect that Jane Dixon O'Neill  is most likely a cousin of my great-great-grand mother Catherine Dixon.  That would make the Ancestry member my fifth cousin.

The obituary of the father of the three girls was easier to find after finding Jane's.

One surprise popped up while I was looking for the father though.  Margaret, Catherine and Ella had an older brother that died, unmarried, many years before the girls did.

Is this John Galvin "our John Galvin?

I think I found another Galvin family member, a brother for William, Patrick and Honoria (as well as Mary, Michael and Ellen).  I was 100% sure until today but now I am down a few percentage points because I do not have any DNA relatives in Ancestry that match any of John Galvin Jr’s descendants.  It’s possible that none of them have done the Ancestry test but I sure would prefer to have that confirmation. [edited to add: I have since confirmed some DNA matches to this branch.  It IS "our" John.]

From Uncle Herbert O'Conor’s biography, I knew there was a brother named John but I could never find anyone who knew even an estimated birth year for him, much less any spouse or offspring.

I was looking through the Irish Civil records (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp) for any Galvins in the Loughrea district when I stumbled on a “John Galvin” married to Margaret Heavey who were having a bunch of babies in the village of Attymon during the 1870’s.  I checked google maps and Attymon is in the Kiltullagh parish, less that 4km away from the cottage where John Galvin and Honoria Connaughton raised their family.

That looked like something interesting to investigate further but while searching for John and Margaret’s children, I found another “John Galvin” who was married to Anne Hurley.  They had five children around the 1860’s and their village, according to the handwritten civil records, was Gortakeeran.  I checked where that was and after I got back up off the floor, I smiled a lot.  Gortakeeran was the very small cluster of farms exactly where John and Honoria raised their family.  According to the Griffith’s Valuation records (http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/), John Galvin Sr. AND John Galvin Jr. were tenant farmers on several plots of land in that village.  Irish relatives have also confirmed the cottage on one of those plots as their ancestral home.

I have shown below the documentation for this branch of the family.  Let me know if you see any error or hiccups in my thinking.

Incidentally, while I was putting this together, I noticed that the land next to the Galvin cottage was farmed by Patrick Hurley.  I wonder if he had a daughter named “Anne”? 

Fingers crossed, I will try to contact some of John Galvin Jr’s descendants on Ancestry to ask if they have done the DNA test.  I sure hope John wasn’t adopted.

This shows the nearby Thomas Connor lands mentioned in the O'Conor biography

Mary Foley & James Connaughton

James Connaughton's (b. 12 Nov 1820 Co. Galway - d. 10 Jan 1896, Baltimore, Md.) first wife, Mary Kelley, died about 1875 when their surviving children, John and James were about 16 and 11 years old, respectively.  According to the Maryland State Archives, James Connaughton married Mary Foley shortly after 10 May 1877, when their marriage license was issued.

There are many notices in the papers that James Connaughton was the Executor of the will for Michael Foley who died in Baltimore in 1871.  Michael Foley's wife was named Mary according to some of the estate notices.  I had assumed that James Connaughton had married Michael's widow after James' first wife died.  Unfortunately, I could not find any census data for Michael or Mary to confirm this.  Also, many of the details on the Maryland State Archives marriage index cards were not completed. I did know from the 1880 census, however, that James' new wife was supposedly born about 1858 in Maryland.

Again, Michael's census data did not seem to be indexed in the Ancestry.com database and searches for him turned up no results.  Newspapers.com didn't help much either although Michael Foley's name is found many times.  All I knew for sure about him was that he was in the liquor business, occasionally had trouble with the law and died between mid-December 1870 and mid-December 1871. 

A clue to solve this mystery came several years later though.  I found a 13 Aug 1882 death notice in the papers for Annie Foley, "daughter of Michael and Mary Foley".  When I searched Ancestry for Annie to see if she was related to "our Mary Foley", I thought I disproved the theory that James married Michael's widow.  I not only found Annie's 1880 census report but that also linked to her 1870 and 1860 census, showing her parents.  Her father, Michael, died sometime between the 1870 and 1880 census years and was in the liquor business.  It looked pretty likely that I found the right family.  Michael's widow, Mary Foley, appears to have been born around 1835 in Ireland though, rather than the 1858 in Maryland.  Also, Mary Foley was still listed as a widow in the 1880 census and obviously did not marry James in 1877.  

In summary, James Connaughton did not marry Michael Foley's widow.  

That's it.  Case closed.  At least, I thought so.  

As I looked at the Foley census data, something else struck me.  Michael and Mary Foley had other children, in addition to the Annie that I had stumbled upon.  They also had a daughter named Mary.  Born in 1858.  Born in Maryland.  Hmmmm…. 

Some of the documentation

A Family Pretzel - the life and times in a small Tennessee county in the mid-19th century.

You already know that Harriet Jane Carson was our great-great-grandmother, the wife of Hayden Gentry.  Jane’s father was Daniel Atkins Carson and he was a first cousin of Reuben Atkins.  Reuben, like many of the Atkins family, moved from North Carolina to Tennessee in the 1830s and married Lettice Mullins who just happened to be the young sister of Frances Mullins, the wife of Reuben’s older brother, David.  Two bothers marrying two sister was not uncommon at the time and certainly not uncommon in our family.  It’s not the subject of this story but it does set a bit of a precedence.

Reuben and Lettice had twelve children but this story involves only three: James Thomas Atkins (1838 – 1851), Martha Frances Atkins (1830 – 1859) and Susan Amanda Atkins (1844 – 1927).  So far, so good.

In October 1848, James married Luvurnia Elizabeth Chambers (1834 – 1865) and had twin sons, John Chambers Atkins and Reuben Lafayette Atkins twelve months later.  Sadly, James passed away in July 1851 before the twins’ second birthday.  For a while, I could not find out what happened to them or the mother but I eventually found them all with a new family and a father who gave the twins a new last name.  Luvurnia married Wiles Cooke Meeks (1834 – 1918) in early 1853.  I don’t know if the descendants of the twins, John Chambers Meeks and Reuben Lafayette Meeks, know that Wiles was not their blood ancestor but it appears that no one on Ancesty.com has figured it out yet.  Still, that is not the point of this story.

The twins’ mother, Luvurnia Elizabeth Chambers Atkins Meeks, died in November, 1865 just after the boys’ 16^th birthday.  Their adoptive father apparently took care of the boys, just like his own children, their half-siblings.  Wiles Meeks wasted no time in finding a new mother of his children and in January, 1866 married Rebecca Jennie Chambers (1849 – 1929).  Wait!  What?  Was Rebecca Chambers the sister of Luvurnia Chambers?   The answer surprised me greatly.

The answer, technically, was “no”.  Rebecca was the daughter of Cyrus Lafayette Chambers (1829 – 1892) whereas Luvurnia was the daughter of someone named John Chambers.  A little more digging revealed some fun facts though when I saw that the father of Cyrus was also named John.  Cyrus was, in fact, the older brother of Luvurnia so, in summary, his daughter Rebecca was now taking the place of her aunt in the bed of Wiles Meeks.  With me so far?

A little more digging brought up the name of the wife of Cyrus Lafayette Chambers and mother of Rebecca.  Her name was Martha Frances Atkins.  Huh?  Yes, this was the sister of James Thomas Atkins.  A new summary is that her daughter was now married to the second husband of her brother’s widow.  Confusing, right?  Remember though, if you look back, Martha passed away in July, 1859, seven years before her daughter married her brother’s widow’s widowed second husband.  She certainly didn’t care, Right?

To round everything up though, I should point out that two years after Martha passed away, her husband, Cyrus took another wife.  Like everyone else in the story, he didn’t look far.  His new wife was Susan Amada Atkins, the younger sister of both James and Martha.  Summarized once again, Susan’s step-daughter/niece married her brother’s widow’s widowed second husband.

All clear?

William Kendrick Carson, my hero

I had fun figuring out a family today. William Kendrick Carson (1832-1936) was a first cousin of our great-great-grandmother, Harriet Jane Carson (wife of Haden Gentry). William married someone six years his junior, named Mary Ann, around 1862 in Nashville, Illinois. William and Mary Ann had five children that survived infancy before Mary Ann died on 27 August 1877.

William, now 45 years old, wasted little time and married 19 year-old Amanda soon enough that she was able to give birth to a boy, Zenas (!), on 2 June 1878. You do the math. Amanda and William had three more children, two dying in infancy (Smiley! and Landy) before Amanda died at 26 years old on 2 April 1884.

Poor William felt lonely at 52 years-old, with small kids to take care of but waited anyway.... for about six weeks before marrying 18 year-old Vienna in the middle of May 1884. Vienna bore three children who survived infancy but William wore her out too. Vienna passed away at 32 years-old on 12 October 1898.

After a respectable mourning period of about three months, William went on to marry one last time in January, 1899 and, tired from all the kids, married 62 year-old Paulina Anna Snead. In all, there were 16 children that William fathered with only ten of them surviving infancy.

Now, do you want to hear the funny part? It took a lot of digging but I found out Mary Ann's maiden name. It was Ragland. Where had I seen that before? Oh yeah, Amanda's maiden name was also Ragland. It turns out that Amanda's father was a first cousin of Mary Ann. What a coincidence! And what about Vienna? Yep - she was Ragland too. Amanda was her older sister. So far, I can not figure out if Paulina was related to the Ragland wife factory.... but I'm still looking.

[Edited to add "The Rest of the Story"]  I was tired of looking at all the Raglands and Carsons after finding this family story almost two years ago.  I was looking at the family again recently and was reminded of this story.  I had another look at Paulina Anna "Polly" Snead.  It turns out that she was not related to the Raglands.  It also turned out that William Kendrick Carson was her second marriage.  She was a widow when she married.  Her first husband was named Robert Huston Carson... William's older brother.  Who saw that coming?

Finally, while checking out Polly Snead, I noticed her mother's maiden name was Troutt. That's interesting.  Robert and William's eldest sister, Lucinda, married a man named Elijah Troutt from the same county that Paulina came from.  Coincidence??  You decide!

The Doyle / Connaughtons of Kiltulla, The Great Famine and the Land War

At the beginning of the Great Famine in Ireland, around 1845, Ireland had a population of about 8 Million people, of whom two-thirds depended on agriculture to make a living.  Almost all the land was owned by English aristocracy who were absentee landlords, relying on agents to collect annual rents from mostly poor Catholic tenants.  Most of these tenant farmers could only afford small farms, hoping to grow enough crops to survive.  65% of these farms were less than 15 acres with more than a third of those being less than five acres.  At the time, the only available crop that could possibly be grown profitably on such small farms was the potato.  In good years, the potato was a staple food but was also used as fodder for farm animals, either sold to ranchers or to fatten the family pigs.  When the potato blight hit for several years in a row, farmers didn’t have enough food to feed their family, much less to sell any potatoes to ranchers or to pay their rents.  Landlords had their agents enforce the payment of rents as best they could but demanded eviction for those who could not pay in full.  It is estimated that a half million people were evicted between 1845 and 1854 with many more “voluntarily” giving up their farms.  With no income or roof over their heads they starved or were sent to workhouses which were basically prisons for poor people who had to earn their keep.  If they could raise enough money for passage, they emigrated from Ireland with England, Scotland, Wales, America, Canada and Australia taking in almost a quarter of Ireland’s population.  It should also be noted, with sadness, that despite the famine, Ireland was still a net exporter of foodstuff during most the famine years, primarily to meet English demands.

For those farmers that stayed and managed to survive, there wasn’t suddenly any cheap land on the market.  The aristocracy just consolidated these recovered lands into large grazing ranches and brought in people to manage new herds.  The tenants were still stuck on their tiny, unsustainable, rented farms.  Between 1854 and the next time a blight hit the potato crops in 1879, many farmers were agitating for land reform. In the late 1870’s, the Irish National Land League was formed to try to abolish the tenant system and allow farmers to own their land.  In the late 1890’s the United Irish League (UIL) was formed as a political party with the principal aim to compel large grazier farmers to surrender their lands for redistribution to the small Irish farmers, particularly in the fertile areas they exclusively held in west central Ireland around Galway and Roscommon.

Although the UIL was a political party, they also fought for farmers’ rights through agitation, boycotts and demonstrations.  Throughout the UIL’s existence, until a younger, more militant splinter group, Sinn Féin, overtook it, the UIL had a strong following in the small parish of Kiltulla, Galway.  That is where the Galvins, Connors, Connaughtons and Doyles lived… and sometimes “agitated”. 

Michael Doyle, a second cousin of my great-grandmother Mary Ann Galvin [Michael (1852-1937) was the grandson of William Connaughton and son of Mary Connaughton (1819-1891) and Patrick Doyle (1808-1879)] had a price put on his head by the English and was eventually caught and imprisoned in Wales.  Newspaper reports also mention Kiltulla residents William Connaughton, T. Connor and J. Galvin having attended their massive rallies.

Even though Uncle Larry was on our Smith side, he would have been very proud.


 

Herbert R. O'Conor: The Inevitable Success