Irish discoveries!!

 This past few weeks has been an absolute bonanza of new cousin discoveries!  After a trip to Ireland, I came back with tons of new clues, new cousins and new lines to explore.  It's been almost overwhelming -- when it rains it pours!

From one small note, and a photograph we've uncovered some amazing discoveries, resolved some mysteries, and found hundreds of new cousins!   Truly mind blowing.

This note told of a heretofore unknown Great Grand Aunt (Anne Walsh), born well before the baptism records in 1833 -- and marrying into another side of my family (the Toole's of Leam).  This led to a discovery of 10 children, and many descendants from there - many of whom went to Boston.

A cousin we visited, had this photo of his Uncle Michael Walsh, on his wall. Michael went to Boston, and upon further research, we unraveled a long standing mystery, regarding who the cousin Michael Walsh was that my Grandmother was emigrating to!  The address she lists on her passenger list for cousin Michael Walsh, matches the address he used on his naturalization, where he lists his birthplace as Letterfir.

Michael Walsh - Boston

We also received a heretofore unknown photo of my Grandmother (that had been sent home to her Sister in Ireland).  Sometimes you need to go to Ireland to find the old photographs!  

                                                       Barbara Walsh - about 1910, Boston

 

More Tangled Toole's

 Further to my previous post, the Toole's continue to confuse me!   

I have found a Melia family - Peter Frances Melia of Carramoreknock, Oughterard marrying Mary Connolly/Conneely of Leam.   They have 6 children, including Maria Melia b 1876 and Patrick Melia (O'Mally) b 1870.   

Maria marries my Michael Thomas Toole (son of Thomas Toole and Anne Walsh) - my 1st cousin 2x removed.  They married in 1896 in Roxbury, Mass.

Patrick marries my Mary Toole (b 1867 in Glantrasna to John "Seanin" Toole and Mary Toole) - my 1st cousin 3x removed. They married in 1891 in Boston, Mass.

So, thanks to genealogy software, Michael Thomas Toole and Mary Toole are related in five different ways!  Generally through marriage, but if I eventually connect Thomas Toole to his potential parent of James Toole and Mary Halloran (my GGG Grandparents) the connection will be closer!  

If that is correct, then my Grandmother's Aunt (Anne Walsh) married my Grandfather's Grand Uncle (Thomas Toole).  I wonder if Martin and Barbara (my Grandparents) knew of this close connection between their families when they met in San Francisco?

And I still need to investigate the Connolly connection in Leam -- potentially there could be a Toole connection there.

Tooles -- what a tangled web

 I've always had trouble sorting out the various Toole families of Leam, near Oughterard.  Several of them moved to Glantrasna, and my Gt Grandmother Cait Toole is a descendant of theirs.  But going further back into Leam, there are several families of Tooles, in both East and West Leam, and all using lots of similar names; are they all connected?

To add to all of this general confusion, I've just been to Ireland and met up with a Walsh 2nd cousin, who told us about a heretofore unknown sister of my Gt Gt Grandfather.  She was Anne Walsh, born about 1833, and he told us that she married Thomas Toole, a shopkeeper in Leam, and that there were 2 descendants (grandchildren) John and "May" Toole who didn't marry.  

Thomas was born about 1820 and died 1895. So now my conundrum is - who were his parents, and is he a sibling of some of the other Toole's I'm connected to in East or West Leam?   DNA is leading me to believe that he may be the son of James Toole and Mary Halloran, my GGGG Grandparents.  James was born about 1798, and so Thomas might be the 1st son.  

If this is true, then my lines from my Maternal Grandfather and Maternal Grandmother have once again co-mingled!

Of course, while working on this, I ran across another Toole descendant from Glantrasna, that emigrated to Boston.  I found this via DNA Thru Lines on Ancestry.  She was the last child before her Father's death, her Mother remarried and she disappeared -- well now it looks like she emigrated.  

The Boston records are amazing, and on marriage records the bride and groom list their full parents names -- so I can confidently say that the Michael Toole I found is indeed the son of Thomas Toole and Anne Walsh.  He emigrated about 1888, and the passenger records don't give much identifying information other than name, age, nationality and occupation.  So hard to determine when exactly he emigrated.  

In tracing the descendants, the obituaries have been a gold mine -- lots of information detailing names, residences, etc.

Cousins marrying cousins and a habitual criminal!!!

 Wow, what a day of research!  Started out exploring the new General Register Office digital certificates program.   For only 2.5 pounds, you can get a immediate digital image of a birth or death (sadly not marriages).   I was thinking who do I need a cert for, and what new information might it show me.  For some reason, I was looking at my direct Pearce line, and I thought, aha! What about the child that was born and died between censuses.  So I ordered that cert, and got the first address of the family when they moved to Torquay (from St Ive, Cornwall), and the fact that the child died of measles (9 days duration).

I then ordered a death certificate for William Pearse/Pearce, showing his death in Callington in 1855. And from there started going back down his line, to his GG Grandaughter Vera Pearce.  Her parents being Thomas Pearce and Annie Hetty Gooding.  I expected Thomas to be my 2nd cousin 2x removed, but when I looked at Annie Hetty Gooding, it showed her as my 6th cousin 1x removed......WHAT??!!?  How was she related to me --- so did some checking and sure enough, she comes down from my Furzeland line!

Now the fun really began, as her Father, John Henry Gooding (son of John Rowcliffe Gooding and Elizabeth Ann Furzeland) turns out to be a habitual criminal!!!  He has a long history of forgery, and lots of documentation to read through!  And then he changed his name to Frank Hall, and goes on to marry again under that name and having a second family!  He's my 5th cousin 2x removed....

I'm still sorting through it all, but what a rogue!  

Levant Mine Cost Books -- Pendeen, Cornwall

 On a recent trip to Cornwall, I was able to visit Kresen Kernow (the County Archives) -- and do some research on my GG Grandfather Thomas White.

Thomas was killed in a mining accident in 1854 at the Levant Mine in Pendeen, Cornwall.  There are newspaper reports on his death, which provide fascinating (and gory) details.

On a previous visit to the Mine, one of the volunteers showed me copies of the Levant Mine paybooks, which showed my Thomas White being paid to take a load of ore from the Mine to the Quay at Penzance.

On this visit to Kresen Kernow, the Archivist let me look at 3 Cost Books they had from the time period 1849-1854.   It was incredible to be able to handle these 170 year old books!  The books were filled with familiar names, and I was able to find my GG Grandfather Thomas White, AND his Father Edward White (my GGG Grandfather) -- both were Tributers.   There were multiple entries for them, and I took hundreds of photos of the various pages/entries.   Now to sort them all out and add to the Family Tree -- it may be a long project!  

Cornish cousins

 Going back to my Cornish lines has been eye opening!  I did some of this research years ago, and was perhaps not as diligent as I should've been.  There are many common names, and it was too easy to just assume that John Oats married Jane Ellis, when in fact there are multiple Jane's he could've married. 

Just yesterday, I noticed a Julian Oats marrying a Paskow Greinfield/Grenfell.  I had Julian as a male, and Paskow as a female --- as did many online trees.  Well, that's WRONG!  Paskow is the male, and Julian is his wife.  This was confirmed via the OPC site (see below).   

So, I've gone back to doing multiple checks to verify I have the right couples, and subsequent children.  My process involves:

    Checking the OPC (online parish clerk) database - for baptism, marriage, burials

    Checking the British Newspaper Archive - birth, marriage, death announcements, and other articles

    Checking West Penwith Resources webpage -- they have Parish BMD's and other valuable info

    Checking online Ancestry Trees -- this can be very unreliable, but sometimes gives you a hint to further research on the above sites.

    Checking some Private databases I have access to (from Cornish Association of Victoria)

So, bottom line -- be diligent, don't just accept an online tree/hint, without documenting!

                                         52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 

                                  Week 1 - Foundations  -My Grandfather

This word can mean so many things – but when I think of it in relation to Genealogy – a few things come to mind: 

·       Foundation of your family

·       Research foundations

·       Founding Father or Ancestor

·       Foundation or cornerstone of your Family Tree – the “reason” you started researching

To me the fundamental foundation of my research, and the reason I got started on my Family Tree,  was my unusual surname. The one deceased ancestor I wished I could talk to was my paternal Grandfather, George Toulson.  

I never met my Toulson Grandfather, he died many years before I was born, but I was always curious as to our surname (which is rare in the USA) and why he emigrated from England. I was sure there was some deep dark mystery.

All I  knew was he came from a small village in rural Lincolnshire, England, emigrated in the early 1900’s, went to Iowa where he had an Uncle, was in Oklahoma at the time of the Land Rush, and ended up in California in the early 1910’s.

I started with the basics, and wrote to the Vicar in Fulbeck, asking for my Grandfather's baptism record. This was in 1976, so it was snail mail. Several months later a letter arrived with a typewritten listing of my Grandfather's baptism date, along with 4 siblings! SIBLINGS??? Who were these people? We had no idea he had any siblings, as he'd never spoken of his his family.

Turns out there was another Sister and 2 Half-Siblings born before his Mother married!

This became a new foundational pillar to my research, who were these Grand Aunts and Uncles, and did they have descendants??  

Over the ensuring years, I have uncovered more about the siblings - a Sister and Half-Sister died as infants, a Brother died in a tragic accident as a teenager, a Half-Brother was raised by Grandparents, another Brother died a bachelor, a Sister married a miner and moved to Nottingham, and finally the last Brother was a CHALLENGE. It took me until the 2000's to find his descendants - all because I made a class genealogy mistake. I discounted the possibility that this Brother would have relocated and moved away for work as a Farm Bailiff.   When I finally connected with a descendant of his and saw a photo of him, there was no doubt he was my Grandfather’s brother. 

A long and winding road, but I’ve now fleshed out all those lines – and the descendants had no idea anyone had ever left England, so were surprised to hear from an American relative!

Slowly and surely I feel I have a better idea of what his life was like and what an amazing journey from a small village in rural Lincolnshire to Ellis Island to Clinton, Iowa to Oklahoma and on to California. The story goes, he was headed to Australia next....but a little matter of a wife and a baby on the way got in the way of that!

So, I credit my Grandfather and his surname for my passion for genealogy.  And it turns out my Grandfather’s wife also plays a role in my genealogy interest – she died young, but her twin Sister lived to her 90’s in England.  She wrote us hundreds of letters in her lifetime, and when I asked about her family she drew out a rudimentary Family Tree, which had great details and traced the family back to Pendeen, Cornwall on the far southwestern tip of England.   This Cornish branch of my family has been a bonanza for research, with records going back to the 1550’s!  And the diaspora of the Cornish miners has led me to many cousins in Australia and New Zealand.  A fascinating branch of the family!

So those are my English foundations --- I could write a whole other blog on my Irish side of the family – and those foundations!  Maybe that will come in a later entry of #52ancestors.