Massachusetts John

This is the third blog exploring what happened to the four children of the marriage of John Stanley to Winifred Kenney. See Massachusetts Mary and Massachusetts Thomas for the previous two articles. John was born in Islands, Roscommon on American Independence Day 1874. The best fit for his voyage to America is on the Cephalonia…

Massachusetts Thomas

I am continuing to explore the descendants of John Stanley and Winifred Kenney. (See Massachusetts Mary) This time it is the turn of Thomas. Civil registration started in Ireland in 1865. This doesn’t mean that all births after that time were recorded, but the majority of them were duly registered. Thomas was born on 21st…

Massachusetts Mary

If you can’t go back, then go forward! I realise that not everyone is as obsessive in hunting down obscure clues as me. I found a whole chapter of my wife’s ancestry when I googled the name of one of her relatives. It turned out that a second cousin had been publishing a blog for…

Mary Cannan

As explained in ‘Room at the Inn’, Uriah Senior and his wife Catherine/Kate (nee Stanley, from Roscommon) seemed to be willing to share what little they had with others. In 1901, their family of four is joined at 13 Back New Street by two Yorkshire born boarders (22 year old Beatrice Herbert and her one…

Mary Kenny and others

As explained in ‘Room at the Inn’, Uriah Senior and his wife Catherine/Kate (nee Stanley) seemed to be willing to share what little they had with others. In 1881 Uriah and Kate have Irish born Mary Kenny, born 1859, lodging with them. This was before they started their family.  Unfortunately, the census does not have…

Room at the Inn

Despite living in extremely cramped accommodation in Dewsbury, Uriah Senior and his wife Catherine/Kate (nee Stanley, in Roscommon) always seemed to find room for someone else. At the time of writing (mid December) this seems particularly relevant. The family first came to my attention when I was looking for Patrick’s brother John. In 1891, they…

Who was Bridget Scott?

In ‘Ormsby & Scott’, I explained the dilemma about the identity of my great grandmother Bridget.  The birth record of the sister, Mary, with whom Patrick is staying in 1911 clearly names her mother as Bridget Ormsby. Patrick’s birth records from March 1883, both civil and church, name his mother as Bridget Scott. Are we…

Still hunting ‘Brother 2’

In Brother 2, I speculated that the Michael Stanley who died in Dewsbury in 1859 might be the so called ‘Brother 2’. In order to provide more information, I called up the Death Certificate. My speculation was misplaced. However, useful information was still extracted. Michael died on 20th December 1859, in Daw Green. This location…

How far back?

In the ‘Dewsbury once more’, I referred to the identification of a common ancestor. The other researcher and I share 95 centimorgans of DNA. We are third cousins once removed. The point at which our family trees coincide is John Stanley, born sometime around 1800. His date of birth could be as late as 1807.…

Guardian angel

In ‘Wilfred Owen & Patrick Stanley’ I referred to the fact that Patrick’s guardian angel worked a long and very busy shift. I have been examining the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (https://www.cwgc.org/ ) to see just how busy. CWGC records the names of 14,811 men who died in the Great War whilst…