More digging in the graveyard (3)

As recorded in ‘More digging in the graveyard (1)’, John J McHugh married Anna (or Annie) Devereaux in November 1878. Mrs Rose Devereaux and her daughter Beatrice are listed as attending Susan (Kelly) Cronin’s funeral. What is the connection? The American custom of showing a wife’s maiden name on burial records is extremely helpful. Among…

More digging in the graveyard (1)

Apologies for the pun! One of the mourners at Susan (Kelly) Cronin’s funeral was John J McHugh. It has been relatively simple to trace him through the records. The comprehensive nature of records in Michigan and neighbouring Illinois is a great help in this respect. He died in Chicago, Illinois in 1918. He was born…

Still seeking John Kelly

There is a wonderful piece of dialogue from a radio programme broadcast on the BBC in 1972. Neddie: [on discovering Eccles in the coal cellar] What are you doing here? Eccles: Everybody’s gotta be somewhere… Quite so, Eccles. Everybody does have to be somewhere. But where? I am still trying to discover more information about…

Crossing the aisle

In the post “real people not just names”, I considered matters such as the education, diet, clothing and entertainment of my ancestors. I need to go further. I am also interested in what they believed. Not just about religion. Did they think that the earth was flat? Did they hold with folk tales about the…

Susan Kelly revisited

Having drawn a blank on both Theodore Kelly (see ‘The wrong Theodore’) and John Kelly (see ‘Thank you Thomas Cromwell’), I have looked again at Susan Kelly. Susan married Jeremiah Cronin in Michigan in the late 1850s, just prior to the establishment of a central recording system for the State. She stayed in Marshall, Calhoun…

Thank you, Thomas Cromwell

I have become well used to the absence of records in Ireland. Only fragments of 19th century census returns have survived. Practicing Catholicism was illegal for many years. This is a powerful disincentive to the keeping of records. Even in the subsequent period, there are many gaps in parish records, and a knowledge of Latin…

The wrong Theodore

The 1880 (American) Census shows Susan Cronin (nee Kelly), her husband Jeremiah and six children living in Marshall, Calhoun, Michigan. Staying with them are Anna McHugh (daughter of Susan’s sister Catherine) and two other members of the Kelly clan. Jessie Kelly was 10, born in Nebraska. Both her parents were both born in Ireland. As…