FINALLY! I Found Edward

Last night I found Edward Flynn, not a big deal to most, I bet he never even knew he was missing. However, to me it is the completion of years of work to bring a part of my family back together. *see Little Orphan Annie post.

I will admit I may have done the proverbial genealogy happy dance on this one and possibly even with my head to the sky yelled out "I found Edward"

New records become available all the time and most of us know that you have to go back, for me its about ever 6 weeks, and recheck your brickwalls.  The record was the Naturalization papers for Richard Flynn, my 2nd great grandfather, I have seen others in the past with very little information on them but this one is from the State of Rhode Island and it listed his children, birth dates and where they were residing in 1927 when he filled out the paperwork to become a citizen after being in the U.S. since 1888.

Oldest son Edward immigrated with the family in 1888 from Queenstown in Co. Cork, Ireland.  This also solved another riddle for me.  My grandfather insisted his mother told him the Flynn's had come from Co. Cork.  Everything I have ever found shows Co. Tipperary or Waterford but now I believe as a small child she had been told where they sailed from to come to America.

Most of the information on the Naturalization paper is incorrect, birth dates are off and it lists my Great Grandmother and her brother Thomas as living in Connecticut in 1927, the sad fact is, they most likely had no idea where the youngest two children had ended up.  Maybe they were told they were sent to Connecticut in place of Maine.

Up until now I have found all the children of Richard and Bridget (Bulter) Flynn except Edward or sometimes found as Edmond.  I looked all over New England and nothing.  Now this records says in 1927 he is living in Oldham, Lancashire, England.

My heart pounding, I started searching and found him in minutes with a wife, Martha England and 6 children, Philip, Matthew, Mildred Joseph and Isabella .  He died in 1937 and is buried in the Greenacres Cemetery in Oldham.

I now have two DNA matches to the Flynn's, one to a descendant of Mary and one to a descendant of Thomas. Proof is in the DNA :)

It doesn't quite seem real that this quest is complete, I which I could have put them all together in a room for one last gathering but this will have to do.

So to Annie, Thomas, Mary, Richard, Edward and Catherine, their parents Richard and Bridget,

Walls for the wind, 

And a roof for the rain, 

And drinks beside the fire -- 

Laughter to cheer you 

And those you love near you, 

And all that your heart may desire!

One Big Circle Updates...Ireland, Scotland and Pennsylvania

The last few weeks have been amazing!!  

First I want to thank everyone from Geneabloggers for their kind support and the comments they sent.  If you have not checked out the great blogs at this site please do!! 

I am always willing to learn so I started looking for free Webinars online.  Legacy Genealogy program offers webinars at  http://www.familytreewebinars.com/ .  Some are paid but they normally will have them free for a week.  Ancestry.com users you can go to http://www.ancestry.com/cs/us/videos to see all their webinars for free. You can also search Youtube  and Cindy's list http://www.cyndislist.com/education/online-courses-and-webinars/ and find many great ones there as well.  After some searching I found what I was looking for Ireland and Scotland research.  

A few weeks ago I blogged about my Great Grandmother Annie Flynn.  I took the time to write down what I knew and what I didn't.  The didn't knows way out numbered the knows, so, I spent a few hours watching genealogist who research in the areas I want to become more knowledgeable.  

One of the great tips was that the birth dates on United States or Canadian records can vary greatly from Ireland because of a law in place to make people register the birth with in a short period of time.  Poor farmers could not go to town to report a birth so they would have the child baptized, which would give one date, then they would change the date of birth so the government would not be fined for not reporting the child's birth earlier.  I am pretty flexible when it comes to dates.  If some one is born in 1865 I will always search other dates just in case but I was unsure how off it would be in Ireland. I now know it can be off by up to 6 or 7 years between what we know in U.S census records and the original documents in Ireland.   

I visited http://www.rootsireland.ie/ before but really did not have enough information to use a paid site to research my Flynn's.  I didn't have high hopes of finding anything but to my surprise I found the marriage records for Richard Flynn and Bridget Butler, Annie's parents.  It had their fathers names and birth locations and with that I found both of their birth records (Richard was born in 1859 not 1865 and Bridget 1865 ipo 1867).  Richard's father Richard Flynn was born in a Workhouse in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland.  Not the nicest places to be born!.  Then to top it all off I even found one of the parents marriage records.  After a small (Okay, really big) happy dance across my living room!!  I have updated the records on my site with the new information.

Since it was just before St. Patrick's day and I had such good luck I decided to tackle a few more Irish names.

I started researching Elliott family of Schuylkill Co, Pennsylvania a little over 10 years ago.  I knew they lived in and around Pottsville and that a story had been passed down that 3 brothers (Isn't it always 3 brothers, never 4 or 2 lol!) had been kicked out of Ireland and had fled to Scotland.  At some point the family immigrated to Pennsylvania.  

Armed with the new information from a Webinars on Irish immigrants in Scotland I began looking for Irish Elliott's living in Scotland in 1851.  I knew by now that the immigrant ancestors Patrick Elliott and his wife Sarah Mulholland were married in Barony, Lancastershire, Scotland in 1845 and had one daughter in Scotland Mary in 1847.  It took a few searches but there was Patrick Elliot, the only one in the area and his parents Arthur and Sarah.  Next I search for Sarah Mulholland, I knew her parents immigrated to Pennsylvania, they are in the 1861 census living next door to her.  Andrew and his wife Mary were found in the same town in 1841 and 1851 as the Elliott's.  It seems Patrick and his wife immigrated 10 years before her parents.  

So updates this week to Flynn, Dunne, Bulter, Tobin, Elliott, Mulholland, Fallon, Burns, Correll and connecting lines.  Also large update on Anthony family of Hants Co, Nova Scotia.

Good free Irish things:

Amazing site on Workhouses, not searchable but very educational for all of the UK
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

1st of a 4 part Free article from Irish Roots Magazine.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/73714137/Tracing%20Your%20Irish%20Ancestors%20Online%20Irish%20Roots%201.pdf

Cemetery Transcription of Ireland
http://members.iinet.net.au/~sgrieves/cemeteries__ireland.htm

National Archives of Ireland
http://www.nationalarchives.ie/

All I can do is recommend, no matter how much you think you know, there is always room to learn...

Wondering why there is almost a foot of snow in Maine when it is suppose to be spring, Oh yeah, because its Maine!
Michele  

Little Orphan Annie...

When I was in my early 20's my paternal grandfather Otis N. LaBree asked me if I would look into his mothers family.  I had just started learning about genealogy and recording all the family information.  Otis was a very well known Policeman, Detective and later Sheriff in Maine.  When I was little he told me I loved the trill of the hunt for clues just like he did and encouraged me to go into law enforcement too.  Lets just say I have little patience with criminals and instead of chasing after someone I would opt to just shoot them...

All I know of Annie Marie Flynn, my great grandmother, came from Otis and his sister Valencia (Babe).  Annie died when I was a year old and I wish I had the opportunity to know her. She did not know her own birth date until she was in her 40's and then she didn't even know if it was right.  She remembered a family that lived in a tenement section of a large city and that she had a sister and several brothers.  Annie would run to the corner to meet her father, his name might have been Richard or maybe Thomas, returning from his job at a local mill and the day he didn't come back. She also remembered the day a horse draw carriage arrived and took her mother away.

Thomas her younger brother was taken away with her to an orphanage and maybe another brother. Her sister promised to get them out as soon as she could get a job but she didn't come for them before they were sent away.

I can imagine two scared little red headed children being place on a train with orphan children and sent to places all around the country.  Annie and Thomas Flynn were sent to Old Town, Maine and offered to the congregation of St. Joseph's Catholic Church, a French community church.  They were both taken in by families in the Old Town area as workers on their farms.  Both Children would have been under the age of 10 although there are no records of the dated they were sent.  Thomas was treated so badly the ran away after a short time with the family he was sent to live with. (see notes under Reunion).  Annie was also abused, she told the story of laying in a little bed in the attic room she had been given with a thin old quilt watching the snow as it fell through the holes in the roof.  The church took her back because of the conditions and gave her to a new family, the LaBree's of French Island, part of Old Town.

As you can picture a little red head, blue eyed Irish girl stood out in a totally French community.  She did not speak French in the beginning and records have been found where she had to be reconfirmed in the Catholic Church because of being Irish.

Working as a housekeeper for the large LaBree family she began to be amerced in the people and the language.  In true Love Story fashion she and one of the families son Elzear (Otis, Sr) fell in love and married just before she turned 18.

                                                               

They had two children with in three years and were expecting a third when the influenza outbreak of 1918 struck them both.  At 8 months pregnant she was carried to the house next door where her husband was being cared for by his family to kiss him goodbye.  Otis N. LaBree, Sr died at age 24 on 2 Nov 1918, the last know influenza victim of the area.   A widow at 23, sick, with a baby on the way and two toddlers must have been overwhelming.  She never complained she made due with what she had, finding work where she could.

The matriarch of the LaBree family, Victoria Marcoux, had been against her son marrying Annie and while he was alive did not cause problems.  Once Otis, Sr was gone Annie lived with them but when the children were still small moved next door.  My grandfather once told me he remembered his grandmother Victoria lining rows of canned goods along a shelf across a window.  He could see it from his house next door and even though they had next to nothing she would never offer them a can.  She would make their Grandfather, Simeon, come out to yell at them if they were seen trying to take apples from a tree in the yard.

When my search for Annie started I knew I was looking for an Irish orphan and her brother Thomas.  I did know from family information the orphanage they were in was in Olneyville, Rhode Island and that it had burnt at one point.  Her fathers name was questionable and there was no records of her mothers name at all.

In 1992 genealogy was not done as it is today.  If there was a genealogy program I had not found it.  It was all done on paper with visits to libraries, archives, phone calls and letters.  After sending letters to every place I could find I finally got a response from the Olneyville Orphanage Assoc.  The answer, yes there had been a fire, no they didn't have the records that I needed but all the children had been sent through the Home for Destitute Children in Boston.  Twenty years ago the Catholic Church would not talk about their part in the distribution of orphan children and even after several phone calls and letters I got no where.  A letter to the research center at the Archives in Rhode Island was my first big break.  They kindly photo copied the Vital Records from 1890 to 1910 for Flynn.  I was so happy to get that package but in the end learned nothing from it because I did not have enough information to use anything I had been send and no one match my Annie.

Finally when all the records started to appear online I found a family in Providence, Rhode Island that matched closely.  The only thing that was off was that the three youngest children were born in Connecticut.  So I mailed a letter and received the birth records from Connecticut.  The first surprise was that Annie birth name was Bridget Ann Flynn daughter of Richard Flynn and Bridget Butler both born Ireland.  The second was that Annie's brother younger brother Thomas was actually older then she was.  This also confirmed the census record I found.

It still took fourteen years to confirm the information.   Now all this time later I know most of the story of my Flynn Family.

Richard Flynn, Sr b. Feb 1865 in most likely County Tipperary, Ireland and his wife Bridget Ann Butler b. May 1867 most likely Cashel, County Tipperary, Ireland left Liverpool, England and arrived in New York in 1890 with sons Edward b. Sept 1887, Ireland and Richard, Jr b. 10 Jan 1889 Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland.  They lived in Connecticut where daughter Mary b. 12 jul 1892 in Yantic, New London Co, Connecticut, son Thomas b. Dec 1895 and Bridget "Annie" b 20 jun 1896 were born.

Another surprise was that Richard and Bridget were not dead when their children were taken away. I have found both of them in later records.  I now believe Bridget was taken to Worcester State Asylum in Worcester, Massachusetts.  It was both a place for the mentally ill and an Alma's House for the poor.  Because here children were not with her I assume it was an illness either mental or physical.

                                                                    

                                                                          Reunions
As I tracked each child and family it because an obsession to put this lost family back together.  I first found descendants of Thomas, Jr's family.  He had runaway and ended up in Lewiston, Maine working in a Mill.  There he married a woman of German ancestry named Rose Benedix and had one child that died as an infant in Maine.  They moved to Lowell, Massachusetts where they had one son and two daughters, Thomas, Jr, Alberta and Mildred.  Annie and her son Otis did find Thomas in 1935 and drove to meet him once and in turn a few years later he visited them.  After that they lost contact again.  We have e-mailed several times and were a great help with piecing Thomas' family together.

Next I located daughter Mary's descendants, she married an Albert Ratcliffe and had two daughters, Eva and Edith.  She died young on 10 may 1932 in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Last year I found Richard, Jr and his wife Anna Coffin's grandchildren. Of all the people I have found I was most excited about this group.  After phone calls and e-mails we figured out the family spent their early years in Massachusetts and after their fathers early death their mother Grace Flynn, only child of Richard, had moved them just 20 minutes from where I live in Maine.  They were only a half an hour from an Aunt and cousins for years and nether family knew it.  It was because of Grace's obituary in my local paper that I found this family.  We now keep in touch by facebook.  On a side note Richard Flynn was also sent to an orphanage and was never sent away with his siblings because he ran away.  It made all of the Flynn children move away from religion and specifically the Catholic Church.

I now have located everyone but the oldest Edward.  He has never been found beyond the 1900 Rhode Island Census.   As more records become available I might just complete the circle and bring us all back together.

So now I am searching the records of County Tipperary, Ireland and hoping I can find just one more generation on this family.  Maybe by putting this story out there another Flynn will find me!

Hope you find your family too,

Michele