VERY PRODUCTIVE DAY……

 

Today I went to the Archives to do my volunteer researching.  Since Thursday is  HOLY DAY OF OBLIGATION the Archives will not be opened. 

I did some research for a client and since there were no more requests I decided to search for my Irish ancestors.   The records of St. Thomas RC Church are incomplete and Spartan.   The Church was founded about 1854 and the marriage I was looking for in 1874 is not recorded, actually for the year there were only about eight. 

Quite unexpectedly I came across a listing for a Baptism and the name of the mother caught my eye.   Her name was Mary Dowd.   I knew my great grandfather, Thomas Dowd had three sisters, Catherine, Norah and Mary.    Catherine and Nora emigrated to the USA, married and I found them living next to their brother Thomas in the 1910 census.

Copy from Ancestry.com

Catherine was married to Thomas Mulroy and Nora to Cummins Finnerty.   What I found was a Baptism for a child, Bridget O’Donnell and the parents were Edward O’Donnell and Mary Dowd. Bridget was born 15 December 1889.  The sponsors were Thomas and Ann Dowd.   Thomas was my great grandfather, but who was Ann?  I searched for additional children of Edward and Mary and found a few.   The most important clue was a sponsor for one of the children was Richard Fitzmorris and Fitzmorris was the maiden name of the Dowd siblings mother Catherine.

Back to the 1900 census and Mary and Edward were there.   According to the census they had been married fifteen years and Edward was fifteen years older than Mary.  

Relatives really do hide in plain sight.   On the above census the four siblings were living together on the same street.   More research to be done on Mary and Edward.   There is only one sibling left and that is a brother John.    I suppose he will pop up unexpectedly  like Mary did………..

There were a few other surprises which I will follow with later.