NEW COUSIN FOUND ME

 

I checked my email on Friday and found a pleasant surprise.   I had an email from a cousin who found me by reading this very blog.   That was a  fantastic surprise.   Her grandmother was a sibling of my grandfather Thomas Dowd.

We have corresponded and are exchanging pictures and information.  The best so far is the fact that another  cousin of hers had sent her information of our Great Grandmother Bridget Naughton.   It appears that Bridget did indeed have an identical twin,  name of Katherine.  I found Irish records of Mary and Bridget but not Katherine.   I am now supposing that it was an error in recording.   On Bridget's death certificate it had listed Norah Nee as mother, but I had the Baptismal Record stating Thomas Naughton and Catherine Ward.    Did Catherine died in childbirth or shortly thereafter the birth?   I had a theory that Catherine had died and perhaps it will be proved true.

I had been searching for confirmation of a twin birth  since I have heard about it from my dad and another descendant of the original Dowd Siblings (my grandfathers brother John).     So off to the races with that one.

Also listed was a sister, Maria Downs, Norah Connelly, Margaret Naughton, and brothers Dudley and Joseph.  I had  found and researched Mary Downs in the records of the Archives of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.   Mary and her husband Michael are still an enigma.

Norah Connelly, Margaret Naughton and Dudley Naughton were listed as sponsors for the Dowd and Downs children in the records of St. Thomas RC Church in Braddock PA.   More research to be done to gather the information on the other five siblings.