My prayer to St. Patrick

Dear St. Patrick, great holy man of Ireland.

Gee, it's been a while, and I'm hoping that you haven't forgotten me. I'm Pat and Virginia's oldest kid. I'm the great great granddaughter of  John Kelly, born in Shannonbridge in Clonmacnoise Parrish, County Offley on June 22 1829. What moved him to come to America I'll likely never know for sure but he passed in Western Maryland in the small coal mining community of Eckhart on June 28, 1891. It was a pure stroke of luck and our good fortune that my mother, Virginia, spotted the information on his tomb stone in the soft fall afternoon light and read his place and date of birth. He must have been so very proud of his own home place in Ireland to have it put on his stone.

And I'm so very thankful that I got to see his town and visit the Clonmacnoise historical site and see Temple Kelly there. Are we descended from the devout worshipers there? More likely our ancestors were humble farm workers.

 

St. Patrick, as you know John is buried with his beloved wife, the lovely Bridget Corcoran (1830 - 1 May 1912). We just found this out quite recently through the generosity of those who watch out for Catholics of the Allegany County Maryland area. What a blessing to know when and where they were married. And to finally know with certainty that Bridget rests here with John, although her grave is not marked. We would really and truly like to know where she came from, which could be anywhere in Ireland. They met and married in Cumberland near by where they lived in Eckhart. A hint would be lovely.

But it's not so much Bridget that concerns us most days. It's Mom's Farrell/ O'Farrell people. Mom's own dearly loved and missed mother, Emma, told her that her own blessed grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Farrell (who married Samuel Albert House and was born in Ireland on 22 November 1835 and died 28 March 1919) had told Emma that they came from the place in Ireland where you drove the snakes out. Forgive me for not listening the first time Mom told me that story. It just seemed too fantastic. What is that you saying, Oh ye of little genealogy faith? So true.

So I'm sending this little devotion off to you on your day, the day you passed from this earth, in hopes that you will send us in the right direction. Did they come from County Mayo as the legend says?

Well, have a nice feast day, St. Patrick. Perhaps you'll like knowing that to this day there are still numerous Patrick Kellys out and about.

Clonmacnoise Historical Site, Ireland, on the Shannon River.

 

Temple Kelly there in the background at Clonmacnoise.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/03/my-prayer-to-st-patrick.html

Wisdom Wednesday: My Changing World

It's Wednesday again so I'm using GeneaBlogger's blogging prompt called Wisdom Wednesdays and time is flying because I'm having fun! Hope you are too:) This week I'm struck by how fast my genea-world is changing. News flies in the window at every turn, DNA is my new toy, new-to-me cousins are teaming up to bust down brick walls (at least that's the plan), and I'm feeling like the 18-wheeler of information pulled up to my door and unloaded! That's a good thing:)

Right now, it's hard to stick to task as so much pops up and I need to respond to it. Seems like just when I get going on a project, get it organized and make a research plan, a juicy piece of new information about another family line falls in my lap and I need to turn my attention away from my plan to capture information that could be fleeting. That ever happen to you? I was working on the Biggerstaffs and whatta ya know, my Bridget Cocoran Kelly, my 2nd great grandmother, makes an appearance at the exact same time as I hear from a cousin who has information about my 3rd great grandfather Benjamin Thomas and possibly Benjamin's father who might be named Thomas Thomas. Where to turn first?
Feels like what I need is a two-pronged system in which I first save my latest thoughts on the present project, but move swiftly to capture what I can about the other lines. Multitasking, anyone?
Evernote is working for me on the long-term projects. However, I'm thinking that I might actually go back a couple of steps in the technology time line to ye olde spiral notebook that I can grab and go with for stuff that pops up. It's about solving problems with whatever works for each of us, isn't it?

I made a contribution to Ancestry.com by correcting/ updating an entry or three. Was having trouble finding my Whetstone ancestors in the 1850 census. Couldn't figure it out. They should be there, of that there was no discussion. But where had they hidden? Explored all the usual reasons some family might not be where they should, such as a move that year or being missed by the enumerator. Finally I just went "door to door" so to speak looking for them in the area where they should have been. Found them listed as Wheatstone. Now I don't know what it was about that search and the way it was processed but it wouldn't bring back my Whetstones no matter what I tried, and admittedly I was probably just not doing the magical combination of things the search gremlins wanted. But when I found them, I suggested the way it should be listed and they accepted the update and notified me. Cool, they notify you! That felt good.
The same thing happened to my Kelly people in the same census. They were listed as Kelley which I kinda guessed might happen. That got updated and accepted too and I got to feel good all over again.
But here's one I didn't know how to handle and maybe didn't do this correctly. My 3rd GGF, Benjamin Thomas came over on the Barque Tiberius. No discussion there at all. Well documented. Easy-peasy. Except I couldn't find it on Ancestry. Whaa? The other day I finally did find it but the ship's name was listed as the "Liberius" and not "Tiberius". I didn't know how to enter an update for a ship name, so I did it using the update mechanism for my 3rd GGF's name. If there's a better way please let me know! If this confounded me it's probably confounding other.

Geo-Grave, anyone? My good genea-pal, Shawn, mentioned that she puts the Find A Grave memorial numbers in her Family Tree Maker files! Cool idea! This good idea had not crossed my radar before, but it's brilliant and so I'm thinking that everyone but me must be doing it:)
Was also thinking about those really hard to find stones and how a hand-held GPSr (Global Positioning System reader) would be a great helper in knowing exactly where those markers are.
Over here in our house we're avid geocachers (adult hide-and-seek using million dollar satellites to find Tupperware in the woods.) We can see the opportunity to tie Find A Grave memorials into their GPS locations (and package it as a Geo-Grave system...?) My hand-held GPSr will make note of any location anywhere and it would be a breeze to add that notation to the Find A Grave listing, especially for difficult-to-find tombstones or family cemeteries off the beaten path, and we've all been to those. Most GPSr will give an audible beep when you're close to target as well as info on which direction you need to go to get there. It's very cool stuff!

Eckhart Cemetery, Eckhart Mines, Allegany, Maryland.

Could have used a Geo-Grave system there!!

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/04/wisdom-wednesday-my-changing-world.html

Tombstone Tuesday: Bridget is Found!

I'm not the kind of person to remain isolated for very long. Yes, it's true, I can sit quietly in a corner and think for quite a long time, or stick my nose in a book for an even longer period. Mom and I both like our alone time. But I love making connections too! Sometimes it just works out that a connection is made with a like-minded traveler and you start exchanging info and tree sections. And so it was recently.

Here's what I posted last Wednesday on my regular Wisdom Wednesday GeneaBloggers post:

Allegany County List Friends. I do like mailing lists for geographic areas! You can post idiosyncratic questions there and actually get answers. I recently posted a question asking when a manufacturing plant that my Dad worked at closed. Was surprised to find that it hadn't closed, it had just moved! Had no idea!
As with lists like this, eventually you start emailing back and forth sharing stuff and become friends. One of my friends there recently emailed a photo of a tombstone in St. Michael's Cemetery in Frostburg, Maryland. It's a beautiful old Irish Cross, and the name inscribed, which was just about the only thing that was readable, was John Kelly. Because this person knows I'm over here in the Kelly pile-o-ancestors, she relayed the photo to me... of my 2nd GGF's Irish Cross tombstone! I was able to supply all of the vital data that was worn off the stone so that correct info was now on FindAGrave.
But there's more!! Through her resources and contacts - wow, she's good and well connected - she was able to solve a long time mystery and that's where his wife, Bridget Cocoran Kelly is buried. Right there next to him!! Now we know where she lies and her date of death too. Next step: get a copy of the death certificate!

I was so blown away by what happened that I felt the need to write about it here again! What if I wasn't on that list and checking it all the time? She and I would never have started emailing back and forth. And what if I had left her emails sit in my inbox and not been sociable? What if I didn't tell her about this blog and post here about the Kellys a lot? And what if I didn't post this photo of the small-ish Irish cross tombstone for the final resting place of my 3rd great grand father, John P. Kelly (1829 - 1891)? Then it wouldn't have stuck in her mind so that she remembered and connected it up with my Kelly people. We might have eventually made the connection but I've got to think it would have taken a lot longer and perhaps even never happened.

I guess the most amazing and dumbfounding aspect of this is that she then contacted someone who looked at records and found that sweet Bridget Corcoran Kelly was resting right there beside strong John Patrick Kelly! (She's got to be "sweet" because she's a Bridget, and he's got to be "strong" because he probably worked on building the C&O Canal. Or is that just my imagination?) 

I couldn't wait to tell Mom. She's been looking for where Bridget Corcoran Kelly was buried for years. She's been right where she's supposed to be all the time! And last week I ordered Bridget's death certificate because I knew her death date. Got it yesterday!

Next time I'm visiting Mom we want to look all around the Irish cross stone searching for any trace of Bridget's marker. John died in 1891 and Bridget died in 1912 so it's quite possible that there is a small marker for her that has been covered over by dirt and grass. In this time and place, a satellite marker was often used for family that passed on later.

It's nice for me that I'm still not so jaded in the pursuit of genealogy (or life for that matter) such that I don't get all worked up by these events! Bet you can get all worked up too.

Top two photos: Marker for John Kelly (1829 - 1891) in St. Michael's Cemetery, Frostburg, Allegany County, Maryland.

The Historical site of Clonmacnoise near where John was born in Shannonbridge, Ireland.

 

This just in! Bridget's Death Certificate!

 

 



This post uses a GeneaBlogger's blogging prompt called Wisdom Wednesdays . Check them out!


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/04/tombstone-tuesday-bridget-is-found.html