Genealogy Jottings

Archive for the ‘Genealogy’ Category

The stacks of work-in-progress and other paperwork to be filed have disappeared from the table in my office. It did not happen by magic. I spent December, as I do every year, cleaning it all up.

It takes some time. I scrutinize each page, discard some, and file the rest in neat folders. I made new ones for all the Lawless and Ryan ancestors I discovered this year.

This tidying leaves clean work surfaces available for me to mess up again in 2023. I have 8 inches or so of documents for my Reed line waiting for attention. My father’s cousin left behind notebooks full of Reed information, too.

The first step in the Reed project will be to review these documents and add the information to my database. When I have accomplished this, I will begin some fresh research on this line, starting with my third great-grandparents, Thomas Reed (1783-1852) and Ann Kirkham (1782-1869).

They were original settlers in Coles County, Illinois in 1829. They will be my focus next year.

This will be my first attempt to do a research project on ancestors born in the 18^th century. This couple grew up during the early Federal period. Records I am accustomed to searching did not exist at that time, and I will need to practice some new research techniques. It promises to be an interesting challenge.

The office is ready and waiting for me to begin in January.

As the winter solstice approaches on December 21, my husband/tech advisor and I are getting ready. We like to observe it every year.

We share Scandinavian heritage, and we enjoy imagining the old days when our ancestors must have celebrated the holiday in a big way. The pagans called it Yule. It was the go-to festival for the Vikings and the Germanic tribes.

They marked this shortest day of the year with animal sacrifices, toasts to the gods, Yule log fires, and lots of feasting. They decorated with evergreen wreaths, mistletoe, and holly.

At our house we recreate the holiday, but we tone it down a bit.

Our meal will be a delicious cod and bacon stew (a nod to my cod-fishing ancestors) washed down with mead. We will display a Yule log to bring good luck and keep away evil spirits. We may wear our Norwegian sweaters.

When the evening ends and we have had our fill, we can look forward to the return of the sun and the lengthening of days.

This year my husband/tech advisor and I donated to Wreaths Across America, an organization that conducts Christmas wreath-laying ceremonies to honor veterans at more than 3400 locations across the United States, at sea, and abroad. Through my DAR chapter, we sponsored several wreaths for the graves of our American heroes at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Colorado.

Several of my family members are buried there:

1. Robert (1916-1976) and Alta (1921-2015) Kaessinger. He served in the US Navy as a Chief Boatswain’s Mate in World War II and Korea.
2. Robert Lloyd Reed (1924-1986). Staff Sergeant Reed served in the Air Force during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
3. William Richard Thomas (1927-1988). Staff Sergeant Thomas served in the Army in Vietnam.

Wreaths Across America will be at Fort Logan at 10:00 a.m. on December 17 to remember the fallen. Volunteers will lay the wreaths and say the name of each veteran aloud.

A year and a half ago, DNA testing identified my great-grandfather’s Ryan family. I have worked since then to fill in his branch of my family tree.

This new-found great-grandfather was last year’s subject for the annual biographical sketch I circulate at Christmas time.

I continued my research on the family in 2022. This year I have written about the previous generation, my great-great grandparents Daniel Ryan (1829-1863) and Jane Lawless (1826-1853).

This research required me to learn about Irish history and record-keeping. I attended several seminars and webinars on Irish research.

The Lawless family proved simple to track. They immigrated together. The ship passenger list gave me the names of the entire family. That allowed me to locate them in County Louth, Ireland.

The Ryans presented a more difficult research task, and I still have not found a family for Daniel Ryan. DNA matches point to an origin in Tipperary or Limerick.

As I approach the end of 2022, I am writing what I know about Daniel and Jane. The research on them is far from complete, but now my time with them is ending.

With this couple, I have completed biographical sketches of all my 2^nd great-grandparents. Next year I can move back to an earlier generation with a set of 3^rd great-grandparents.

I am tired of wrestling with the Irish. I have a bin of unprocessed material for my Reed line, so I will leave the Ryans behind and tackle the Reeds next.

This will be my first time with the Reeds, my direct paternal line. Cousins have done the heavy lifting on researching them back to the early 1800’s. I am curious to see what I can find about them in before 1800, where my cousins hit a brick wall.

Thomas Reed (1783-1852) and Ann Kirkham (1782-1869), I am eager to meet you.

Most of our ancestors had church affiliations. The records of these religious bodies can give us family information that we cannot find anywhere else.

This weekend our Colorado Genealogical Society will offer a program entitled Faith of Our Fathers by Sylvia Tracy-Doolos to help us locate these records. I will tune in to see what new information I can learn about this type of research.

I have used church records in the past, when I can find them. They have provided me with information on several branches of my ancestors:

1. The Lutheran Church was the state church of Norway, and all residents had contact with it in some way or another, even if they were dissenters (Catholics, Quakers, etc.). Norway has put their religious records online, free of charge, at https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/. Using this site, we have traced our Norwegian families back until church records began in Norway, shortly after the Reformation.
2. As in Norway, the Lutheran Church was the state church of Finland. Family Search has digitized many of the Finnish church records. They were kept in two languages, Finnish and Swedish, because Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden from the 12^th century until the Napoleonic Wars. I have struggled to decipher these records and was grateful to find a Finnish relative who had already done much of the work.
3. Since I learned last year that I have an Irish Catholic great-grandfather, I have sought Catholic records for him and his family. I have had mixed results with access. In the United States, the Diocese of Springfield allowed Family Search to film their records, and they are easy to use. The nearby Diocese of Peoria restricts access and will not even do lookups—a disappointing dead end. My husband/tech advisor needed information on his German Catholic family from the Diocese of St. Louis, but for many years they would provide only a transcription. When we finally got our hands on the original record, we learned they had erred in the transcription, sending us on a fruitless search for a non-existent person.
4. Ancestors in my other lines belonged variously to the Baptist, Congregational, and Methodist denominations. I learned this about them because they were buried in church cemeteries. With one exception, I have not found any other church records for these ancestors. The one Methodist record I located was a digitized record of my second great-grandfather Thomas Sherman’s marriage to Mary Scott in Edgar County, Illinois in the 1870s.

For those with German ancestors, one valuable source is Roger P. Minert’s German Immigrants in American Church Records series. I checked the volume for Indiana looking for the first marriage of Thomas Sherman, mentioned above. Family lore tells us he married a Stilgenbauer near Indianapolis during the Civil War, but I found no record of this marriage in either Minert’s book or the civil register.

The records for Protestant denominations can be tricky to locate, if they exist at all. They did not have central repositories. I wonder if Sylvia Tracy-Doolos will have any new insights to share on this type of research.

Several local genealogy and heritage organizations have begun the nomination process for new leadership for the coming year.

Each time it seems harder to recruit Officer candidates. Often the same people end up just trading jobs in an effort to keep the clubs going.

The task seems even more difficult this year. After nearly three years of a pandemic when many of the meetings took place on Zoom, we all have a harder time meeting and getting to know people who might be willing to serve if asked.

Some examples:

1. Palatines to America. The Denver chapter of this Germanic genealogy group needs a President and a Vice-President. The office of President has been vacant in 2022. The most recent seminar took place via Zoom with its limited opportunity for recruiting. I am on the nominating committee for this club, and I wonder how much success we will have in putting up good candidates when I know so few of the members, and we have no upcoming in-person events.
2. Sons of Norway, Fjelldalen Lodge 6-162. The Lodge has a full complement of officers, but the Lodge leadership roster has contracted in recent years. Jobs have been combined or eliminated as fewer people have been willing to serve. This practice results in a smaller pool of people who might step into positions as committee chairmen or Officers in the future.
3. WISE. This study group for the genealogy of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and England needs either a President or a Vice-President. As a new member, I do not have a feel for how difficult recruiting is for this club. I hope a more seasoned member will step forward to be an Officer.

Membership in all these organizations has been rewarding for me over the years. I have met other members with similar interests and learned from their programs.

Running all these valuable meetings and seminars takes volunteers. Without them, our genealogy and heritage community will not have the rich opportunities for learning and fellowship it has had in the past. We all need to do our part.

Sometimes I need a break from my frustrating search for my Irish roots. What better way to recharge than to indulge in some genealogy continuing education?

Two opportunities came my way this week:

1. Yesterday I listened to a Legacy.com webinar on Colonial Migrations. The speaker, Ann G. Lawthers, talked about settlers along the eastern seaboard—everything from their ethnicities and religions to where they moved when they decided to leave. My brick wall ancestors likely had ancestors who followed these migration routes. Where did you come from John Davis Riddle (1821-1896) and Daniel Sherman (abt. 1800-abt. 1863)?
2. On Saturday, our local WISE (Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England) chapter will offer a Zoom program on the Ulster plantations. My grandmother always claimed our Reed family was Scots Irish, but so far no one has been able to verify this. Its time for me to learn a little more as I prepare to do additional research on the Reed family.

After I hear a good genealogy program, I muster some fresh enthusiasm for my own research. I am ready again to chase down those Ryans.

The birth family for my ancestor Daniel Ryan (1829-1863), continues to elude me, but I feel like I am closing in. I continue to pursue clues that point to a small geographical area in Ireland where I hope to place my ancestors.

The strongest evidence points to a 40-mile tract between the towns of Limerick and Tipperary:

1. Daniel Ryan first married Jane Lawless (1826-1853) at Peoria, Illinois. Their only child was baptized at Kickapoo in 1852. Several Ryans were buried in that parish cemetery about the same 1850’s time period. All came from Emly, County Tipperary, a small village of a few hundred people. Were they Daniel’s relatives?
2. Our closest Ryan DNA match at 55.7 cM claims Ryan ancestors from Caherconlish, County Limerick, a village about 10 miles from Emly.
3. Another DNA match at 42 cM has Ryan ancestors from Pallasgreen, County Limerick, a village about 5 miles from Emly.
4. Our other DNA matches trace their ancestry to Counties Limerick and Tipperary but do not specify a village.

This DNA and circumstantial evidence tells me that my Ryans may also have lived in the general area of Caherconlish, Pallasgreen, and perhaps Emly. The shared DNA falls within the range to be about 3^rd cousins. This would be about right if we all descend from Daniel’s father or grandfather.

I still have not been able to identify a common ancestor among the Ryans of Emly/Kickapoo, Caherconlish, and Pallasgreen. Most of the online family trees go back only to Daniel’s generation. The numerous Ryan families have children with forenames that repeat again and again making it difficult to distinguish one family from another. No one has an ancestor named Edmond, the parent’s name that Daniel reported when he married his second wife.

I did manage to cull one potential ancestor from the group. An online tree for one of the DNA matches claims descent from Mary Ryan (1811-1855), purported daughter of Daniel Ryan (d. 1831) of Inch House in Tipperary and his wife Catherine Brien. According to a Wikipedia article, however, the Daniel who lived at Inch House and died in 1831 was unmarried. Unless Mary was illegitimate, this Daniel was not her father. I am not convinced the online family tree has the correct parents for their Mary Ryan.

Continued work on the family trees of these Ryan matches, and others that are not as strong, will take more time. I am just beginning to learn what Irish records are available to help me with this task. As I dig further into the family lines of our DNA matches, I feel like the road from Limerick to Tipperary holds the key to identifying the ancestral home and connections of my Ryan family.

My father descends from Daniel Ryan (1829-1863). Born in Ireland, Daniel immigrated to the United States sometime before 1851 and settled in Illinois. We know nothing about his life in Ireland. The frustrating search for his roots continues.

We have not been able to isolate census records or a ship passenger record for Daniel. A marriage record tells us his parents’ names, Edmund Ryan and May Junk, but so far these names have led nowhere. The commonality of the Ryan surname compounds the problem.

I have hoped that DNA matches might help. Although we match several people with Ryan ancestors, none of their Ryan families seem to match up with one another. The descendants live all over the place—the United States, Ireland, England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

I have searched for the earliest Ryan ancestor for all our matches. Most online trees extend back only to the early 1800’s, about the time our Daniel’s parents would have been born. No one has ancestors named Edmund and May.

The strongest matches fall into these family lines and groups:

1. Denis Leonard (1802/1810 – 1866) and Mary Ryan (1811/1819 – 1865) of Pallasgreen, Limerick. This group looks promising because Mary’s father may have been named Daniel, and she named a son Edmund. Our closest match in this group matches my father at 55.7 cM.
2. Timothy Ryan (1825-1881) and Bridget McDaid (1832-1882) lived on Prince Edward Island, Canada. Their descendants match us at 54 cM and 38 cM.
3. Ellen Ryan. This match has two ancestors with this name, and he matches us at 52.5 cM.
4. Timothy Ryan. This man’s descendant matches us at 43.6 cM.
5. John Patrick Ryan (abt. 1795-1862) and Margaret Maher (1798-1866). This couple may have lived in Tipperary. We match at 43.2 cM.
6. Cornelius Ryan (1807-1877) and Bridget Real (1807-1880), like Denis Leonard and Mary Ryan above, lived at Pallasgreen, Limerick. He had a half-brother named Richard, and our Daniel named his son Richard. Our matches in this group share about 42 cM with us.

All other Ryan matches fall below the 40 cM threshold. Our most common ancestors would have lived long ago, too far back to research easily.

I need to focus on the half dozen strongest matches and try to learn more about their families to see where my Daniel might fit in. I think it likely that all come from Limerick or Tipperary where the Ryan name is so common.

My plan will be to begin with our closest match, the great-grandchildren of Denis Leonard and Mary Ryan. Mary’s parents on some trees were reported to be Daniel Ryan (1787-1831) and Catherine Brien. Did he have a brother named Edmund?

Genealogy webinars provide the opportunity to gather skills and information to help our research along. This afternoon I will tune into one offered by the Mayflower Society. We will hear about diseases and epidemics in colonial New England.

My paternal grandmother’s family lived in New England from 1620, when the Mayflower landed, until they left for Ohio around 1830. For those two hundred years, many of my ancestors lived and died in Massachusetts, near Boston or on Cape Cod.

I have no record of the cause of death for any of them. They must have been affected by the diseases and epidemics of the time. What health problems did they face? Did some succumb during an epidemic?

This webinar will not tell me anything about illnesses experienced by my individual family members. It will provide me with an idea of when and where epidemics circulated. I could compare those dates to the death dates for my ancestors to see if any died during a widespread illness.

I can also learn what other conditions led to colonial deaths. Poor diet or living conditions can result in a population afflicted with illnesses like scurvy, rickets, or tuberculosis. The webinar today may provide this type of information.

Learning about colonial diseases will not give me any missing names, dates, and places for my family tree. It will help me fill in the story of my ancestors’ lives by telling me about health challenges they faced and how they may have dealt with them. Disease timelines can lead to identifying specific outbreaks that would have affected my family.