Posting Member: Jenn
Topic: Confirmation of graves for Thomas Edward McKenna and more.
Family Name Associations: McKenna, O’Neill
Location: Barrie, Ontario
Mood: Ecstatic and humbled all at once.
Music:
Wow today has been such an adventure! First off, I’m supposed to be painting my office. I can’t convey what sort of insanity made me think, ‘oh, it’s a good time to paint my office!’
Here’s my new colour:
Winter Lake
I just needed a bit of a change, well, okay, a big change, as I’m going from sage green. I’m quite sure it’s spring fever, but I’ve been thinking about this on and off for a while. After all, I can’t plant anything until May, but I’d love to be out ripping the yard apart. Anyways… It’s all around insane timing, and my thoughts of getting it all done in one day didn’t account for the fact that I have a life! And I was puppy-sitting Masters Snoop and Gucci… And we have all our regular scheduled programing! Hey, I like it busy, right? Better than being bored…
So when I got up today knowing I needed to move two 10 foot tall wooden bookshelves, I probably shouldn’t have logged on to try and tie up a few loose ends and finish some e-mails. However… It quickly snowballed. First off there was progress with the O’Neill line of James O’Neill who was in New York from 1850-1860. His son James H O’Neill has descendants now. James H married a woman named Carrie, and they in turn had a son named Joseph W, between these two generations the name changed to O’Neil. Joseph W also seems to have married a woman named Carrie and there are children! Also what looks like a remarriage after Joseph’s death to a gentleman named Alger James Sanders.
So, more descendants to seek out and hopefully find and make connections with. Any O’Neils in the Washington area looking for family? We might have a match 🙂
And all of this leads me into the next part of my day… Which I’m still a little in awe of. As I was getting ready to take books off shelves I got a response e-mail from Mount Olivet Cemetery in Denver, Colorado. I have to take a moment here.
This woman, Jennifer from Denver, was just incredible. I have had some amazingly generous people touch my life, and assist in our research, and this woman just went above and beyond today for a complete stranger and she deserves huge heaps of happy karma. Not only did she look up the records we need in paper when she couldn’t find the records on computer, she then helped me find information on infant Margaret, who would have been completely lost to our family if we didn’t have these records… And then, she went and photographed the grave, sent us the picture, and volunteered to send us actual copies of the records to our home address, never mind our living in separate countries.
I’m quite simply in awe of her generosity. So a huge thanks to Jennifer in Denver, who helped solve the location of our dear Thomas Edward McKenna’s burial site and answer a 100 year old question. With locating this grave, we’ve managed now to piece together the entire generation’s resting places of the children of Bridget O’Neill and Thomas McKenna. Excluding the possible Grace Catherine, who we still cannot prove or disprove. I’m going to post the picture on FindAGrave shortly, and put it in our own records.
The existence of infant Margaret was a surprise as previously we had not heard mention of any other pregnancies or children from Margarita and Thomas, however given the time period and the family’s religion (Roman Catholic) it’s not uncharacteristic to have found her. There is also one empty space within the plot here, and no sign of Margarita or Katherine, so the search is still on for them.
Now if only we could clone that experience and put it into Chicago…
I’d better get to work in here before this project eats up my whole weekend. Wishing you all sunshine and warm weather!