Posting Member: Jenn
Topic: A great discovery…
Family Name Associations: O’Neill and O’Neill, Mullin, McCormack
Location: Home
Mood: Migraine – Bless the weather!
Well, we went looking with the attitude that we were going to make a find… And struck gold.
In July of 1867 Bridget O’Neill McKenna had a little girl whom she named Margaret Ann Josephine, the little one sadly only lived a year. In examining the godparents on the nearly illegible copy of the record, we discovered Patrick Mullin and Alice O’Neill… And opened a floodgate.
Jake quickly found Alice and Patrick’s marriage record, and off we went!
A huge thanks to cousin Joan, who was as excited as we were about this find and has been totally helping us put this all together!
Patrick Mullin was the son of Hannah ‘Ann’ Campbell and Neil Peter Mullin. We’re still putting together their tree, it’s a big job! But Patrick married our Alice, daughter of Mary O’Kane and James O’Neill and together they had at least 9 children that we’ve been able to identify so far.
Now, beyond being THRILLED that we’ve found another sibling for our O’Neills, this opened up a very interesting view of thought that we’ve all been mulling over.
Edward was born in 1813 and went into the Church. Alice was born around 1836… That’s at least 26 years of child bearing age, not impossible, but a good long time. Out of that time we’ve only identified 6 siblings, and some of them, like Rose, are sketchy without details. Admittedly, each one has been like pulling teeth – None of these O’Neills have come easily, and that’s with cousin Joan’s help, and the help of Patrick Boylan originally too.
Right away, I wanted to look into more children in Quebec… And slowly the picture of Margaret O’Neill is coming into focus.
Margaret was born around 1827, and married a man named Thomas Mullin. Most probably, he’s brother to Patrick Mullin who married Alice, but we’ve found no conclusive proof and although we located Thomas in Notre Dame Cemetery, we haven’t found Margaret yet.
We don’t believe, at this point, that the pair had any children.
What we have found is at least two Census, 1861 and 1871 with younger O’Neill children living with Margaret. We’re guessing at this point, she was their Aunt.
Which means that at least one more O’Neill son came to North America, had two boys, and most likely, passed away leaving them in their Aunt’s care. The Census are almost illegible, so our first effort is going to be looking for a better copy of what we can’t see. We think we have an ‘E’ O’Neill and a Henry, and they were born here, verses Ireland. Without having ANY idea what their parents names might be, we’re struggling to find any sort of birth record.
I could be cheeky and just start searching all the common family names that haven’t been used yet in James and Mary’s line, but I was looking for a bit more of a scientific method to my madness.
In the mean while, we’re filling in all Alice’s descendants with hopes of finding cousins, and then we’re going to fill in more on the Mullins.
We did discover that Mary Elizabeth Mullins is the wife of Henry Judah Trihey… So my Clements are connected to both my O’Neill lines. We haven’t managed to link my two O’Neill lines – Not ever! So many huge coincidences! And we’re still stuck with the 1851 Census that everyone hates as a match, but is the only viable option we’ve discovered.
Annnnd… Then, to make everything MORE complicated, we got an awesome e-mail from a lovely woman named Danielle. The message had been stuck in Jake’s spam filter – Why does the spam still get in, but the important things get stuck???
Danielle thinks that with Thomas O’Neill’s line, in 1861 her ancestor is listed as widowed Catherine Neill McCormack! We weren’t too far off, we’d guessed Christine McCormick I think, on the horribly written census.
Sooo… Naturally, we tried to pin together Christine, her deceased husband Edward and our O’Neills. At first I’d thought maybe Catherine and Thomas had married, but now I’m wondering if perhaps Catherine wasn’t a cousin… That Neill surname can be so tricky with immigration, it’s possible she dropped the ‘O’.
So far, we’re having absolutely no luck. Have I mentioned this week that I HATE Notre Dame Cote des Neiges search function, I miss the old one and the new one is the devil???
Consider it mentioned.
I’m currently contacting the author of an older message board post in hopes that they know something of a Catherine McCormack buried in Notre Dame in an O’Neill plot there. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that we find someone who knows what I’m talking about soon!
If Thomas, Catherine or Arthur is of this O’Neill line that’s located in D 00006, it’s possible the whole family came from Westmeath County, and that as we’ve always guessed, there’s more of them. We’ll have to keep digging on these records…
Obviously, there’s more to come with all of these O’Neill’s, and hopefully more on Mullin and McCormack too.
For now, it’s time for some lunch!
