The earliest dates in the ranges for my Y DNA matches predate the consistent use of surnames. The blacksmith in a village might be known as John the Smith (to distinguish him from John the Miller or John the Farmer) and eventually this can become John Smith. But he may end up being called John…
All posts in Direct line
Y match names
I was hoping to find at least one match who shares the Stanley surname. No such luck. There wasn’t even a name that could have evolved into, or from, Stanley. It is a very short list, with only five names on it. The list of my matches using autosomal DNA runs into many thousands (20,000+…
What would I have done?
As mentioned in “The Irish Pimpernel” and “A helpful suggestion” I have been unable to find Patrick in 1900 or 1901. I started to wonder what I would have done in his situation. What was that situation? His father, John, had died in 1898 when Patrick was 15. By some distance (10 years), he was…
200 years ago
My great grandfather, John Stanley, was born in 1825 – probably. This date has been derived from his stated age when he married, for the second time, in 1865. His age, as recorded on his death certificate in 1898, would suggest that he was born slightly earlier, in 1823. No birth certificate survives. As with…
Education
I know nothing about Patrick’s life between his birth in Roscommon in March 1883 and August 1902, when he joined the Militia in Dewsbury. I cannot find him on any of the census returns for 1901. My Father relayed a vague story about Patrick being a cabin boy at some point. This is perfectly possible.…
Sue Alice McHugh and her father, John
The 1986 obituary for Sue says that her parents were John William McHugh and Ella Price Foster. Her father is also reported as John Edward McHugh. Is there any possibility that there are two people with very similar names? It is possible, but highly unlikely. I have already come across people who are commonly referred…
Heber McHugh
In an effort to make sure that the Mc Cune family that appears on the 1880 Census is the right one, I decided to look at Heber, aged 8. The unusual name helps at this point. The spellings continue to be variable. The 1900 census refers to Healer J McHugh in Burr Oak Township, Lincoln.…
Anna McHugh
As related in Changing Tack and McHugh & Kelly, when Catherine Kelly and her husband Patrick McHugh moved to Missouri, their daughter Anna stayed behind. She was living with her Aunt Susan. What happened to her? Anna married Dennis Kelleher in November 1881, in Cook County, Illinois. She would have been about 26 years of…
McHugh and Kelly
I am picking up on the story told in Changing Tack. Catherine Kelly married Patrick McHugh in Michigan, before moving to Missouri in 1873 with most of their children. One daughter, Anna, stayed behind. Anna McHugh stayed in Michigan with her Aunt Susan. The 1880 Census reveals that Anna was born in Michigan in 1857.…
Changing tack
I wrote a series of blogs looking at four people with the Stanley name that ended up in Massachusetts. There are grounds for suspecting that they might be related to me. They hail from the same part of Roscommon as my grandfather – only two or three miles away. They share the Stanley name. But…