It is great honor to be asked to research into the mysteries of a dear friend's family tree. Mary is one of my dear friends, made even more so by this process of turning over a few stones for her and seeing where the roots of her ancestry take us. What was really fun, which makes sense because Mary is really fun, is that her tree was supposed to be obvious. Irish-Philadelphia. English or something from New England. But surprises lurk in every foundation.
The American Line Roster marking the day Peter J. O'Brien arrived to Philadelphia from Ireland in 1865.
We may never know each of our ancestor's stories. Unless they do something remarkable to the world around them and are blessed (or cursed) enough to be noticed (or caught), most of what they have done day to day fades into the fabric of time. A lifetime of moments, summed up by a few census records and some religious documents. If they somehow become prominent, or notorious, there maybe more data to describe their life. But it is hard to know how much each of these people are loved, or reviled, by those around them. How can we know what kind of person they were? Sometimes we get more details: Quaker meeting testimonies, LDS witness statements, but even these are colored with the lens of the people who wrote them.
So back to Mary. The obvious we already knew. The large Irish Catholic family, complete with priests, nuns and even a monk not to mention innumerable railroad workers with large families populating the Parrish Street neighborhood in Philadelphia. The first bit of fun was the counties her family hails from in Ireland... I have been to many myself just last year. Maybe after this Corona virus is done with us, we will go there together.
On her paternal family side, the Kelly branch gave us our first surprise. Like the O'Brien's, they immigrated to Philadelphia, from Ireland but they were not Irish but from the Isle of Man!? First of all, I am not aware of ever meeting a descendant from the Isle of Man. And I knew so little about this Celtic state, the Manx language, its history of tug of war between Scotland and England; how they have always maintained their own self-government and have a unique relationship with Britain. I did not even know Manxman was a word. This was the fun part of looking into the Kelly tribe. However, the Kelly family suffered significant tragedies as well. There is a photo of a hopeful looking young man that fought in the first world war and never came home. He had at least two younger siblings that were tragically taken by the Spanish Flu.
Now the maternal side. Very complex and rich histories. From the Plymouth Colony there are ancestors that were directly involved, for better or worse, with the colonization of Massachusetts. Multiple direct ancestors that fought in King Phillip's War (for Britain, because that was the colonists side), the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and so on. Indeed Mary has multiple family members that have fought in every war up through the Korean Conflict. Including both sides of the Civil War. We see protestant ministers on this side of the family, some of whom served as military chaplains.
The geography on the maternal side is more English, French and a bit of Dutch as well. So there are two main groups. There are the deeply New England tribe - real puritans with first names like Gamaliel and Consider. There are some real characters in there. The French family came later, were Catholics, and settled in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
From the Massachusetts lines we see a fair amount of colonists who took on roles of leadership and were landowners. Of course this signifies that they were prominent in their settlements, either because they came here with money or they did well (and had good luck) once they were here. There are multiple accounts of a man, Seth Pope, born in Plymouth in 1648, who was outspoken enough to end up in court a fair amount. It seems he was a bit liberal with property boundaries and ownership of some livestock. He also served as a judge in one of the last witchcraft trials in Plymouth. He felt it was a libel and slander and thus ended the witch trial fervor in Plymouth. It may have made him unpopular as he left town with his family afterwards for an area south of Boston. This is one of those close encounter stories as the local natives tried to eradicate the settlers and slaughtered many that remained in Plymouth, including some of Pope's adult children.
Dating back further than the Pope family we look to the Howland line. John Howland was born in England in 1591 and travelled on The Mayflower to settle in Plymouth. He married Elizabeth Tilley there and together they are Mary’s 9th great grandparents. More research is ongoing here...
Also from this region, there were multiple Revolutionary soldiers and more than one officer, again signifying prominence in the community if not wealth. One such person was Captain Thomas Crandon, Mary's 5th great-grandfather. He lead men in the defense of the coast of Massachusetts. He was named a Captain in the Bristol County Regiment in 1779. His grandson, Joseph Crandon, was very interesting and typical of Mary's family. At a time where most people lived and died where they were born, so many in Mary's family moved around. Joseph worked on a whaling boat and ended up in Columbia, Maine. There he set new roots, apprenticing for a tanner whom he later bought out. He married a Canadian immigrant there, built a home and became a ship builder, employing many in the area. The home he built was later destroyed by a fire but must have been lovely because a few generations later it was a hotel. Going down the Crandon line, we meet the Reverend Phillip Crandon, who was a chaplain during the Civil War.
In the Louisiana family there were a few more dead ends. The Cooper family appears out of nowhere in the 1800's and settled in Baton Rogue. William Cooper (Mary's great-grandfather) descended from these and worked overseas at number of posts as a mechanical engineer. He and his wife Gabrielle, seemed to take some of their children with them at times and leave others with her mother back in Louisiana. On the 1940 census they are listed as living in Dominican Republic, with one child, while another daughter is in New Orleans with her grandmother. There are records of their living in Puerto Rico as well.
The Louisiana family, including William Cooper's maternal line and Gabrielle's family, were predominately French. Although even here, we see an old Massachusetts family on William Cooper's side, that had a young man, David Hatch, who for reasons unknown, shows up in Louisiana to marry a very French Marie Modeste Rivet. Here I am waiting for a French translator to help with more clues on the Rivet family. Cooper's wife, Gabrielle, Garvey, was predominately French. The Garvey name-bearers, like the Cooper's suspiciously show up, allegedly from New York, for reasons unknown and also marry into a French family. These French immigrated in the mid 1800's, just in time to take part or bear witness to the American Civil War. One emigre, Josephine Guth lost her husband to the war and supported her two children by teaching music from her New Orleans apartment. Her father, George Guth, brewed beer in French Quarter before the war. What happened during and after is unclear as the last document found is a tax assessment in 1862. He seemed to be doing well up until then. Could he have known his great-grand daughter Gabrielle Garvey would marry the descendants of union soldiers? Probably not...
Little glimpses, stories and fragments. That is all we get from the past. And yet all of these movements, across the sea, into war, into court and census records, all lead to... Mary. Amazing, is it not?
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