My Top 9 "Myth busters"


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1.  He lied about his age…

2.  We’re the last of the line.

3.  Owen was a Priest

4.  She was a “widow woman?”

5.  …look for a school near a hill.

6.  And her name was Annie.

7.  Frank McGonigle owned a dry goods store.

8  Other relatives were already there.

9. They came to America by way of Boston.

* You can select any topic of interest and go directly there, or read the entire contents by starting at "He lied about his age."

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Family Myths Examined.

Initially we thought we knew the answers around these nine "facts", but over time we learned that some of these stories weren't exactly correct.   As we began communicating with other family members, some of these stories were the same...and some were different.  So we will explore some of these "myths" and see what is actually true.
 
1. He Lied About His Age...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our family history told how a 16 year old John Smith registered in the army during America's Civil War, was wounded and vowed never to "die on Confederate soil." The story went on to say that he had to lie about his age because he was too young to enlist.   

As we began to explore his background, one thing became clear - he really didn't knew how old he was.  Even his letters to the Pension Office said the same thing. In one letter, he wrote that mother said he was the same age as one of his cousins…but she couldn’t recall what year that was. 

Because of the problems Irish John had with his pension, he left for Ireland in 1908 to find a birth certificate or baptismal entry.  His travel journals mentioned that he had no luck in finding proof of his age. 

In 2007, we got lucky.  We found his baptismal record and it showed that he was born in 1842.  So...no, he wasn't 16 when he enlisted...he was almost 20 years old.
2.  She was a “widow woman."

We knew nothing about the Smith’s genealogy when we first began building this site.  We knew that she came to America after her husband died, and in 1850 her children came to Brooklyn to join her. 

We knew that they had eventually moved to Wisconsin, and assumed that she had not remarried.  Even John Smith's letters to the pension office referred to her as a “widow woman”.  Then Tim called me to tell me the news, "she had remarried."  Based on what we can “put together”, we believe she came to Wisconsin no later than April 1858 and census information tells us she married William Rooney in 1859.  We are certain that it was Wisconsin because William Rooney was already in Bear Creek in 1855.
3. We're the last of the line.

Growing up Dad used to tell us that we “were the last of the line.”   He would tell us that there was no one else to carry on the Smith name, so we knew early on that it was “our duty” to get married and have baby boys. 

But as we have since learned, we have many "cousins" who bear the Smith surname.  While none of these descend from Irish John Smith, we have cousins in America, Scotland, Australia and Ireland who descend from Irish John's grandparents and great grandparents.  
4. Owen was a Priest.

Many years ago, I had asked Frank Smith if his father, Irish John Smith, had any brothers and sisters.  He said that there was a brother Owen “but everyone called him Eoin” and a sister “Bridget.”  I then asked, "what happened to them"?  He said that he thought Bridget came to Wisconsin with the family but eventually moved further north with her husband.  As for “Eoin”, he said with a smile, "he became a priest".

As we began to put the family history together, Tim reached out to the Catholic arch-diocese to obtain information about Father Owen Smith.   After much research, they told him that they had no records of a Father Owen Smith.   

It was not until we learned that Catherine Smyth had remarried were we able to solve this puzzle.  Based on census information, it showed that he had suffered from a degenerative muscle and nervous system disease, and at one point even lived with John and Susan Smith. The 1880 census noted that he was “mentally disabled” and the condition manifested itself 10 years earlier.  It wasn't too many years ago when people would hide disabled family members from the public, so its likely that the story was conceived to keep his real story secret.
5.  Her name was Annie.

Many years ago, Mary Rita Jacobsen told me that Batt Ryan's mother's name was "Annie."  It was easy to see “Annie Ryan” in old census information, but when we requested documented evidence of her life in Allamakee, such as obituaries or last wills & testaments, we were told that nothing existed.   

We stumbled on Annie Ryan’s real name by accident.  In our request to the Archdiocese of Cashel, Tipperary, they provided us her baptismal and marriage records.  In addition to learning that her surname was "Camel or Campbell", we also learned that Nancy was her real name.

When we made our request again for legal documents and newspaper articles using this "newly found information", a plethora of information came our way.  If you’re interested, her estate listed her as Nancy Ann Ryan.
6. Look for a school near a hill...

For years our family had been searching for the mythical village of ‘School Hill’.  After going through many old maps of the 1800s, we finally wrote to the Tipperary Historical Society in Nenagh to see if they knew where this town existed.  They wrote back a rather snide comment -  “look for a school near a hill.”   

We had already gone down that route.  One thing you learn is that there were few schools in 1840 Tipperary, so we tried to look for a convergence of names (Ryan, Boney, and Campbell) and compare to known "authorized" schools (at one time it was unlawful for the Irish Catholics to attend school).  Just by looking at this convergence, we found four areas where our ancestors may have originated.  One of these areas was in Hollyford, and this interested us because there were other Ryans living in Allamakee (specifically Union Prairie township) who came from there. 

So we wrote to the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Cashel, and they came back with the answer to our question.  Yes, the place they came from was on our top 4 list, but it wasn't Hollyford.  Instead, we learned the Ryans came from Newport Parish, specifically in a townland called Gortnaskehy.  But we could not find a village called ‘School Hill’ in or around this townland.  At some point we figured it out  They lived about a half mile from the old Ryan castle originally known as Cully castle (later Waller Castle) - even today the area is still known as “Cully.”  In old Gaelic, the pronunciation of Cully sounds like “School Hill.”
7.  Other relatives were already there... Mary Rita Jacobsen said that the Ryans either came to Allamakee County  to join relatives who were already in the territory.   Initially we believed it was one of the Ryan families who lived around the James and Ann Ryan farm in Union Prairie township, but later we discounted this connection as these were "different Ryans from different parts of Tipperary".  This became especially apparent once we located the Ryan homeland in Tipperary, Gortnaskehy town land, which was a few miles east of Newport, Tipperary.

But after looking at Mary Ryan's baptismal record (Mary Boney, daughter of James and Ann Ryan), we saw the name "Bart Campbell".  We didn't know who Bart was, but the archdiocese told us that minimally he was a relative.

Later, while looking at cemetery records in Allamakee County, we saw the name "Bartholomew Campbell."  We found the cemetery care taker's name - Jim Campbell, and wrote to see if he had any records on the Ryans and Campbells.  To our surprise, he sent us their family genealogy tree...and it showed that Bartholomew Campbell and Nancy Ann Campbell Ryan were brothers and sisters!

Now we knew...it wasn't Ryans that were the relatives...it was the Campbells.  And both families lived only a mile from each other in Union Prairie township.
8.  Frank owned a dry goods store in Leadville. Mom would talk about her grandfather's life in Leadville.  As she would say, "he owned a dry goods store and occasionally would trade dry goods for a stake in the mines."  As we learned, there was some truth to this story, but with a slight twist.

Frank McGonigle owned a dray business in early Leadville, and his teams of horses would move ore between the mines and the smelters.  This was a fairly lucrative operation, although very hard work.  Eventually, he took his earnings and started his own business.  It wasn't a dry goods store...it was a saloon.

His saloon was located on East 6th Street, and on the second floor was a boarding house managed by Kate McGonigle, his wife.   Both the saloon and boarding house were making money, and Kate was known "as one of the best cooks around."   Years later, when Kate was asked about life in Leadville, she said, "Money came in as fast as it went out."

There is one other myth that should be mentioned.  Apparently there was a great calamity that the McGonigles faced while living in Leadville.  One family story says that a great forest fire came through Leadville and barely missed them, and that the only reason their house was saved because they kept putting water on the roof.  Other family members say it was an avalanche.  We may never know which story is real, but if it was a forest fire, then that would have put them in the Leadville area in 1879.
9. They came to America by way of Boston. The story went that the Ryans landed in Boston and over time located near Waukon, Iowa.  Along the way they stopped in Illinois and Indiana, and the Ku Klux Klan's activities against Irish Catholics forced them to find a new home in the western United States.  

Mary Rita had other evidence that suggested the family came to America by way of New Orleans.  The story goes that they landed in New Orleans on the day that President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.  If so, that would have been 1865, however, census information and other documents place their entry into the United States in 1867.  In 1867, one of the President's assassins died in prison due to Yellow Fever, so that may have been the event Bat Ryan was referencing.

In 1950, one of James and Annie's grandson's, Daniel Ryan, was interviewed by his grade-school aged grand-daughter (Pat).  Daniel talked about how his mother (Margaret Ryan) and father (Patrick Ryan) met each other in Canada.   Margaret was the second oldest daughter of James and Annie Ryan.    The Ryans came to Canada "because it was cheaper", and is supported by historical evidence - we know that England subsidized the journey if the Irish went to Canada.  Secondly, they stayed in Canada for some time waiting for a daughter (we believe Mary as she was married and perhaps pregnant with their oldest daughter) to emigrate.