Passenger: Johana Hayes
Arrival Date: 20 Sep 1875
Birth Year: abt 1820
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Ethnicity/Race­/Nationality: Irish
Place of Origin: Ireland
Port of Departure: Liverpool, England and Queenstown, Ireland
Destination: United States of America
Port of Arrival: New York
Port Arrival State: New York
Port Arrival Country: United States
Ship Name: Wisconsin

Also traveling with Johanna is a daughter named Brid. (Bridget), age 30 and a son name John, age 20.  The ages for all three passengers match the known ages of the Johanna, Bridget and John of Limerick, Ireland.  Based on these facts, it is safe to conclude that this passenger manifest positively identifies that that these three family members arrived in the United States on 20 September, 1875.

This death certificate is for a Robert John Beattie who died in the Walton section of Lancaster, England. The death certificate indicates that he was found drowned at Langton Docks on May 20th, 1889. Robert was 24 years old and was a foreman at a business on Newark Street in Walton. Robert was last seen alive on December 8, 1888. How he got into the water is not known. The death record indicates that a death certificate was received from a coroner’s inquest held on May 21, 1889.  I will have to see if I can get a copy of the Coroners Inquest Report.

Based on the information in the death certificate, I am fairly certain that this Robert John Beattie, is the son of Robert Beattie of Kirkcudbright, Scotland and the Robert John Beattie who born in Hong Kong, China. We know that there is a Robert J Beattie (b. circa 1866), listed as a nephew, living with the family of John and Edith Mann Beattie in Everton (1871) and Kirkdale (1881). These two locations are just mile or two from Langton Docks (see the map) where this Robert John Beattie was found.

This Robert was 24 years old at the of time his death. That would place his date of birth crica 1866, which matches what we know about our Robert John Beattie based on those Census records.

What makes this story even more tragic is that his father, Robert Beattie, was reportedly murdered in Hong Kong. As the story goes, brother John Beattie sailed to China to bring his young nephew home.

So now the big question…  Was he murdered?  Did he take his own life?  Or was this just a tradgic accident?

GROOM:
Groom: Harry G McNeill
Address: 257 Merrimack Street, Manchester, NH
Occupation: Cigarmaker
Father: Irving McNeill (Deceased)
Mother: Esther Louise Sanborn
Mother Address: 257 Merrimack Street, Manchester, NH
Mother Birthplace: Manchester, England

BRIDE
Bride: Jane Josephine Hayes
Bride Address: 35 Front Street
Occupation: Brushmaker
Father: John J Hayes (Deceased)
Father Occupation: Watchman
Father Birthplace: London, England
Mother: Jane B Keelty (Kelty)
Mother’s Address: 35 Front Street

Click To Enlarge

So working with the information I found at pilot.familysearch.org, I went over to a site I seldom use because it is so incredibly expensive to do research on it.  In fact, it is more of a site to go to when you know EXACTLY what you are looking for. The site is run by the Irish Family History Foundation and can be found at brsgenealogy.com.  The Irish Family History Foundation is the coordinating body for a network of county based genealogical research centers on the island of Ireland. These centers have computerized millions of Irish genealogical records, including church records, census returns and gravestone inscriptions.  But their search tools are pretty week.  It is very difficult to narrow down your searches using known information about an individual.  I think they are hoping you will pay the $7.50 US per record to look at a set of possible records.    Obviously, that can add up quickly.

I can’t afford to do a bunch of research here, so I started with a sure thing.  The first thing I did was find the matching civil birth record for Patrick Hanly and purchased the information for about $7.50 US.

CIVIL BIRTH RECORD
Patrick Hanly
DOB: 13-Sep-1865
Parish / District: ROCKHILL & BRUREE
County: County. Limerick
Father: Daniel Hanly
Mother: Ellen Hayes
Sponsor 1: Edmd. Hayes
Sponsor 2: Hanora Fiitgerald

While I was looking for Patricks civil birth record, I came across a matching baptism record, with the last name being slightly different. But it was another match.

CHURCH BAPTISM RECORD
Patrick Hanley
DOB: 14-Sep-1865
Parish / District: ROCKHILL & BRUREE
County: County. Limerick
Father: Daniel Hanley
Mother: Ellen Hayes
Sponsor 1: Edmd. Hayes
Sponsor 2: Hanora Fiitgerald

According to the Irish Family History Foundation web site, civil birth record recordings did not begin until 1865 in Ireland, so anybody born before than will not have a “Civil Birth Record”.  Patrick was one of the first Irishman to receive a Civil Birth Record.  If a persons birthday is before, you need to hope that you can find a Church Baptismal Record.  So since most of the people I have been looking for were most likely born before 1865, I switch focus and began looking for Irish Baptism Records in County Limerick.  While I did not find any matching records for Catherine Hanley (Hanly), I did find a matching record for William Hanley.

CHURCH BAPTISM RECORD
William Hanley
DOB: 26-Jul-1863
Parish / District: ROCKHILL & BRUREE
County: County. Limerick
Father: Daniel Hanley
Mother: Hellen Hayes
Sponsor 1: Ptk. Riordan
Sponsor 2: Maria Hayes

At this point Thursday night, I composed a real quick blurry-eyed email to my Hayes cousins on my mothers side.  I was every excited to have made even this little bit of progress and wanted to share my findings with everybody

Feeling a little fresher the next morning, I decided to revisit the Irish Family History Foundation website to see what I could come up without breaking the bank.  This time, I tried a slightly different strategy.  I narrowed my search focus to include ONLY from the Rockhill / Bruree parish…..  BINGO!  The first thing I found was the marriage certificate for Ellen Hayes and Daniel Hanly.

CHURCH MARRIAGE RECORD
Daniel Hanly and Helen Hayes
Date of Marriage:  18-Feb-1860
Parish / District: ROCKHILL & BRUREE
County: County. Limerick
Husband: Daniel Hanley
Wife: Helen Hayes
Denomination Roman Catholic
Witness 1: Patrick Hayes
Witness 2: Joanna Fitgerald

The Hayes Family Of Bruree Found!

Then digging deeper and widening the possible range of birthdays, I was able to come up with a bunch of records the clearly establish the Hayes family of Bruree

CHURCH MARRIAGE RECORD
Patrick Hayes and Joanna Currey*
Date of Marriage:  27-Jan-1837
Parish / District: ROCKHILL & BRUREE
County: County. Limerick
Husband: Patrick Hayes
Wife: Joanna Currey *
Denomination Roman Catholic
Witness 1: James Naughton
Witness 2: Maria Currey
*THEY BELIEVE THAT “CURRY” SHOULD ACTUALLY BE READ “COWHEY”

CHURCH BAPTISM RECORD
Maria (Mary) Hayes
DOB: 24-Apr-1843
Parish / District: ROCKHILL & BRUREE
County: County. Limerick
Father: Patrick Hayes
Mother: Joh. Cowhey
Sponsor 1: MI Russell
Sponsor 2: Mgt. Kennelly

CHURCH BAPTISM RECORD
Patrick Couhy Hayes
DOB: 08-Jul-1851
Parish / District: ROCKHILL & BRUREE
County: County. Limerick
Father: Patrick Hayes
Mother: Joh. Couhy
Sponsor 1: Edmd. Calleghan
Sponsor 2: Maria Kennelly

CHURCH BAPTISM RECORD
Edmond Hayes
DOB: 09-May-1848
Parish / District: ROCKHILL & BRUREE
County: County. Limerick
Father: Patrick Hayes
Mother: Joh. Couhy
Sponsor 1: Edmd. Hayes
Sponsor 2: Maria Hayes

CHURCH BAPTISM RECORD
John Hayes
DOB: 11-Jun-1854
Parish / District: ROCKHILL & BRUREE
County: County. Limerick
Father: Patrick Hayes
Mother: Joh. Cowhy
Sponsor 1: John Toohill
Sponsor 2: Ellen Nunan

For some reason, the only female baptism record I have been able to find is for Maria Hayes.  I am thinking it has something to do with the spelling of their names. For instance, the person I knew as Mary Hayes was actually recorded as Maria Hayes.  And I have seen Ellen Hayes listed as Helen Hayes

In Summary

Based on this information we can safely assume that the Hayes family inhabited the Bruree Parish between 1837 and roughly 1877 when Patrick, the father of Maria, Patrick, Edmond, John and Ellen, died.   Before that, Ellen (Helen) Hayes Hanley came to the United States in 1867 with her husband and three Irish born children.  Ellen’s husband, Daniel, died shortly after arriving and contracting TB from one of the worsted mills in Pennsylvania. According to information from Edward Hayes,

I had initially given up hope for finding any real records of the Hayes family in Limerick. Some time ago, cousin Jim Hayes had a genealogy report created by a “professional genealogist” in Ireland.   The genealogist had stated that at that time, the Parish Register for the Rockhill / Buree area started in 1842,  Based on what I have found, that is clearly incorrect.  I was able to find a marriage record from 1937.

I have learned several lessons form this wonderful find.

1.  Never give up.  New records and information appear every month on various web sites.  It is always good to revisit a troubled branch with a fresh brain after giving yourself some time off to contemplate new options.

2.  Further research will require us to look at numerous naming alternatives.  For instance, when researching for Johanna Coughy, we need to consider the following name variations:

• Johanna
• Joanna
• Joh.
• Coughy
• Coughey
• Cowhey
• Couhy
• Cowie

So while I have not positively linked my branch of the Hayes family to the Bruree Hayes family, there is enough circumstantial evidence to say they are all related.  Maybe the baptism record for Ellen Hayes will show up sometime in the future.

These papers also state that Thomas Kelty was born on or about 28 October 1919.  They do provide us with a location of where this Thomas Kelty was born (see the image below), but I have not been able to match it to an actual County in Ireland.

Thomas was 40 years old at the time of the naturalization. According to the 1841 United Kingdom Census and the 1860 & 1870 United States Census, Thomas Kelty was born between 1811 and 1818 . This makes the Thomas Kelty in these papers a reasonable match for the Thomas Kelty in our family tree.

According to this filing, Thomas first came to New York on or about the 2nd day of October 1835 at the age of 17 years old.  It does not tell us the name of the ship he was on.

These papers do raise several interesting questions.

1. If this is indeed the Thomas Kelty from the Hayes Family Tree, how did  his first five children come to be born in the United Kingdom between 1841 and 1858? Did he return to the United Kingdom before bringing his family back to the United States?
2. If this is not the same Thomas Kelty, then who is it?  There are no other Thomas Kelty’s in New Hampshire.
3. Could he have lied to protect his family from deportation?

View the Thomas Kelty Naturalization Papers in PDF format by clicking this link.

Follow-up To The Original Article

My friend, Bob Naughton, has identified the County of Birth as Roscommon.

County Roscommon (Irish: Contae Ros Comáin) is one of the traditional counties of Ireland and is located within the province of Connacht. It was named after the town of Roscommon. The county covers an area of 2,547 square kilometres (983 sq mi).

Roscommon is the 11th largest of Ireland’s 32 counties in area, the fifth least populous county in Ireland and has the second least population density after Leitrim. It’s the third largest of Connacht’s 5 counties in size and fourth largest in terms of population. In 2008 it was revealed that statistically, Roscommon has the longest life expectancy of any county on the island of Ireland.

Then in July 2009, I found an interest post on a genealogy message board that gave me the name of Leta’s great grandson.  His name was Shawn Butler.  He was looking for information about his great great grandmother Julia Geeslin Smith, for which I have lots of info about.  I tried to contact him without success. The problem was that his email address that he provided was no longer valid.  I even tried contact some Shawn Butlers on Facebook.  No good.  You can read more about that part of the story here:

http://hayesfamily.us/index.php/2009/07/17/great-grandson-of-leta-smith-found-sort-of/

So with that dead end, I gave up on her for a while, until this morning.  I’m not sure why I selected her  for my research effort again.  I guess it was because I just couldn’t accept the fact that I couldn’t  find her or her family.  With such unusual names involved, you would think finding a mother named Leta and two children name Merle and Berle would be easy.  No way.  It has been a nearly impossible task…  until this AM.

This morning I decided to do a fresh search of Leta using four know variations of her name, including Leeta, Leda and Leeda.  I stripped out almost all other search criteria except for her birth year and birth state and asked for exact matches.   Then I added what was believed to be Leta husbands first name… Bert. Since I had no idea what the last name could be, I left it blank.   I confined the search to the 1920 Census.

When I pressed the search button, there,  at the top was a Leta E Record, married to a Bert Record with two children; Muyrell and Burnes (at least according to the person who translated the record into the Ancestry.com database).  On closer examination of the actual 1920 Census record, I found the Leta E was born in Iowa, her mother born in Iowa and her father was born in New York.  This information perfectly matched what I knew about Leta.  Now, my concern was of the two children’s names.  They looked similar to the names I was looking for, but far from a match.  In addition, this Census Record was taken in the Rock Island, Illinois area.

What would Leta be doing in Illinois?  But then I remembered.  Back when I was looking for Leta’s son, I tracked down Shawn Butlers Internet Service Provider and they were in Illinois.  Hmmmmmm.  That’s interesting!

So I went back to the original article I wrote about Shawn’s inquiry to see if there were any clues that I missed. Nope, nothing there.   I then went back to the original postings he made at geneaology.com.  Nope… didn’t miss anything there either.  But….  he had made inquiries into other surnmes at geneaology.com.  So I went to check on his other postings.  Sure enough, there was the confirmation I needed.  He posted several messages indicating that he was in possession of the “Record Family Bible”.  And the details of his post was even more interesting.  In one post, he said:

“I have a family bible handed down to me with my great-great grandfather listed as well as his brothers and sisters. Grandfather Bert Record is buried in rock Island .”

Bingo..  Now the pieces have fallen into place.   Leta Ethel Smith married Bert Record.  And Merle and Berle do not appear to be twins, at least according to the 1920 Census.  Now I just need to make the rest of the connections!  Say tuned!

Angelo was born 14 May 1872 in Mantova, Lombardia, Italy.  He was the out of wedlock son of Carlos Bellizario (sp?) and Lucia Parmelli.  The old family story indicates that the sexual relation between Lucia and Carlos  may have been non-consentual.

Angelo died of Cirrhosis of Liver on October 18, 1913 at his home in 83 West 6th Street, Paterson, New Jersey.  He was 41 years old.  He left behind four daughters (Marie, Jean, Stephanie and Yolanda) and one boy (Michael). Multiple sources indicate that he was a cigar salesman.  He was buried at Laurel Green Cemetery just outside of Paterson.

]]> http://hayesfamily.us/index.php/2009/12/01/the-death-certificate-of-angelo-anthony-baroni/feed/ 0 http://hayesfamily.us/index.php/2009/07/16/the-marriage-certificate-of-cecelia-l-hone-and-edward-l-kear/ http://hayesfamily.us/index.php/2009/07/16/the-marriage-certificate-of-cecelia-l-hone-and-edward-l-kear/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:02:25 +0000 Philip Hayes http://hayesfamily.us/?p=756 SOURCE: Cecelia Hone and Edward L Kear Marriage Certificate obtained from the Westchester County Archives.

Cecelia L Hone, of 37 Orchard Street in Mount Vernon, was born in Rye, NY on September 16, 1900 and was a bookkeeper when she decided to marry Edward L Kear. She was 31 years old. This was her second marriage. Her first husband died. Her parents were John Hone and Mary Buckley, both of Ireland.

Edward Kear was living at 1565 E. 28th Street in Brooklyn at the time and was an Architectural Draftsman. Edward’s parents were john Kear and Mary Day, both born in the the United States.

Cecelia’s brother, Victor J Hone and Mabel R Cashion were the Best Man and Maid of Honor. Victor was living at 16 Devonia Avenue in Mount Vernon.

The couple was married in Mount Vernon of February 13, 1933.

]]> http://hayesfamily.us/index.php/2009/07/16/the-marriage-certificate-of-cecelia-l-hone-and-edward-l-kear/feed/ 0 http://hayesfamily.us/index.php/2009/07/06/the-roach-family-discovered/ http://hayesfamily.us/index.php/2009/07/06/the-roach-family-discovered/#comments Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:43:59 +0000 Philip Hayes http://hayesfamily.us/?p=734 When I first started doing my genealogy research, I learned that my great, great grandfather, Henry Lewis, married a woman named “Anna Roche”. In fact, my great aunt, Grace Lewis” gave me the first first insight into a family that I had only heard of by name.

“Anna Roche was born in Brooklyn, but her mother came from Dublin, Ireland, where she was educated to become a doctor at the University there. If it was not that she was your great, great grandmother, we would not be writing this today. Your grandfather (Thomas) was about 4 pounds when he was born and she kept them alive in a little cigar box in the back of one of those old-fashioned coal stove’s. She kept him for one year, until he was a very strong baby.

Your great great grandmother had other children besides Anna Roche. She had Rose, Anna and another daughter and a son. I do know the boy moved to Cleveland Ohio and had seven sons. Rose married a man named Booth and had no children. Rose moved to Port Chester after her husband died and lived with one of her sisters who married a man named Gackstetter. They had David, Walter, John, Harold and Mabel. They were the ones I visited for many years and enjoyed very much. At one time Mabel and I, and one of her brothers came to visit you at your home in Larchmont. That it that is what you remember. No one in the family kept up with them but myself and now I have not heard from them in years. The other sister, Anna, lived up in Port Chester too, and had six girls and one boy. Their name was Hickey, bur all are married with different names. At one time they had a family gathering and there were 15 members of the family. Many more did not come. I do not know anything more about them today.”

But as I began gathering evidence of Anna and her children, I found that close to 100% of the researched documents cited Anna’s maiden name as Roach, not Roche. These records include death certificates from New York City and Census records. For example, the 1860 Census record which clearly shows Anna’s mother Margaret living with them, has Margaret’s last name spelled as “Roach”. Anna’s Death Certificate has her maiden name listed as “Roach” also.

In hopes of putting the name issue to rest , I decided I would visit Anna’s grave at Greewwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. But when I saw here grave stone, it had her name spelled as “Roche”. So at this point, I had believe that my relatives didn’t know how to spell her last name and,and just guessed that it was “Roche”. Since no legal documents pointed to the “Roche” spelling I could only go with the “Roach” spelling.

So moving on and using Aunt Grace’s letter as a base for my further research, I was able to track down those relatives in Port Chester, mentioned in the letter. I thought by solving this branch of the family tree, it might give me some useful clues in solving the mystery of the Roche/ Roach spelling issue. It took me a while because Aunt Grace was a bit confused. She thought that Anna’s sister, Rose, married “a man named Booth”. In fact, Rose did marry a Samuel Booth, but Rose was the daughter of Anna’s sister Bridget, not Anna’s sister.

Bridget married a man named David Reekie. Bridget and David had at least 7 other children, in addition to Rose. One of Rose’s sisters, Susan, married John Gackstetter and eventually wound up in Port Chester as told to us in the letter of Aunt Grace Lewis. Using Census records for the majority of my research, I was able to track down two living descendants of the relatives in Port Chester. We have exchanged addresses and telephone numbers and converse occasionally via email. It took some time, but I eventually tracked down the death certificate for Bridget Roach. She died in Dover, NJ on 29 June 1908. The Reekie’s spent about 10 years in Dover, before two of the surviving descendants moved to Port Chester, NY. The death certificate revealed Margaret’s husband’s name for the first time. It was Andrew. But it still cited their last name as “Roach”.

As a result of this research, I am now regularly in touch with cousin David Feser, another descendant of Bridget Reekie. He is also an avid genealogist. He is the great grandson of Robert Reekie, brother of Rose and Susan Reekie. He now lives in Chesapeake, VA.

When I first started the research on Anna Roach way back wehn, I made a half baked attempt at querying for a Roach connection in the Cleveland area using Ancestry.com’s Census Collection. It returned hundreds of possibilities. I quickly gave up. Without some basic information, I figured trying to find the Cleveland relatives would be impossible.

But several things changed recently. First, Ancestry.com began something called lifespan filtering. This simply removes results that are outside the possible lifespan of the person you are querying. So I decided to take a guess and enter the birth year of Bridget Roach as the birth year of someone with a last name of Roach who lives in Cleveland, Ohio. I also asked for results that only fall within 10 years, either way of that birth day. I figured a brother of sister would most likely be within 10 years of Anna. Then I also asked for an exact match birthplace of “Ireland”.

The very first match in a set of 168,373 records, showed a Patrick Roach in the 1880 Census. Patrick was born in 1835 in Ireland and was married to Elizabeth, also of Ireland. Together, they has one daughter AND SEVEN BOYS! Could this be Anna and Bridget’s “brother who moved to Cleveland and had seven boys?” It look promising, so I built a separate research tree to investigate this line of Roach’s. I spent hours looking for him and his kids in the 1870 Census without success.

From the 1880 census, I learned that Patrick was the Sexton of a Catholic Cemetery. The 1880 census also indicated that they lived at 928 Woodland Avenue. So with a quick Google, it was easy to figure out that they managed and resided at St. John’s Catholic Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

I immediately found an online form for the diocese and asked if they could help me with any information about the Roach Family. The same evening I also sent out an email for help on the Cuyahoga genealogy mail list and requested assistance from a RAOGK (Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness) volunteer. I asked RAOGK volunteer Norm Davis if he could possibly find a death certificate for Patrick. I had hoped that the death certificate would name his parents as Andrew and Margaret Roach.

The next day, Norm wrote back…

“Here is the obit. Unfortunately there were no death certificates in 1882. They started in Dec.1908 but there was a death ledger in place at the time and I will get a copy of it for you early next week.  The ledger will not give much info but sometimes it will verify some facts for you.  Being he died at such a young age I will see if there is a coroner’s report available.  I will keep you posted.”

Norm Davis
RAOGK

Id#: 0297665
Name: Roach, Patrick
Date: 11/15/1882
Source: Cemetery record;  Cleveland Necrology File, Reel #068.
Notes: Age 47. St. John’s Cemetery Cleveland, Ohio.

What a major set-back I thought. Without a death certificate, how could I ever prove that he was the long lost brother I was looking for? I had tried searching the Cleveland Necrology file before, but without a clue on what to search for, it returned hundreds of results. So I decided I would try to learn more about Patrick and his family. I also wanted to track down the descendants of the children of Patrick and Elizabeth.

I soon began receiving responses from people on the Cuyahoga Mail List. The first came from LAS500.

Footnote.com has the Cleveland Directories- There is a Patrick Roach listed
as Sexton at Woodland Ave Cemetery. I looked at the 1871 directory because
that  info was probably collected in 1870.  There are several other Roach
families listed with home addresses.

So that confirms that Patrick was in Cleveland in 1870 and that for some reason he is either not in the 1870 Census or there is a gross error in the recoding of information about him and his family.

Holly Timm wrote:

Below is something of a timeline for Patrick Roach using the known census
plus the available Cleveland city directory information from Footnote.com

1860 CENSUS living in the 6th Ward, carpenter
1861 not listed
1862 (not on site)
1863 (not on site)
1864 2 listed: one as hostler, Franklin House, w.s.
the other as joiner, h. Wheat
1865 carpenter, h. 5 Forest
1866 (not on site)
1867 carpenter, h. 28 Harper
1868 not listed
1869 not listed
1870 CENSUS not found
1870 sexton, Woodland cemetery
1871 sexton, Catholic Cemetery, res 923 Woodland
1872 carpenter, res. 30 Pier
1873 sexton, r. Catholic Cemetary [sic]
1874 sexton, Catholic Cemetery, r. 923 Woodland av.
1875 sexton, r. 923 Woodland av.
1880 CENSUS Supt Catholic Cemetery, res 928 Woodland Ave

Looks like he *may* have been gone from the city in the late 1860’s and
returned in time to be listed in the 1870 directory but missed in the 1870
census, either not in residence or missed by the enumerator.

The title page for the 1870 directory states it was published in 1870 for
the years 1870-71

This provided me with a work history for Patrick. I also soon received a response from Janet Tomaro at the Cleveland Dioceses.

Dear Mr. Hayes,

In reference to your recent request on Patrick Roche. I can confirm that he was the Sexton of St. John Cemetery in Cleveland and that he is buried there in a family plot. Unfortunately, I do not have any family history, but following is a list of all those buried with him.

This is all the information available to you.

*Margaret Roche age 63 4/25/1875 abt 1812
*Patrick Roche age 47 11/15/1882 abt 1835
Clarence Roach age 6 mos 12/27/1891 abt Jun 1891
Joseph S. Roach age 7 days 12/3/1899 abt 26 Nov 1899
Julia Roach age 34 yrs. 1/29/1900 abt 1866
Margaret Roach age 46 yrs 3/28/1901 abt 1855
Lillian Roach age 28 yrs 5/28/1901 abt 1873
John Roach age 73 yrs. 2/25/1902 abt 1829
George Roach age 2 mos. 8/12/1902 abt Jun 1902
Mary v age 65 yrs 12/8/1904 abt 1839
Catherine Hull age 40 yrs 2/4/1905 abt 1865
Valorie Hull age 15 yrs 7/7/1910 act 1895
Elizabeth Roach age 81 yrs 11/25/1912 abt 1844
Elizabeth Long age 43 yrs 8/22/1925 abt 1882
*Andrew Roche age 73 yrs 1/13/1934 abt 1861
*Patrich Roche age 70 yrs 3/5/1934 abt 1864
*Margaret Roche age 88 yrs 9/9/1950 abt 1862

The lot is in Section 7 row 5 Lot 2 Part 9/10.

It has been my pleasure to assist you in your genealogy search, and I hope this information is helpful. We usually provide 4 names at no charge and gladly accept any monetary donation.  Your contribution will help maintain the cemetery grounds, and provide a place where meditation and reflection can be enjoyed by all visitors. Should you have any questions please contact the cemetery by email, or (216) 641-7575. Sincerely

Janet Tomaro

WOW! Interesting! Some of interments are listed as Roach, others as Roche. This brought me closer to the idea that I had found the family of the brother I was looking for. This group of Roach/ Roche had conflicting name issues too. Using the Cleveland Necrology File, I quickly began piecing together who was who. The necrology file is a database of obituaries from the Cleveland area, dating back to the early 1800’s. It soon became apparent that there were members of two families here. One line came from Patrick’s family (d. 1882). The other came from what appears to be another brother named John (d. 1902). I was able to match all but two internment’s with a listing in the Cleveland Necrology File. And then there is a Margaret Roche who appears to be the mother of Patrick and John. She is about the same age as the Margaret I was tracking in New York. So now it appears that Anna and Bridget’s mother, Margaret, may have come to Cleveland to live with her son Patrick in her final years. Wow… everything seemed to be falling in place.

Using Ancestry.com’s Census Records, I quickly began building on the descendants of Patrick and John. I easily found members for the next 3 – 4 generations of family members along with numerous death records and obituaries.

THE BIG MYSTERY SOLVED

Over the last several weeks, Norman has slowly been sending me a variety of interesting documents. These included:

• The Last Will of Patrick Roach and associated Probate Records from 1885.
• A Death Ledger for Patrick Roach who died Nov 14, 1982.
• A Naturalization Record for a James Roche

Then just today, I receive the absolute confirmation I was looking for… from a surprising source… A second Death Ledger. Norman Davis, the very dedicated and generous ROAGK volunteer who first responded to me weeks ago, retrieved some additional records form me. He scanned them in and sent them to me via email. One of them was an additional Death Ledger from another source which gave many more details than the first one he sent many weeks ago. This one provided me with the following information.

• Namer: Patrick Roach
• Date of Death: November 14, 1892
• Age: 48 years, 4 months old
• Address at Death: 923 Woodland Avenue, Cleveland, OH
• Born: Dublin, Ireland
• Cause of Death: Dropsy ( An old term for the swelling of soft tissues due to the accumulation of excess water. Usually caused by Congestive Heart Failure)
• Burial Location: Woodland Catholic Cemetery
• Father: Andrew
• Mother: Margaret

That was the confirmation I needed. He was born in Dublin and his parents were Andrew and Margaret. That is consistent with the research of the New York Roche / Roach’s and makes him the perfect fit for Anna and Bridget’s brother.

So now that I have the confirmation I was looking for, I will try to make contact with some of the cousins related to the Cleveland Roach / Roche’s to see if they can contribute any additional facts.

Also,stay tuned for some additional news concerning the name issue. Some recently discovered documents may help explain things.

Click to Enlarge