Haley, Havey and related Families of Yuba Co, CA

I have just entered in WeRelate a number of birth and baptismal records for descendants of the Haley families who went to California during the Gold Rush. These are from the records of Immaculate Conception R.C. Church in Smartsville.

Owen/Eugene McEnery of Monagea Parish

I think I have satisfied myself that Owen McEnery and Eugene McEnery are the same person. When, years ago, I received the report from the Limerick Regional Archives, the parents of Catherine, Bridget, Patrick, John, Thomas and Mary were identified as Owen McEnery and Mary Collins. Today I found Thomas's baptismal record at the brs.genealogy site. In this record, the names of the parents are given as Eugene McEnery and Maria Collins. Now if I can just get in touch with the O'Driscoll who has his family tree on the web and is presumably the great-grandson of Eugene (and grandson of John, and son of William Joseph O'Driscoll and Margaret McEnery) I could find out his sources for Eugene's birth and death dates.

Owen/Eugene McEnery and Mary Collins

I think I am pretty much convinced now that the Eugene McEnery who came to America in 1899 to visit his daughters Bridget Clifford and Mary Shanahan is the Owen McEnery who was the son of Patrick McEnery and Catherine Riordan. Owen and Eugene are English versions of the same Latin name. I do not know what the baptismal records actually say, since the research centers in Ireland seem to Anglicize the names when they send you a report. (This, in my opinion, is a mistake.) A couple of family trees on the Internet have the Eugene who was the father of Bridget and Mary married to Mary Collins, whom I have as the wife of Owen. One of them gives Eugene's death date as 10 August 1906 in Newcastle West, County Limerick, but does not give a source for this information (Grrr!). I am going to change the information on WeRelate to make Eugene identical to Owen. I have to wonder, though, about Eugene being born in 1841 and Mary Collins, his wife, being born in 1830. Highly unusual!

Duh! I have my printed genealogy open in front of me, and realize that a Johanna Collins came back on the ship with Eugene McEnery and his family. She is obviously a relative of his wife. I have been wondering where a Collins would fit in.

Robert Clifford and his son Robert T. Clifford, husband and son of Eugene McEnery's daughter Bridget took a trip to Ireland in 1913. On the same ship were Joseph Shanahan and his son William. I am not sure how they fit in. I think Mary McEnery Shanahan's husband was John.

Fr. Joseph McEnery of Blackburn, Lancashire, England

I may have had a breakthrough with regard to the brothers Joseph E., James, and John McEnery, grandsons of Owen McEnery. There was a Joseph Eugene McEnery baptized at Kilbeggan Parish, County Westmeath, Ireland, on 12 April 1891, son of John McEnery and Kate Karty. We know from Jack that his mother was from Co. Westmeath. Owen did have a son John, and both of his brothers came to America. This fits with what Jack said in a letter to me in 1976. I just have to see if there was a John McEnery teaching in County Kilkenny at the right time.

McEnerys of Newcastle West, Co. Limerick

I've been trying to straighten out the McEnerys of Newcastle West, Co. Limerick. (1) There were three McEnery brothers, Fr. Joseph E., a diocesan priest in England; James, a Dominican priest known in religion as Fr. Bede; and Jack, a teacher who was living in a nursing home in Wales in 1975. They grew up in Co. Kilkenny, where their father was a teacher. Their grandfather was Owen McEnery, but I do not know the names of their parents. (2) Eugene McEnery married Mary Collins, and had a son Thomas, b. 1867 in Newcastle West. This Thomas married Catherine Moore, and they had a daughter Margaret (b. 1903, d. 1982) who married William Joseph O'Driscoll (1905-1987). (3) Are they related to the three Irish priests, Thomas, Patrick, and Dennis McEnery who served in the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota, and are all buried in the cemetery at Abbeyfeale? (4) What about Eugene McEnery who had two daughters in New York, Bridget McEnery Clifford and Mary McEnery Shanahan? He came to NY in 1899, but probably went back to Ireland in 1901. Most, if not all, of these people are related to, and probably descended from, my McEnerys, Patrick and Catherine (Riordan) McEnery of Monagea, Co. Limerick, but it is not entirely clear how.

Michael Curley not son of Patrick and Mary of Sonnagh

I have determined that my grandfather Michael Curley is not the Michael Curley who was born on 17 October 1874 to Patrick Curley, farm laborer, and his wife Mary, nee Dillon, residents of Sonnagh, County Galway, since that Michael was still living with them in 1911.

McLaughlins of Brooklyn

I've been putting on WeRelate information on two Mclaughlin families in Brooklyn that I am sure must be related. One family is that of Hugh "Boss" McLaughlin, a Brooklyn politico of the second half of the nineteenth century. The other, to which I know I am related, is the family of Henry McLaughlin, one of whose descendants was George Vincent McLaughlin, a banker, who was Police Commissioner of NYC for a short while under Mayor Walker. I am hoping that someone can make a connection.

I also added some information about the Kilcommons family. I had been told that Mary Kilcommons, who was born in Jersey City in 1903, had married a Weinberg. Using the SSDI, I found that she married Gilbert Whinberg.

I am hoping that more people start using WeRelate so that mistakes can be corrected easily. I am annoyed when I see a pedigree on Ancestry.com with a child born before the supposed parent, and the most you can do is put a post-it noting that fact.

Wilbur Family of Butte Co., California

This morning I added to WeRelate some information about the James B. and Rose Gertrude (Byrne) Wilbur family of Butte County, California. They are descendants of the Haley family who went to California from New Jersey at the time of the Gold Rush, and settled in Yuba County.

WeRelate.org

A few months ago I discovered WeRelate.org, a wiki type web site that allows collaboration in doing genealogy. I have already connected my Donnelly line with some Donnellys who were already on there. I have contacted some of the people with whom I share ancestry and asked them to consider participating. I am still working on the fine points, and I am adding people individually, and not just uploading a Gedcom file, so that I can check my work as I go along. I have added information for most of the families I am working on: Curley, McEnery, Connolly, Donnelly, McLaughlin, Kilcommons, and several others.

Searching for Michael Curley

I have been doing family history for about forty years now. I have had a great deal of success with my mother's side of the family: McEnery, Connolly, Donnelly--mostly from Essex County, NJ. I have not had much success with my father's side. I have a bit of information on the Kilcommonses (Bridget "Delia" Kilcommons Curley was my father's mother). I have never been able to get beyond my father's father, Michael Joseph Curley. He was (probably!) born in County Galway. He may have immigrated through Canada. He ended up in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he worked for the Lehigh Valley Railroad. He died in Philadelphia in 1931.