Let me say first, that I am in no way an "expert" genealogist. I opened an Ancestry.com account in 2013 because it sounded interesting, and I've always been curious about my family's past. I've watched a handful of free webinars, and read some blogs, but that is the full extent of my education in this field. In other words, DO NOT TAKE MY ADVICE. I barely know what I'm doing. But, I do think that with a little curiosity, a critical eye, and the application of basic logic, even us neophytes can make some really interesting discoveries.
Background
When I first started my family tree, I leaned fairly heavily on the knowledge and experience of my cousin, Nancy. (She's my father's 1st cousin, so she's my 1st cousin, 1x removed? Like I said, I'm no expert.) Nancy had already done an enormous amount of research on the Kirwan tree, and we all sort of consider her the family historian. With her help, I had my paternal line documented all the way back to my 2nd great-grandfather, Thomas William Kirwan, who we knew was born in Ireland, maybe somewhere near Dublin, around 1846-1850 and immigrated to Buffalo, NY, where much of my Kirwan family still lives today. We also suspected that his parents were Michael Kirwan and Mary Ennis.
A couple of years ago I stumbled across this baptism record on Ancestry.
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So that's interesting! Could this be our Thomas William, son of Michael and Mary? The names and dates sure matched up, so I saved the record, noted it was unproven, and went looking for other children of Michael and Mary. Maybe Thomas had siblings we could use to help confirm this. If there were other children of Michael and Mary, and we could find their descendants, and we share DNA with them...
It's a long shot.
Anne Kirwan
Not long after finding Thomas' (potential) baptism record, I found another child born to a Michael Kirwan and Mary Ennis. This time in Rathvilly, which is just down the road from Baltinglass.
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| Rathvilly, Wicklow and Carlow, Ireland "1843 Aug 12 - Anne - Mick Kerwin and Mary Ennis" |
Again, the names seem right, and the location makes sense. Maybe?
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| It's just right there! |
I added Anne to my tree as a "Hypothesis" and moved on.
The Dunne Family
One of my favorite pastimes is looking though old newspapers for mentions of my ancestors. I've found some downright scandalous tidbits throughout my tree, but that's a post for another day. There are several good resources for old newspapers online, but these are my two favorites. Newspapers.com is an Ancestry.com add-on service that scans and indexes thousands of newspapers (they claim to have indexed over 600 million pages). They do offer limited free access, but most content is behind their paywall. Old Fulton NY Post Cards is a free (as in beer) site that started years ago as a collection of NY State newspapers, but has grown to include millions of individual editions from across the U.S. and Canada.
Several weeks ago I was browsing through Buffalo newspapers for mentions of Thomas Kirwan when I noticed this short obituary from 1895 in Buffalo's Catholic paper.
I'd never heard of Gerald Dunne. The name had never popped up in any of my research, but I did wonder if perhaps Mrs. Gerald Dunne was named Anne.
What do the census records have to say?
Gerild Dunn, wife Ann Dunn, son Michael, and baby Mary
So we have an Ann, but is it our Anne?
Gerald, Anne, Michael, Mary, and now Theresa and Annie.
All of the ages match up.
Gerald, Anne, Michael, Theresa, Anna, Magie, and Minnie.
Mary has moved out and Magie and Minnie are new children.
The entire family from 1892 ("Magie" is Margaret, and "Minnie" is Frances).
But no Anne. Perhaps because she died in 1895?
Things were beginning to line up pretty well. We have the entire family of Gerald Dunne, whose wife Anne disappears from the census between 1892 and 1900, and we have a reference to a Mrs. Gerald Dunne, sister of a Thomas Kirwan, dying in 1895. Compelling, but not quite proven.
Marriage Records
So I started searching for records related to each of the Dunne children, hoping to find any mention of their mother's maiden name. Typically, death certificates, marriage licenses, Social Security records, etc. will list the mother's maiden name. And lo and behold...
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| Michigan Marriage Records - Michael Dunne |
A marriage record from Michigan for Michael Dunne of Buffalo, NY, son of Gerald Dunne and Anne "Kerwin"!
Now I was pretty excited. Mrs. Gerald Dunne was definitely Anne Kirwan (or "Kerwin"), but was she our Anne Kirwan? If I could just find a marriage record for Gerald and Anne, it might list one or more of her parents.
Back to Irish records we go.
Bingo!
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| Ancestry.com Ireland, Select Marriages, 1619-1898 |
I sent this to my cousin, Nancy, and she found the civil marriage record as well.
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| civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie |
Anne Kirwan's father is listed as Michael, just like our Thomas William and his potential sister, Anne!
The evidence was really stacking up at this point, and I was feeling pretty confident that we had actually found my 3rd great-aunt, Anne Kirwan. Then there was one more record which absolutely convinced me.
Michael Dunne
So far, we have this Dunne family living in Buffalo, the mother is likely Anne Kirwan, daughter of a Michael Kirwan, and sister of a Thomas Kirwan. But what, if anything, ties them to our Kirwan family?
Back to Michael Dunne.
Back to Michael Dunne.
In 1900 he was still living with his father, but Gerald dies in 1903.
Where does Michael go next?
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| 1905 NY State Census |
This is the 1905 NY State census record for the household of our Thomas William Kirwan. Listed as a "boarder" is none other than Michael Dunne. After his father died he moved in with his uncle Thomas.
At this point I was totally convinced. While it doesn't rise to level of "beyond a reasonable doubt," there is clearly a preponderance of evidence to support the assertion that we'd found Thomas William Kirwan's sister, Anne. And that their parents were Michael Kirwan and Mary Ennis.
Now if we could only find DNA relatives to support it. But that's another post.