The Michael Foley Family Blog

Ireland Research Proves Fruitless

2010-08-03T22:37:00.002-05:00

I went in search of more information about my third great grandparents, William Foley and Alice Fitzgerald. I was hoping to discover new data and perhaps, locate their final resting place. We started at the National Library in Dublin where they have a genealogy staff to assist with research. The lady was very nice and when I showed her the research I had already done, informed us that we were already at the edge of the frontier of Irish genealogy records. I had been able to get back as far as 1817 when the marriage of William Foley and Alice Fitzgerald took place. Their records from the churches of marriages and baptisms do not go back much further than this.
This turned out to be the theme of each of our stops to talk with experts and we saw plenty of folks who should know. We visited the Waterford County Museum and talked with the curator. He gave us insights into how to read gravestones that are severely worn by weather. But he also was skeptical that we would find anything. We visited Saint Bartholemew's Church and grave yard in Pilltown. Lots of Foleys were buried there but none that we could identify as our relatives. I think it is most likely that they are buried there. We also visited the librarian in Dungarvan who my cousin Donny had visited long ago. We went to the Waterford Heritage Center. This was the outfit that did the research for me four or five years ago. We even met the researcher who looked up the records back then, John O'Conner. We gave all of these folks everything that we knew and each was impressed with what we had found and thought it unlikely that we would find much more.
The long and the short of it is that we have evidently gotten all of the information that was relatively easy to gather and now we will have to pursue other avenues. My thinking is that I need to go to Boston and try to find the records of the Foleys here before they went back to Ireland around 1800. So thats a topic for consideration when planning next year's vacation.

637 And Counting

2008-12-07T12:42:00.001-06:00

Wow is all I can say.
I started with Family Tree Maker Software in October, 2008. I wanted to buy a software that would help me organize my family records. It was a simple endeavour. My existing tree was about 130 people.

Before long at all, I had added another 100 to my Foley family tree. I thought it was time to add my mother's Fleming family information and do a tree for my sister Margie. This added another 200 since I found through Ancestry.com a descendant of my great great grandfather who had already done some of the work.

I called my sister to tell her the good news and she starting reading me Finnegan death certificates. Finnegan was my mother;s mother's maiden name. So here add another 100 of them.

Then my sister's husband's name tripped a "hint" at Ancestry.com and I found myself adding more than a few Koellers, a mini-tree.

As of today I am waiting to get information from two cousins who have 15 children between them, 31 grandchildren and 14 great grand children. This plus spouses will likely add another 100. Then I am also waiting to hear from 6 nephews and two nieces with additional descendants.

These trees, with only my sisters and I as a common link, already have 637 individuals. I am sure they will grow to over 800. And I still have many dead ends to follow up on.

It seemed like a good idea to buy the software. Now I know what I was missing.

The White Pocahontas

2008-11-04T11:48:00.003-06:00

When I was a boy, my Dad asked me if I was familiar with the "White Pocahontas" legend. Of course, I was not. Well, I was very young but basically remember the story that the Indian princess Pocahontas, daughter of a Powhatan Indian Chief, was captured, and while being held prisoner, fell in love with a Pilgrim, John Rolfe. She was a daughter of a Powhatan Indian chief but lived her life among the English community, much of her time was spent in London.
My Dad's story was that there was another person, with whom we were related, who had lived among the Indians. I believe I have found a plausible explanation of this. Pocahontas had a cousin, Keziah Arroyo who married Richard Bryant. They had a daughter Martha Bryant, who married Thomas Foley. Now, the information is sketchy but does go back to the 1600s and I can find few other mentions of the name Foley back this far. Fortunately, this family tree is pretty well defined so I should be able to reach some conclusions.

New "Stuff"

2008-11-04T11:22:00.002-06:00

Having bought Family Tree Maker software some time ago, I have been studiously entering information into one spot. The tree was growing nicely.
One disappointment had been that this purchase included a one month subscription to Ancestry.com. I had not been able to get my account established and was still going to the Davenport Public Library to search. Well, I finally figured it out and voila, new information has deluged me ever since.
New discoveries:
1. Michael Foley, his soon-to-be wife Bridget O'Brien, his brother Patrick and Patrick's wife Mary, all came to America together on the ship Lesmahagow, arrivng in Massachusetts on May 3, 1852. Lesmahagow is the name of a city in Scotland. The ship came from Tralee to Liverpool. I am still looking for the exact destination in Massachusetts, probably near Cohasset.
2. Michael's brother Edmund and his sister Ellen both settled in Abington, Massachusetts and we may still have relatives there. They were both entered into the census next to each other , may have been next door neighbors. Edmund was born in 1835, Ellen in 1832. Ellen was married to Patrick O'Donnell.
3. Ellen and Patrick O'Donnell had twin sons Nicholas and William, son Thomas and daughters Mary and Alice.
4. Edmund and Margaret Foley had daughters Alice, Ellen, Mary, Margaret and Annie along with a son, William. Annie was the baby and Edmund would die before her 8th birthday.
5. Michael and Bridget Foley's daughter Alice buried two husbands before the age of 45, both due to accidental deaths. Her first husband Patrick Dunbar died in a train accident. Her second husband, Charles Whitcomb "Red" Donohue, died in an electrical explosion at his laundry in Champaign-Urbana.
6. Michael and Bridget Foley's daughters Delia and Ellen both never married and lived together in Chicago. They were housekeepers and kitchen help and may have worked for religious.
I need to especially thank my new-found cousin, Karen Malone who filled in many of the gaps, in particular about Alice Foley Dunbar Donohue. Alice was the oldest daughter and had an interest in family genealogy which she passed down through the generations to Karen.

The Berbaums of Champaign, Illinois

2008-10-06T17:27:00.003-05:00

Finding genealogy fascinating these days, I decided to do some sleuthing. Went to the library for information on Alice Marie Foley and her descendants. Alice buried two husbands before she was turned 45 years old in 1899. I knew about how many children she had and who her husbands were, but I did not know which husband was the father of which children, except for two. Alice's first husband was Patrick Dunbar. I knew he was the father of Wilhemina. I also knew her second husband was Charles Donohue, father of Charles Jr. I also knew there were two other daughters and one other son, but did not know their first names or their dads. The library came through, as usual and before long on Ancestry Library, I was sleuthing the old census records.

It turns out Patrick Dunbar was born in New York to parents who had been born in Scotland. He married Alice in Massachusetts. They had several children together. In addition to Wilhemina, he had daughters Beatrice and Agnes. Charles Donohue was the father to Charles and Tina. I also discovered that Wilhemina was married to August J. Berbaum. This being an unusual name, I decided to look further and was surprised with what I found. It turns out that the Berbaum name is alive and well in Champaign Illinois. When I googled the name I found 32 Berbaums residing there. It took only two calls to talk to a Berbaum who had the family records.

My initial contact was David Berbaum and he quickly told me that I needed to talk to Clarence, so I did. After a short and pleasant phone call, Clarence promised to send me what he could. We did determine that Clarence was not related to the Foleys but he had cousins who were. And he knew those cousins very well.

Today's mail brought the details. Wilhemina was known as Minnie, She and August had four children: Eloise, Kenneth, Edwin and Lawrence. Clarence had known Lawrence well, and his older brother Charles was friendly with Kenneth.and Edwin. Clarence has a wealth of information about the children, their jobs, their families and so on. Current relatives most likely would be descendants of Eloise and would be named Malone. Time to google again.

Family Tree Maker Software

2008-09-21T00:09:00.003-05:00

I have finally done it. I broke down and bought genealogy software. I needed to organize the information on this blog into one spot. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Well, I now have over 200 people in our family tree with many more to go. My inspiration to do this is the fact that I am having to rely on so much of this information from cousins. In looking down the road, there is nothing in place to maintain this information in an orderly way. So, I am off on a quest to complete a family tree, at least as far as can be verified. What I plan to do is to get the information together and publish it, then share it at a Foley family reunion, in Saint Louis next year. Asking cousins for old pictures etc.
Now when I say "publish", take that with a grin of salt. I could have just said "photocopy" but the software uses the word publish. See I'm learning already.
And, of course, I have generated a lot more genealogy dead ends. Such as, Mike and Naomi had a daughter named Ruth. What happened to her? Bertha was born in Germany and married to Thomas, what was her maiden name? William also worked for the railroad, but in Indiana, where is he buried? So, the software has one useful aspect to it that I did not anticipate. It makes you address your dead ends.
Of the 220 or so folks in our tree, only about 60 are named Foley. My inspiration to draw a tree came from a trip we made this past summer to the Mennonite Museum in Kalona, Iowa. There, on the wall, was a family tree of a Mennonite family, containing over 800 names.

Patrick and Edmund, Sons of Ireland

2008-09-20T22:55:00.003-05:00

I have previously blogged about Patrick Foley, Civil War veteran who died just after the end of the Civil War. He is buried at the National Cemetery at Camp Butler, Illinois. He joined the Union Army, went on duty, and got sick within six months. He was in two military hospitals and died at the end of 1865.
Patrick is an enigma from a genealogy perspective. He is in our written history, so he is definitely one of ours. The problem is that he was born before the marriage of my great great great grandparents by several years. Now that, in itself would not be terribly unusual but, given the recorded history, other explanations are more likely.
I have decided that he may have been born in 1810 or 1815, depending on which record one believes. My best explanation would be that he was not a natural child of my ggg grandparents but rather a child from a previous marriage of my ggg grandmother, whose husband died young. She was older than her husband by 7 years so the age gap would be better explained. Patrick would be between 2-7 when my gggs got married. So he would identify himself with the new family unit, and perhaps take their name, too.
The other thing that makes me think this is possible is that there was a brother Edmund, about whom very little is known. I did find an old family tree that someone had written. And it had William joining the tree between the children with Patrick and Edmund on one side, and the children about whom we know much, on the other.
Also, the Catholic Church records do not include the baptismal records of either one of them as children of William Foley and Alice Fitzgerald. Now, if you haven't done the math, yet. Here is a possibility. Perhaps Alice was a Fitzgerald by her first marriage, her husband being the father of Patrick and Edmund before he died. Thats right, Patrick and, ahem, Edmund Fitzgerald, wouldn't that be something?
I am on the job again at the Davenport Public Library and scouring census records for Patrick. So far, what we know is that the fellow buried in Illinois who died in the Civil War, was born in Ireland and recorded in our family story. I checked the Illinois census for 1860 for Patrick Foleys and found several, but only one who would be the right age. It is possible that he was not yet in Illinois in 1860 but unlikely. The one who was the correct age was aged 50 in 1860, putting him into the world when Alice was 18, very possible.
This Patrick was in Cook County Chicago's Ward 2. His wife was Ellen who was age 40. Their children were James, 20, John, 16, Mary, 14, Patrick, 11, Alice, 8, Johannah, 5, and Bridget 2. Our Patrick had parents William and Alice, brother John, and sister, Bridget. It would be logical to assume that they named four of their seven children after his family. If William was not his father, James may have been his fathers name.
But here is an interesting part of the census story. The 1860 US Census reports that all of the family, save the two youngest, were born in Ireland. Therefore we can fix the date of their migration pretty close to between 1853 and 1855. Coincidently, my gg grandfather was married in Massachusetts in 1853. Part of our family story is that two bots fought in the Mexican American War in 1846-7. If they did not come over here until 1853, that part of the story is in question.
It is time to go back to the Library and take a look for these folks in 1870, after Patrick had died.

A True Family Reunion

2007-08-19T11:50:00.000-05:00

Pictured here from left to right are the blogger, wife Nancy, Reid Martin, Bob Gonzenbach, Amy Gonzenbach, Nancy Gonzenbach, Mimi Vaughn and Tom Vaughn.
All are related through the Foley family. For those of you who don't know the relations, let me define those for you. Reid Martin married my sister Joanie. Nancy Gonzenbach is their daughter. Mimi Vaughn's Dad was Dr. Dan Foley, my uncle and namesake.
Our dinner together took place at the end of our vacation to the Ozarks. We swung through Saint Louis and spent one night there, then on to Carbondale. We visited, with Nancy and Bob, the cemeteries where our family rests. I will blog about that in another posting. Our trip was our first face to face meeting with Reid and Nancy. We shared "Foley" stories and pictures. We met Amy's fiance, Jason. We reunited two parts of the family separated by divorce in the 1930s. There were Foley descendants, like the Vaughns, who maintained contact over all those years.
Visiting Reid's home, Nancy showed me a picture of Joanie. I knew that I recognized it and had seen it before but I was not sure of where I had seen it. After we returned home, I found the picture. It was in my Dad's wallet at the time that he was hospitalized in November 1968. He died a month later. In his wallet were only two pictures, my high school senior picture and this picture of Joanie. Even though he had been divorced from her Mom nearly 30 years before his death, he had this picture with him. I was glad to be able to relate that to Nancy.

Closing In

2007-05-01T16:35:00.000-05:00

Thanks to a lot of research done by other people we are closing in on the burial places of William and Alice Foley, my great great great grandparents, and their daughter, Bridget Carey.
Other internet researchers have shared with me the way to find burial sites.

First, we need to know what places they were living at the time of their deaths. We know this from County Waterford's online death record search. The town names when their deaths were reported were Monatra for William and Bridget, and Holy Well for Alice. Also referenced were Ballysalough and Pilltown as other places where they lived, all in County Waterford.

Then, we need to know where these are specifically located and what cemeteries are in these immediate areas. Other researchers who go to Ireland specifically to look for tomb stones have shared their methods with many others. They advise that the first thing to do is to obtain an Ordnance Survey Map of the County in question. I went online and bought such a map for less than $10.

It came in the mail today and provided the best detail of the area that I have seen so far, and it is not the first map I bought. This one has certain grave yards listed. It has all of the town names and their specific locations. I was happy to see, in particular, that Pilltown, is located on a national highway just ten kilometers east of Youghal. South of there, on the coast is Monatra with Ballysalough on the way to the coast. And I was most happy to see Holy Well listed in the area. There are an estimated 3000 Holy Wells that people used in olden times as a sort of a wishing well in tough times. Next I will have to determine if our friends in Ireland can find these places and have a look-see for us.

DNA Update

2007-03-02T14:22:00.000-06:00

Today I received two emails from Family Tree DNA advising me that there had been two more people tested whose DNA was an exact match for mine. Talk about a really small world. I visited the Family Tree website and did some research on my new "cousins".

Since I had my DNA tested, there have been a total of 37 matches made. There are three principal ways that one has their DNA tested. First, National Geographic has a huge project going on to capture the unique DNA of all indigenous people of the world. As these tribes are assimilated to the bigger societies around them, their identity is being lost. National Geographic wants to capture the scientific aspect of their uniqueness.

Two other companies will test your DNA for a fee. They are Oxford Ancestors in the UK and Family Tree DNA in the USA. Both offer a variety of tests, some with more detail than others. I have had two DNA tests run on my father's side, or what is known as y-DNA. And I have had one test run on my mother's side, or mt-DNA. All tests were run by Family Tree.

There were approximately 60,000 people living in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age, from whom, pretty much all the rest of us are descended. The tests that are run provide a likelihood of a match back to 50 generations, or about 1000 years.

On my father's side, we have some very interesting matches. By country, we have matches with people who can trace their oldest known ancestors to Germany, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Ireland, France, Sweden, Nigeria, Puerto Rico and the USA. Also, we have six matches who do not know what country their ancestors came from. We have a total of 37 exact or partial matches.

The next thing to look at is genetic distance. This is best understood as the likelihood of matching people over 1000 years ago. While our DNA matches, more in depth testing would be needed to understand some of these relationships. In short, they are further away from us. There are 24 people who match us exactly.

The genetic distance comparison indicates our trail of migration. The folks with the most genetic distance from us are located in Germany, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, in that order. This indicates that our ancestors migrated from Germany, to Northern Ireland and Scotland, before England and Ireland. I am sure a history buff can figure out which wars caused that to happen.

Of all the matches that have been found, one is very intriguing. We have a direct match with a man named Douglas who is a descendant of the royal Douglas clan from Scotland. This is an extremely well documented family with a website just for their family. Why? Well, the last great King of Scotland was Robert The Bruce, who is in this family tree.
This match is most interesting to me in that I have corresponded with Mr. Douglas and they have no records of Ireland or Foley's. One of the DNA tests I had done was because we are in a rare subspecies, or Haplogroup. Mr. Douglas, of all of the matches found, is the only one to match our DNA and Haplogroup. Further study of the Douglas family tree also shows a name very familiar to County Waterford Ireland. The Sir John Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough, also hails from the Douglas family. He and his heirs, accumulated 35,000 acres of land in Ireland by the second half of the 19th century. Sir John had come to Ireland with Oliver Cromwell in 1650 and was rewarded for his military efforts. The family went on to establish itself politically and held many offices in Ireland. Their ancestral home is near the city of Waterford in County Kilkenny.
The surnames and countries of oldest known ancestor, with whom we have exact DNA matches are as follows:
England: Little, Roper, Bayliss, Merewether
Germany: List, Goebel, Harper, Kerchner, Creager
Ireland: Quinn, Herrick, Conboy, Matthews
Scotland: Dunbar, Hamilton, Hamilton, Douglas
France: Poittier
Northern Ireland: Boyle, Boyle, Kincaid
Sweden: Strom
Nigeria: Bates
Puerto Rico: Ralat
USA: Powers, Fitz, Stinnett, Smith, Rowan, Nelson
Unknown ancestor origins: Yarbrough, Romodal, Townsend, McCollin, Ingram, Hunt.

Basketball and the Foleys

2007-02-22T12:34:00.000-06:00

You won't get too far in discussing any Foleys from this family without the subject of basketball coming up pretty quick. This season is especially sweet for us as the Salukis from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale are having an excellent season. Forty years ago, the Salukis were national champs. And a Foley played an important role on that team as well.

the 1946 Southern Illinois Normal University Men's Basketball Team was a rag tag bunch who all hailed from within 50 miles of the campus in Carbondale. Rag tag because many young men had just returned from World War II. One player, Quentin Stinson, didn't join the squad until January when he enrolled after discharge from the army. The Foley in question was my uncle, Dick Foley, one of two players who hailed from the campus city.
Dick Foley was one of the nicest men in the family and a hero and role model to many of us. He raised his three daughters with laughter and Lorraine, in that order. He always had a smile on his face and a kind word. He was a true southern (Illinois) gentleman.

Dick's team defeated Indiana State 49-40 in the Championship game of the NAIA national tournament. It was the first national championship for SIU. The Maroons, as they were then known, defeated Panzer College, Loras College, Nevada and Loyola University on their way to the title game.

The team recently was recognized at the Salukis/Creighton game and gathered at a restaurant to share memories. In the stands at the game was Nancy Gonzenbach, retired professor from SIU and daughter of Joanie Foley, my half-sister. Nancy shared her feelings with me and with Dick's daughter Patty Mercurio by email. It brought the 1946 reunion and recognition closer to home. Thank you, Nancy!

The 1964 Rockhurst College Men's Basketball Team was also a champion of the NAIA with another Foley in the program. My brother John Foley was a Freshman Team player who did not compete with the varsity at the time. However, after winning the NAIA, Rockhurst was invited to tour Mexico the following summer while playing exhibition games against the Mexican Olympic Team. Senior players had graduated and Freshman Foley toured Mexico.

John went on to play two more years of basketball at Rockhurst. During this time, my Dad and I drove to Kansas City for a varsity game just before the Christmas break. I can remember that John scored 16 points and the Hawks won.

The last championship worth mentioning here belongs to my son, Timmy Foley. In 1994, Tim was a member of the Davenport West High School team that would go through the regular season and the state basketball tournament, large school division, undefeated. The season was exciting as we had a very special group of senior players. Tim was a junior and saw limited action but did distinguish himself in a couple ways. First, he made every shot that he attempted at the state tournament in Des Moines. He was 4 of 4. And he had a special moment that was captured by a photographer for the Des Moines Register. Tim went in at the end of the semi-final game and made a three point basket at the buzzer. His celebration in the arms of other West Falcons is captured here.

My "Field of Dreams" Moment

2007-01-03T10:58:00.000-06:00

Is this Heaven? No, its Iowa.

I expected many different things when I created this blog, however one thing I never expected was a visit from my father. But that's what happened.

My Dad, William S. Foley died in 1968, before I met my wife, before my brother was married, a long time ago. He was a very bright but troubled man. He had a lifelong fight with alcohol addiction. He was a skilled salesman who sold heating systems to many big construction projects in the Saint Louis area. He was not a good husband to my Mom. My brother and I knew he loved us but his troubles also became our problems.

He was born in Carbondale, Illinois in 1909. Went to Embalming School in Chicago, graduating in 1929. He returned to Carbondale, married Helen and they had a daughter Joanie. But that marriage ended in divorce while Joanie was still a little girl. I don't know the reasons for this but I can imagine them. Pop was not a good absentee father. He left the area and moved to Saint Louis. He did not keep up with his daughter Joanie at any time that I am aware. As any daughter would, she no doubt felt a loss, a rejection.

In time, Pop found a second wife, my Mom and they married during World War II. My brother and I were their only children as we came along later in life to them.

Joanie meanwhile, went on to a life of achievement. I knew of her and knew that she was a Professor of English at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. I knew that she married Reid Martin who went on to be Superintendent of Carbondale Schools. But that's all I knew. I may have heard more about her over the years but these were the salient details that I knew, until October 19. That's the day that my Dad visited.

He came in the person of an email from Joanie's daughter, Nancy Gonzenbach. Nancy had been referred to this blog and emailed me. Nancy is my niece, my Dad was her Grand Dad. She wanted to learn more about the family and introduced herself.

William died in 1968 and here I was, nearly 40 years later, looking at a piece of his unresolved life. It was an amazing moment and I can't thank Nancy enough for reaching out to me. I don't expect that I can make up for whatever has happened to Joanie and her family but I can explain some things about my Dad and his problems that led to their hurt.

In the spring, I plan to meet Nancy, her husband Bob and daughter Amy and perhaps her brothers, Michael and Tod (with one D) and Dad Reid as well. Joanie died from lung cancer in 2002. But I think she would be happy to see us meet, too.

Our Land

2007-01-01T13:08:00.000-06:00

Our land in Ireland

The above link will take you to a terraserver image from the Globe Explorer satellite of the area around Pilltown, Clashmore, Ardmore and Youghal, County Waterford Ireland.

Those of you anxious to see a picture of the land that the Foleys in Ireland walked on can take a peak. You can make out the fields, demarked by the "patchwork" look. This is because the land is very rocky and as it was cleared, the farmers made rock walls between their fields. This was done centuries ago but still exists across Ireland. William Foley worked as a tenant farmer in these fields from the early 1800s on. He raised his family in these fields, went to church nearby, and ultimately was buried in these fields. I find it fascinating that I can sit at my desk in Davenport, Iowa, USA and see a picture of this land of our William.

In Search of Liam, My New Year's Resolution

2007-01-01T12:22:00.000-06:00

With every New Year's Day, many promises are made. This blog is no different than others. I have a new goal for 2007. My goal is to connect our family in Ireland with our family here in the USA, like everyone else. My goal is different in that our family was one of the very earliest families to come to this world, before the Pilgrims.

Liam Foley sailed by pirate ship from Dungarvan Ireland about 1605. His reasons for being on the ship, as a slave, are not honorable. He either broke a law, or was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and was sold into slavery by the lord of the Manor near Dungarvan, County Waterford, for one pound. He sailed with pirates for three or four years. When the ship arrived here in 1608 he reportedly ran away and lived with the Native Americans.

The Mayflower landed several years later and he made acquaintance of the Pilgrims. However, he ran afoul of their religious beliefs. He ran away with a daughter of the Pilgrims and they settled in lower Canada, probably Quebec. They had a family of three sons and two daughters. Their oldest son was William and their second son was Pat.

William had a son named William also. The Junior William married a French woman and had at least three sons. One son returned to France to become a priest: another was killed by an Indian, and one son, Pat, returned to Massachusetts.
(Editor's note: This part of the story is sketchy and the years that passed indicate that there may have been other generations of the family in Canada before their return to the US)

In any event, the Foley who returned to Massachusetts was named Pat. His daughter, Rose, married a man named O'Brien who was a ship builder. The O'Briens built some of the earliest ships for the United States Navy and one of Rose' sons became an Admiral in the Navy.

My New Year's resolution for theis blog is to find some documentary evidence of the early Foleys here in the United States or in Canada. Stay tuned!

William and Alice Foley (cont'd)

2006-10-09T20:01:00.000-05:00

We discovered earlier that William and Alice Foley lived in a small village near Clashmore and Youghal named Pilltown. The last week new understandings and information have been found to clarify some details.

First, we are trying to locate the burial sites for William and Alice in County Waterford. To that end, I subscribe to a number of different message boards where people share this kind of research. Last week, someone sent out a link to the Waterford County Library as they have a listing of many of the people who deceased after 1864. It was in that year, that it became mandatory to report deaths. Records prior to that time were sketchy and largely based on church records.

I had prowled around that site long ago but had not revisited it since we discovered that Alice was Alice, not Bridget as previously thought. So I returned and looked for a record of Alice, William and their daughter Bridget Carey, with whom William was reportedly living when he passed on.

After some sleuthing, I found a very plausible records for all three of them based on what we know.

First, I discovered a record that showed Alice Foley who died on February 12, 1867, at the age of 75 years. Our Alice was married to William in 1817. This was the only Alice that would be of marrying age, 25, in 1817. Her death "informant" was Bridget Carey, who was present at her death in Holy Well. Her death was recorded in Clashmore District, Union of Youghal. She was married, although it does not say her husband's name. Lastly, her place of residence is listed as Ballysalough. I have so far been unable to find any record of Ballysalough. There are no contradictions with any previous records or family history and there are three similarities: age, married and daughter's name. I believe this to be our Alice.

Next I looked for William. I found a William Foley who died on May 3, 1872, at the age of 73 years. He was listed as a widower. He died in Monatra where he resided, again in Clashmore District and the Union of Youghal. His death Informant was Margaret Fitzgerald. Alice was a Fitzgerald. This may be a relation from Alice's side of the family. Again, there are no inconsistencies with any previous information, and there are similarities again: right age, he would have been 18 and younger than Alice when they married but still the correct generation, his wife preceded him in death.

Lastly, I looked for a record of Bridget Carey's death and found one. Dying on June 2, 1890, at the age of "about 70 years". Also living in Monatra at the time of her death, the same as William. Our Bridget would have been born in January 1818, making her 72 in 1890. Her death was reported by William Carey, son-in-law. This is somewhat confusing as her sons would be Careys not her sons-in-law. She is listed as a widow. We know very little about her family. The record says that her husband had been a market-gardener. No inconsistencies and this Bridget can be tied to both William and Alice.

Waterford Heritage Services

2006-08-22T15:35:00.000-05:00

As we have now found our ancestral home, I should share with readers the actual correspondence that I received from them.
I have scanned in the four page letter and two maps. You may have to increase the size in order to read depending on your computer.

Michael Hehir of the Royal Irish Constabulary

2006-07-15T02:10:00.000-05:00

Following up on the Hehir family, I used Ancestry.com to find Michael's history of service. His brother Daniel had enlisted from County Clare in 1837 at age 21. Michael enlisted a full ten years later.

Michael also enlisted from County Clare and was 23 at the time of enlistment.

Our family history indicates that he died at Lajore, India. My new quest is to find a record of his burial place and the circumstances of his death.

Daniel Hehir, of the Royal Irish Constabulary

2006-06-22T12:26:00.000-05:00

Pictured here is a typical member of the Royal Irish Constabulary circa 1830.

Our family history links us to this organization and at this point in time.

Daniel Hehir, from County Clare, was 21 years old when he enlisted in Royal Irish Constabulary in 1837. Daniel was able to reach the rank of Sergeant. I was able to verify this military service through one of the many databases on Ancestry.com. As I was surfing through a long list of possible searches, one caught my eye. It was named "The Royal Irish Constabulary 1816-1921."

Daniel's brother Mike was not as lucky. Mike died in Lajore, India, while serving. The cause of his death is not known. They also had five sisters and one of their sisters also had a son who joined the RIC.

How are they related to the Foleys? Bridget O'Brien was their half-sister. She came to the United States and married my great great grandfather Michael Foley, for whom this blog is named.

In Search of William

2006-06-02T23:51:00.000-05:00

Our family history is very clear that one of our ancestors was brought here very early in the 1600s on a pirate ship. One of my goals has been to prove that we were here before the Great Migration when my great great grandfather, Michael Foley,returned to this country. His father, William, had been born here, according to legend, and went back to Ireland about 1800.

I may have found a record of William.

Heritage Quest online has the early census records. I searched the 1790, 1800 and 1810 census files for William Foley. There is no record of a William Foley anywhere in the federal census for 1790 or 1800. There is a record of four William Foleys in the 1810 census. One each in the states of Kentucky and Massachusetts and two in Virginia. In the 1820 census, there are four again but none in Massachusetts. One is in Kentucky and two in Virginia. One is now found in Illinois. It is possible that the William Foley from Massachusetts moved to Illinois but it is also possible that the William from Massachusetts is my great great great grandfather and that he returned to Ireland. Massachusetts is where my great great grandfather went to when he came here in the 1840s. It is very reasonable that he went there because his father still had relations there.

Let me tell you more about this William first. He was born October 8, 1786 in Waltham Massachusetts to parents John and Anna Foley. He had an older brother, John Jr. Three more brothers and one or two sisters. John Sr., his Dad, died in 1820.

On October 29, 1808, William married Peda Child. They had one son, James, in 1809.
In 1809, there was a published intention of marriage between John Jr and Lydia Parker, however, I have not been able to find a record of the actual marriage.

We know that "our" William was back in Ireland in 1817 when he married Alice Fitzgerald. Obviously, for this William to be "our" William, we have to discover what happened to his wife Peda.

At this point, I have had an epiphany about a possibility. I have wondered for some time as to why William returned to Ireland. As I considered this William, a thought hit me. Many times, early immigrants returned to their homeland for a bride. There were a lot of men here. It took men to build this country. If Peda died, this may have been the reason for William to return to the Old Sod.

Back to searching for more information about the whereabouts of William and Peda after the 1810 census. I will have to visit the Davenport Public Library to view Ancestry.com which will have all of the additional census records I will need to review.

Pilltown, Which Pilltown ?

2006-05-20T20:02:00.000-05:00

Hold the Presses!

I learned that William Foley, my great great great grandfather, and Alice Fitzgerald Foley, my great great great grandmother, had lived in Pilltown Ireland when their children were born. Being an internet user, I went to Google and searched for Pilltown, Ireland. Quickly, I found Pilltown or so I thought. It was 14 miles from the City of Waterford. William was supposed to have lived in County Waterford. This Pilltown was in County Kilkenny near County Waterford. It was a reasonable assumption that this was our ancestral home, but it was wrong!

My next step after finding Pilltown was to try to find a Foley or a historian there. I went back to Google and did a search for Foleys in Pilltown and found five. I wrote a personal letter to each one with a reply envelope and an International Reply Coupon so they could respond. I also included my email address.

Within five days I had a reply, way to go Postal Service! Tommy Foley didn't write back to me but he emailed me. He did indeed live in Pilltown in County Kilkenny. But his reply was intriguing. He said:
Hello Dan,
Received your letter today. I'm unable to help as I live in another Pilltown in a different county. Have you ever been to Clashmore? If not I can make enquiries on your behalf as it is only thirty miles from where I live. Let me know if I can be of any help.
Slainte (Good Health)
Tommy

Naturally, I was stopped in my tracks. Tommy seems to be telling me that there is another Pilltown. If that Pilltown is located in County Waterford, it is definitely the family ancestral home. Back to Google again after I wrote Tommy back to ask which County he lived in and which County the other Pilltown was in. But this time I googled Pilltown, County Waterford Ireland and faster than you can say "Top of the Morning", I found it. Nestled in County Waterford in Kinsalebeg parish, in the Decies-within-Drum Barony immediately adjacent to Clashmore Parish. This is in the very southern most tip of County Waterford and is on the Atlantic Ocean.

Today Pilltown is a very small town with no retail establishments. Ardmore provides for much of the commerce in the area. There is a postal sub station there and I hope to find a local history buff and who knows, maybe some long lost relations.

William and Alice of Piltown, Part II

2006-05-01T22:17:00.000-05:00

Continuing the validation of William Foley and Alice Fitzgerald as our Waterford great great great grandparents, I began to follow up on another one of their daughters. I had previously searched for Ellen Foley, their daughter who married Patrick O'Donnell. It was through her marriage record that I found the first name of Alice to be William's wife. However, on Michael (my great great grandfather and Ellen's brother) record of marriage, he listed his parents as William and Bridget.
I determined that a third source would prove or disprove the correct first name.
Mary Foley was another sister to Michael and Ellen who also came to the United States. Our written family history states that she married in Boston and died within the year. I felt she was the perfect candidate for further research since their should be a marriage and a death record for her. The name of her husband was not recorded.
After searching a relatively short period of time, I found a Mary Foley who had married a Mr. Patrick Rooney on January 10, 1858, in Quincy Massachusetts. She listed her home as being Cohasset Massachusetts, the same as Ellen would do the next year when marrying. Cohasset is also where Michael was living in 1857 when my great grandfather Daniel was born.
Mary also listed her parents as William and Alice. This was the further validation that I had hoped for. But just to close up any loose ends, I looked for a record of Mary's death. She was 19 when she married the 21 year old Patrick Rooney and she died of consumption within six months, on June 29, 1858. The time of her death removes any doubt as to the validity of William and Alice being the correct ancestors.

Pilltown, County Waterford, our home in Ireland

2006-04-27T22:08:00.000-05:00

It has taken more than a few dollars and a lot of time, but every once in a while , genealogy provides sweet discoveries about your past and your family. Today was a highlight for sure. In the end, we found several important items by connecting various bits of research to make sense of it all.
We learned:
1) Our great great grandmother was named Alice Fitzgerald, not Bridget as we previously thought
2) Alice Fitzgerald married William Foley on February 11, 1817, in Clashmore Point
3) Children were:
Brigid, baptized on January 16, 1818
Michael, my great great grandfather, baptized September 16, 1822
John, baptized April 9, 1825
(There were other children including Ellen, Patrick, Edmund and Mary but these baptisms were not recorded or perhaps they had moved.)

4) The children were all baptized at Clashmore, likely at St Cronin's pictured here, but the village where the family lived was named Pilltown. It is near Waterford on the Suir River.

Here is a link to the story of Pilltown

To discover these facts took a membership in the New England Heritage Society which includes access to Heritage Quest Online, a search engine. This helped me validate the marriage of Ellen Foley and Patrick O'Donnell. Our written family tree includes a mention of this marriage. Ellen was the sister of Michael Foley, the namesake of this blog.

The marriage record of Ellen and Patrick, in the township of Randolph Massachusetts, on June 9, 1859 contained a mention of her parents as William and Alice. When I read this it rang a bell with another piece of information I had uncovered. I asked for the Waterford County Heritage Services to find Michael Foley born to William Foley and Bridget Fitzgerald. They were unable to do that but they did send information about William Foley and Alice Fitzgerald. This record was very close but, at the time, I thought William had been married to Bridget and dismissed this as inconclusive. With the added find of Ellen's marriage record, I know believe I found the place in Ireland from which we all have come.

My DNA Test Results - Mother's side

2006-03-22T01:54:00.000-06:00

My mitochondrial,DNA test results have arrived. First, my mother's mother was from Haplogroup H, which is the group that populated most of Europe.

A complete definition of this Haplogroup is :

Specific mitochondrial haplogroups are typically found in different regions of the world, and this is due to unique population histories. In the process of spreading around the world, many populations—with their special mitochondrial haplogroups—became isolated, and specific haplogroups concentrated in geographic regions. Today, we have identified certain haplogroups that originated in Africa, Europe, Asia, the islands of the Pacific, the Americas, and even particular ethnic groups. Of course, haplogroups that are specific to one region are sometimes found in another, but this is due to recent migration.

Mitochondrial haplogroup H is a predominantly European haplogroup that participated in a population expansion beginning approximately 20,000 years ago. Today, about 30% of all mitochondrial lineages in Europe are classified as haplogroup H. It is rather uniformly distributed throughout Europe suggesting a major role in the peopling of Europe, and descendant lineages of the original haplogroup H appear in the Near East as a result of migration. Future work will better resolve the distribution and historical characteristics of this haplogroup.

My matches

When mito DNA is tested, you are asked if you want to share results and email addresses with those people with whom you have a match, if any exist. I signed a release form and was pleased to find that there were seven matches to my DNA. In short, seven other people tested have enough of the same genetic makeup as I do, to establish that we share a common female ancestor at some point in the last 52 generations.

Of my seven matches, one was from unknown origins, one was from England and the other five were from Ireland. My Irish heritage on my mother's side is safe for now!

I was also able to upload my information to another website that seeks matches for specific mito DNA.Mitosearch allows you to upload your information and compare to other DNA results uploaded by others. This would take into account that several companies are doing this testing. I also searched this site for matches to my mito DNA after I uploaded my data. Here I found 50 matches. However, I have three mutations in my DNA and there were only three other people of the fifty that matched all three. The other forty-seven people matched two of the three.

Of the three, one also matched my other hypervariables correctly, and I had an email contact address for this person. So I sent an email to this long lost cousin to see if we can shake our family trees and see who we have that matches.

This was a wealth of information, so much that it will take quite a while to digest and require some new blog entries. And my father's side results won't be in until April 1. Now that's the Irish for you!

Taking the DNA test UPDATE

2006-02-16T23:13:00.000-06:00

Update: As of March 3, 2006, my DNA has been isolated for testing. It has now arrived at the sequencing facilities.

"Family Tree DNA" said the return address label that I found in the mail one day last week. I knew right away that the day of my very first DNA test, at least that I'm aware of, had arrived.

The entire topic of DNA deserves some discussion before I give you the nitty gritty of the test. When one has a test in hand, several thoughts come to mind, even if you are not a suspect in a high profile missing young woman case.

There is one supposition about any test that will provide absolute results: there is no crying in DNA testing. In other words, I have to be ready to accept that I might not be Irish at all. We may be misled by the family lore and they never mention the traveling salesmen in those legends.

Or maybe we came to the USA from Ireland but had just arrived in Ireland say, from Canada. This is our family legend. I hope and expect to find some native American ancestry from the branch of the family tree that diverted to Canada in the very early days of the colonies. This would help us to prove the legend, that documents cannot prove.

Then what other uses might come along for this DNA? Family Tree promises complete confidentiality and in providing to you total control as to any usage of the DNA. They merely store it for future tests that you might want or need.

Second, since we all know promises like this are meant to be broken, lets consider how this could be legally broken. I imagine if I were a suspect in a high-profile missing woman case, a judge could order the company to provide my DNA. So, that's one thing I better not ever be. OK. Then there is the sticky little issue of the Patriot Act. If I happen to get a wrong number phone call from the wrong person say, in Asia, the FBI might be sneaking and peeking through my DNA. Fair enough, the test is important enough to me to risk that wrong number call. Last thing I want is this administration coming after me. I don't want to be looking down Dick Cheney's barrel.

Then the entire idea of the potential of future uses of DNA jumps up right in front of you like a quail in Texas brush. When I was a kid we were just learning about DNA, RNA and genetics. Today we have mapped the genome. How about tomorrow? Maybe, when babies are born, we will be taking a DNA test routinely for several different reasons. The first is that the likelihood of diseases that pass through families will be identified in your DNA. Won't tell you everything but you might know what problems you are most likely to encounter. In some cases this information could be life-saving. Sadly, in other cases it could be devastating. To avoid carrying certain defects to future generations, it would not be out of bounds to identify the carriers of these genes, possibly collect sperm and eggs and "clean" them of this gene, then reintroduce the same DNA through in vitro fertilization.
These simple tests by enough people will revolutionize medical science. It isn't a matter of if, it's only a question of when. So, I decided to push on and take the test.

The Test

I must admit that I have observed a DNA test swab being taken. It was on an episode of "The Closer" on USA and it was a suspect in a high profile missing and murdered woman's case.

Opening the envelope there are papers explained what to do and a return padded envelope. There are also two small vials which are sealed but contain a small amount of a liquid for preserving your DNA. There are two sealed DNA swabs. Simply enough you remove a swab carefully not interjecting any other foreign substances, and you scrape the inside of your cheek for a minute. Like turning your toothbrush around. The tip of the swab gathers cells. The first vial is opened carefully and the swab tip is ejected into it by just a small push on the swab stick.
Then you seal it up. Wait eight hours and repeat the same for vial #2. Oh and you shouldn't eat for an hour before the test and avoid drinking anything hot or cold for that hour. And that's it, the two vials go into the envelope, the DNA is off for testing.
I have received a confirmation that my DNA test kit has arrived and the tests I have ordered will take 4-5 weeks. I can follow it all on a website. Stay tuned for the results. Whatever they might be.....

Let's Recap - What we have learned so far!

2006-02-07T02:46:00.000-06:00

Michael Foley born 1821(to William Foley and Bridget
Fitzgerald Foley)County Waterford Ireland, emigrated to
the United States date unsure,married Bridget O'Brien,
also of County Waterford October 1, 1853 in Easton
Massachusetts.
Children:
Alice Marie brn October 20,1854 in Massachusetts,
Daniel Edmund March 18, 1857 in Cohasset Massachusetts,
Mary brn 1859 in Lyons, Cook County Illinois,
William Michael, born 1864 or 1865, also Lyons, Cook
County Illinois.
Two more daughters, Ellen and Delia Foley were also born
in Illinois after 1865.

Alice Marie married twice. First marriage was to Patrick
Dunbar born In ireland and who worked as a brakesman for
the Illinois Central Railroad, the second to Charles Donahue.
Alice children were as follows however three were daughters
but it is unclear which husband was their father: Patrick
fathered at least one of the daughters, Wilhemina born
January 14, 1882
Mrs. Charles Clayborne, lived in Peoria
Mrs. W J Ryan Champaign
Mrs. A J Bernbaum, also of Champaign
One son, Charles Donahue Known as "CR" of Urbana Illinois

Mary married James C. Hollingsed, railroad employee who was
killed in a railroad car coupling accident.Children were
James Clinton Hollingsed Jr.,
DJ (believed to be David),
and two daughters who married men named J. A. Welty in
Chicago and W W Findley in Los Angeles.

Daniel Edmund married Margaret Ann Purtill, he worked for the
Illinois Central Railroad as a crew foreman. Children were
Louis Francis born in Centralia Illinois September 15, 1881,
Ella, born in DuQuoin Illinois, November 4, 1883,
Mattie Agnes born April 27, 1886 in DuQuoin

Louis Francis is my grandfather, he married Helen Baillie,
January 11, 1905 in Carbondale Illinois Helen had been married
once to a man named Druar who deceased after being the father
to daughter Helen Druar.Louis adopted Helen and she changed
her name to Foley.
Helen married Winton Walkup of Carbondale. They had no
children.
Other children were
Louis Edward (Ned),
William Severn,
Daniel Bernard and
Richard Emmitt

Louis Edward Foley (Ned), Ned would marry Virgina Keith,
become a pharmacist owning a pharmacy in Anna Illinois
They had twins, Patricia and Donald. Ned also went on to
elected office in his community

William Severn born February 11, 1909 in Carbondale. (My Dad)
He married Helen Gurley in Carbondale and had one daughter,
Joan, before they were divorced. Joan would marry Reed
Martin, who would be superintendent of schools in Carbondale
William later married Alice Fleming in the Chapel at Lowry
Field in Colorado during World War II when he was in
training their for the Army Air Corps
Willam and Alice had two sons, John Patrick and Daniel
Michael (Thats me!) Alice had two daughters with her first
husband Paul Baer. who died abruptly in the 1930s. Daughters
were Mary Virginia and Margaret Rose. Mary married Andy
Kachevas and died after a long bout with cancer in 1968.
Mary and Andy had five children :Glennon, Steve, Lee,David
and Susan Margaret married Hadley F. Koeller, and they had
six children: Julie, Vickie, Haldey Jr, Vincent, Matthew,
Gregory.
John Patrick had three children with Joan Stockman: Colleen,
John Jr and Meghan.
Daniel Michael (Thats me again) married Nancy Langford and
had five children: Daniel M. Jr, Timothy Patrick, Ryan James,
Kevin John and Alison Michelle
William's career was the sales of heating equipment in
particular boilers after world war II. He had been trained
as an embalmer at Worsham School in Chicago, graduating in
1929. He finished his career with the Depatrment of Defense
as a contract specialist

Daniel Bernard married Jean Smith in Carbondale. He would
go on to be a physician in Carbondale, and Edwardsville
Illinois. Dan and Jean had two daughters, Annie and Mimi.
Mimi married Tom Vaughn

Richard Emmitt married Lorraine Scanzoni and they had three
daughters:
Patricia, Margaret (Peggy) and Mary.
Richard was a basketball player for Southern Illinois
University in 1945-1947 and played on a championship team
there. His career was sales of eyewear to physicians and
others.
Patricia is married to Jack Mercurio. She is currently
President of Bank of America- Missouri headquarted in
Saint Louis.

Not much is known about Ella Foley

Mattie Agnes Foley married James C. Hollingsed Jr., her
first cousin.
Both were working for the railroad when they married in
Memphis Tennessee.

The DNA Proof is at Hand!

2006-02-02T10:02:00.000-06:00

This week's Newsweek (February 6, 2006) carries a cover story on an evolving use of DNA technology.
Simply put, there are companies that will test your DNA, look for specific markers and then send you a report, like most DNA tests would be done. The report however, is something completely new and different.
The report tells you were your ancestry lies by country and by race. And it goes back 10,000 years. that's right, 10,000 Years!
Might seem like a stretch. It is but only to the extent that there is no direct lineage involved only percentages of likelihood.

National Geographic has launched a massive effort to gather the unique DNA from all of the indigenous peoples of the world before some of these unique people lose their identities into the masses. The goal of the study is to trace human roots from today back to the origin of the species. Adam and Eve have already been traced to Africa.

In short, a father's Y chromosome passes down from father to son unchanged. Likewise a mother's mitochondrial DNA passes down from mother to daughter unchanged. 99% of DNA is completely shuffled around in each person, but the other 1% provides a wealth of information. Certain mutations occurred at specific places and times and through these mutations DNA can be tested back ad infinitum through your father's side and your mother's side.

I was stopped in my shoes reading the Newsweek when it referred to two case studies, one involving "Otzi the Iceman". You may remember that a frozen man was found in the Italian Alps in 1991. He was dated to be 5300 years old. Well, enough people have been tested now that it seems there have been three matches to Otzi from people living today. The most intriguing connection was to Edmund Schofield, 67, of Boylston Massachusetts. Schofield, a Botanist, has felt that call of the wild, and traveled to the Antartic three times.
Makes me wonder about the many people who move south in retirement like my Cousin Donny. Is there a warm culture in our family tree? I decided to check the geology of County Waterford and what I found is very interesting. County Waterford did not freeze during the last Ice Age. It was where many animals migrated. Woolly Mammoths have been found there as well as giant deer. There are substantial finds but only a small amount of archaeology has been done there. Our ancestors moved south to stay warm and we're still doing it!

The other case that caught my eye was that of a man who believed he was related to the Puritans who settled in around Plymouth Massachusetts. This is intriguing because that legend is also in the Foley family. So, I wondered, why not get tested?
I ordered the DNA kit last night online from Family Tree DNA. There are several companies to choose from but Family Tree also has a Foley surname project. Anyone who wishes to share their results with other Foleys, may find long lost relatives.

And the mtochondrial DNA tests will give you the likelihood of your mothers lineage back 50 generations. FIFTY!

I am fascinated by what this might tell me about our family tree and will blog all the way through the process.

The Foleys of Quincy Illinois

2005-12-13T15:03:00.000-06:00

Just as I reported in my last post, branches of the tree take you on travels that you never expected.
Our written family history relates a Foley who fought in the Spanish-American War. He was awarded, according to Daniel E. Foley, my great grandfather, a land grant of 320 acres in the Quincy Illinois area.
My daughter goes to college 75 miles from Quincy. When I took her back to school the Monday after Thanksgiving, I traveled on to Quincy. I stopped at the City Library and at the Adams County Courthouse. I checked both land records and vital statistics.
In the County Recorders Office I reviewed hundreds of land grants issued by the federal government in the early to mid 1800s. The land grants for the Spanish American War vets were created by the Act of 1846. I reviewed them all and found no one named Foley.
I had a little better luck in vital statistics finding at least one gem in the rough to look further into. On October 5, 1856, John Foley married Ellen Kelly in Adams County. On June 1910, John J. Foley married Julia Dunbar. Perhaps a father and son?
In the death records I found a John Foley who died on February 25, 1892. He died in Galesburg Illinois while under the influence of chloroform which was being administered while his thumb was being amputated. He was a brakesman for the rail road and had mashed his thumb. This John Foley had once lived at Camp Point, near Quincy and in Adams County.
Our history also relates a Foley who became a priest in the Quincy area. I found one death record for a Monsignor M. J. Foley from February 17, 1941. This would fit within our family history as it was written in the 1930s. The Msgr was a chaplain at the Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Home. He was living in Quincy at the time that he died but he was buried in Jersey City, New Jersey. This may have been at a cemetery for a particular religious order. His death certificate lists his father as Martin Foley which probably rules the Msgr out.
The land grant can be requested from the federal government but in order to do so, we need to find the Foley who received it first. My trip to Quincy was interesting but inconclusive.

The Foleys of Indiana

2005-12-13T11:45:00.000-06:00

As this search for family history has developed, there seem to be many new branches in the family tree to learn about.

Before this search started we knew little about some of our ancestors and nothing about any who had moved to Indiana. This has now changed.

When Michael Foley passed away in 1889, the newspaper account of his passing and funeral indicated that he was survived by a son William in Terre Haute, Indiana. Yesterday I started the process of learning about William.

The 1900 U S Census for Vigo County, Indiana, shows William M Foley living in Terre Haute born in Illinois in January 1865. Both of his parents had been born in Ireland. The item that clinched it for me that this was our William was that his occupation was a switchman for the railroad.
It goes into more detail providing information that his spouse was Annie, who was born in Ireland in May 1868 and came to the US in 1887. Their only son in 1900 was Thomas, who was "at school". All could read and write and owned their home without mortgage. They have a bigger family at this time but the census page ends with Thomas.
The 1910 U S Census provides a better look. Still in Vigo County, William and Annie were now married for 24 years, had children Thomas, age 22, now a clerk in a hardware store; Mary, 22; Florence, age 15; and Carminietta, age 9. Only Carminietta was born in Indiana.
By 1920, all of the children had left the nest. Thomas had married Margaret and moved back to Cook County Illinois, where he had been born.
Another branch in the tree is getting filled with leaves of information. And a new destination for a field trip is in order. The Fort Wayne Public Library has one of the best genealogical collections in the US. The date is set for March 10, 2006 in order to enjoy a hockey game there that weekend. And we hope to pass through other Illlinois locations on the way.

More Discoveries!

2005-11-17T10:15:00.000-06:00

Pictured here, the Harbor at Cohassett Massachusetts as it looked when my great grandfather was born there.

My Friend Linda who maintains the Effingham County GenWeb project website has provided some new information from the year 1880.
I recently discovered that my great-grandparents, Daniel E Foley and Margaret Purtill were married in the Effingham Illinois area. I asked Linda to help.
She found them quickly and have added some information previously unknown from their marriage record on file at Effingham County.
"Effingham County Marriages 1878-1882" on page 86 provided the information on file.

It reads:
Daniel Foley of Neoga, Cumberland County, foreman of section,age 24, born Cohassett Massachusetts, son of Michael Foley and Bridget O'Preiss (O'Brien) and
Margaret Purtill of Farina, Fayette County, age 17, born Alma, Illinois, daughter of Michael Purtill and Anna Mulvihill, first.
Married Edgewood, October 21, 1880, by L. Reissen, priest, witness Thomas Hosea Purtill and Margaret Kane.

The things that we didn't know before this time:
That Daniel was born in Cohassett, Massachusetts and lived in Neoga Illinois prior to his marriage.
That Margaret was born in Alma and was living in Farina prior to her marriage.
That they were married Edgewood.

I took out the Atlas to see find these small towns in Illinois. It was no surprise that they all on the railroad line that runs parallel to I 57 in central Illinois. Margaret moved from Alma north to Farina. Daniel moved south from the Chicago area. It seemed inevitable that they would cross the same paths eventually. North met south in Edgewood.

Next I looked into Cohassett to see what was going on there that may have attracted the family to that area. Here is a bried history of Cohassett
Cohasset, named "Quonahasset" or "long rocky place" by Native Americans, was settled as an agricultural community in 1670 and remained the Second Parish and Precinct of Hingham until it was incorporated in 1770.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Cohasset developed into a seafaring village, based on shipbuilding, trading and fishing. By the mid 19th century, its mackerel fleet numbered more than 50 schooners. In the latter years of the century, the town became a summer colony of prosperous Boston families who built large estates along its shores.

And 125 years later here we are, the descendants of these folks searching for their information and filling in the blanks.

"My Father's Father"

2005-11-12T10:04:00.000-06:00

Daniel Edmund Foley often spoke of his father's father going back to Ireland from the United States. His father was Michael Foley and records show that Michael's parents were Bridget and William Foley. My father spoke of our being early arrivers to the United States when I was little. I decided to find out what I could from the US Census data.

The Davenport Iowa Public Library has a subscription to the Library Edition of Ancestry.com and is a very good resource. I was able to check the census records from when the US Census started in 1790,looking for Foleys.

If our family lore is correct, and I must start from that assumption, then Michael Foley was the one who came back from Ireland during the potato famine. Michael's father was William and if he is "My Father's Father" referred to, then he was born in the United States and went back to Ireland. To find Foleys in the very early census years was easy as there were not very many.

I quickly found a John Foley in the 1790 census. He lived in the city of Waltham, Middlesex County Massachusetts. During that census he reported only his name as head of household as was required and he enumerated the family members by age and sex. John dutifully reported four males under the age of sixteen, two males over 16 and two females. Presumably he is one of the males over 16 and his wife was one of the females. That would leave six children, five boys and a girl.

In the 1800 census, John Foley is found again still in Waltham although his family size has changed. He lists two males under 10 and himself, one female under the age of ten and one female between the ages of 26 and 45. It is reasonable to conclude that his oldest daughter married and they had another daughter between the two census. And they also had young sons still which would indicate the older sons moving out on their own. Sadly, there is also a possibility that some of these folks died young as the life expectancy in 1800 was nothing like it is today.

In the 1810 census, the story gets more interesting. John is still there, but there is another Foley listed in Waltham for the first time as a head of household like John. His name? William. Is this William, My Father's Father? Is William John's son? There is scant information about either family sizes in this census.

Back to ancestry.com for more research, this time for marriage, birth or death records, this time producing some different results.
In Waltham there is a record of William Foley marrying in 1808 to Peda Child(s). This is recorded with two different cities and dates. Either they married on September 4 in Waltham or on October 29 in Framingham. I lean towards the later because the record location is listed as the vital records of Framingham. Peda Child(s) is listed with and without the s at the end of her maiden name. In reviewing the census records of Waltham, there are many Child without the S.

There is another marriage recorded about that time between a John Foley Jr and Lydia Parker on January 4, 1807 in Waltham. There is a strong indication that these are brothers and obviously John is their Dad.

The 1820 census recordings of Waltham indicate that there are no longer any Foleys living there. Did William go back to Ireland? Where did John Jr go? Did John Sr pass away? There are many questions to be answered but I feel confident that with the help of people like Linda in Arizona who is a master genealogist in my book, the libraries, county records, we will get to more answers than questions.

Stay tuned!

Great Grand Father Daniel Edmund Foley as recalled by Don Foley

2005-11-11T10:01:00.000-06:00

Three Generations of the Foley family tree pictured above.

Our Great-grand father, Daniel Edmund Foley, born in 1857 in Massachusetts, was a typical person of the 19th century. They had a quaint way of speaking. Dating was called "Courting" a bicycle was a "wheel."

He lost a daughter, Cecilia, at age 18 died. Joan Cecilia Foley, was named after her. He had lost his wife, Margaret Ann Purtill by the time I knew him. They were active in St,Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Carbondale after they moved there from DuQuoin. His name is listed among the parishioners who contributed a good amount of money to that Parish.

He referred to his grandfather as his Father's Father. That man we know to be William Foley. Daniel was first generation American. They were called "narrow backs" by the Irish Born, or Yanks. He was a hard worker and loved the Illinois Central rail Road. He supervised a road crew and had to be able to handle the toughest rowdies.

He had a good sense of humor. He told us that all the Foleys came from County Cork. What he obviously meant was that the Foley name first appeared in County Cork. His Family history lists Waterford as the ancestral home. His verbal history typed by our Aunt Margaret (his daughter) states that two boys returned to Ireland about 1800, one to Cork and one to Waterford. William settled in Waterord. Two of Then two of William's sons returned to the States. These would be Patrick Foley who is buried at Camp Butler and featured in earlier posts, and Michael, the namesake of this blog. He spoke pretty much the way Margaret typed it.

One of his daughters married a Doctor and lived in Texas. I think the name was Purdy. Gram used to take the train, of course, down there and visit. He didn't own a car when I knew him and lived alone in an apartment not too far from our grandad Louis Foley.

He told us that people in Ireland married young until the potato famine and then began marrying later in life. Frequently into their forties. People didn't live much longer than that.

Four Generations of James Clinton Hollingsed as told by James C III

2005-10-31T18:08:00.000-06:00

I knew that there was a possibility that I would encounter new relatives when I began this blog. The idea was intriguing. Having found the Hollingsed family connections with the Foleys, this was one I pursued. Finding another name exactly the same as the ancestors was a real help in locating the current family. Still, it was with trepidation that I dialed the number for the first time.
I had to introduce myself as a possible distant cousin. Luckily, the folks I called were the right ones and they had heard of the Foleys in their family. What I learned was more than worth the call.
The Hollingseds also had a written family history passed down through several generations. Here is their story.

The original James Clinton Hollingsed was a brakeman on the Big 4 railroad. He was killed between 2 cars when his son, James C. Hollingsed Jr was 15 years old.
JC Jr grew up and worked into the railroad business as well,working for the American Express, then later the Railway express out of Mattoon, Ill. He became Route Agent for the REA, working out of E. St. Louis when JC III was born.
His job was to supervise various offices of the company and involved in train travel most all of every week, getting home on Saturday and often leaving Sunday evenings. He later was transferred to Lafayette, Indiana, Kokomo, Indiana., back to E. St. Louis, and Connersville, Ind. He was then made general agent(no travel) at Springfield, Ill. in 1926. In 1931, because of depression cutbacks, he was made agent in Chicago Heights. In 1943 he was made general agent in Terre Haute, Ind, and later transferred to Maywood, IL, from which he retired in 1951.
James C Jr never was unemployed and always had a "white collar job". He was born in Chicago (an avid Cub fan) but because of his father's death he had to quit school, so never got beyond the first year of high school.
James C III recalled one case that James C Jr had to testify in an embezzlement trail of a man named Rutledge in Petersburg, IL. This man was a descendent of the Rutledge family who had a daughter, Ann, the legendary sweetheart of Abraham Lincoln. Her grave is in Petersburg,near New Salem state park. Her tomb has a poetic epitaph by Edgar Lee Masters on it ending: "bloom forever, oh republic, form the dust of my bosom." She died about 1830.

James C Hollingsed Jr. married Mattie Agnes Foley of in DuQuoin, IL. She started to school in Centralia. After grade school graduation in Carbondale she attended the "Normal", So IL state normal university for 3 years. This was really a high school with the last year devoted to practice teaching. But Mattie Agnes wanted no part of teaching, so she quit after 3 years and went to work for the Illinois Central Railroad as a stenographer. Her father, Daniel Edmund Foley, was a section foreman and track supervisor for the I.C. Mattie worked in the railroad division offices in Carbondale, Centralia, and Memphis, Tenn. She also worked in a similar job one year in Bakersfield, Cal. She and grandpa were married in 1915 and that ended her working career. They were married by a father Samuel Stritch in Memphis, who later became Samuel Cardinal Stritch, archbishop of Chicago and a member of the Roman Curia, the papal cabinet.

This material was written by James Clinton Hollingsed III for his son, James Clinton Hollingsed IV and the last.

The Foleys by Generation in the United States

2005-10-20T10:50:00.000-05:00

After a lot of posts I thought I should dedicate one spot to recap the family tree.
Our US history started in County Waterford Ireland in 1820 or 1821 when Michael Foley was born to parents William Foley and Bridget Fitzgerald. Michael would marry a lass also from Waterford, Bridget O'Brien, after both had arrived in Massachusetts. Their wedding was in Easton Mass on October 1, 1853. Perhaps they traveled here together to get married or they found each other as friends in the beginning of a new chapter in both of their lives.

Michael and Bridget started their family in Massachusetts and added to it in Illinois after moving to the Midwest. Their son Daniel Edmund Foley was the next direct line to today's Foleys. Daniel was born March 18, 1857. He worked on the Illinois Central Railroad and worked as a supervisor of a road crew. Daniel's oldest sister Mary married another railroad employee, James C. Hollingsed. Daniel married Margaret Ann Purtill in Illinois and his family included Louis Francis Foley my grandfather.

Louis Francis Foley married Helen Baillie and they raised their family of four boys and one girl in Carbondale. Louis Edward (Ned) was the oldest and became a pharmacist owning a pharmacy in Anna Illinois for many years.
My father was next, William Severn. Dad served in World War II and was a salesman for various boiler makers. Appropriate too because he liked his boilermakers. Daniel Bernard was the third son and he went to medical school and became a physician practicing in Carbondale and later in Edwardsville. Richard Emmett was the last son. Dick also became a salesman after a successful basketball career at Southern Illinois University. Helen, their daughter, was actually the oldest but was born to my grandmother's first marriage to a Mr. Druar. Helen Druar was legally adopted by my grandfather.

This gets us to me and the present. However, I have four sons and a daughter and the other Foleys also have many offspring. And I have a grandson too. Going back to where and when this started and continuing to my grandson, we now have an accounting for eight generations. And that is all since Michael came over from Ireland.

The most intriguing part of the story is part legend part true and the new goal of this blog. The legend is that a Foley was sold in slavery on a pirate ship and escaped when the ship landed here in the 1600s. He raised his family in Canada. One of his descendants decided to return to Ireland. The legend is that it was the very first name when I started this article, William. He had been born here but returned to Ireland and his sons came to the United States during the famine years.
The true part is that it is explained by his grandson in the family history that was handed down. So far, everything in that history has proven to be accurate and documents support the details. Is this part true? Or legendary? Or some of both?
Once a birth date and city for Michael Foley are found, the details of his parents will slowly emerge. That is our new quest.

Saint Francis Cemetery Teutopolis Illinois

2005-10-16T22:11:00.000-05:00

Finding my great great grandmother in Teutopolis was the easiest thing that we did on our October 14 trip.
T-Town, population 1584, is located very near Effingham Illinois. There is one four way stop sign in the middle of town and all of the homes and businesses fan out from there.

I had previously talked with the ladies who work for Saint Francis Parish and they would be looking for me when we got to the Church. We entered town from the north and saw a big cemetery before anything else. It was Saint Francis. T-Town has a wonderful Catholic heritage and many connections to Saint Francis. The Church was Saint Francis, and the Cemetery. Later we also noticed an old steeple that was standing alone and decided to take a look.

This proved to be the former entrance the the Franciscan Monastery established in T-Town in 1860. All that remains is the entry, two statues, an altar and one monument. The monument explained that this belonged to the former Monastery and was now being used as a Memorial for the Unborn. This intrigued me. Without Bridget and all the generations who followed her, would I have been unborn? Urban areas tend to take abortion for granted. Small rural towns do not.

But before we would get to these places we stopped at the Cemetery. I had been given instructions over the phone as to where the oldest part of the cemetery was but no assurances that Bridget and her grave would be identifiable. We parked and walked over a closed road covered with shade and up a slight hill to the sunshine. A bright glen with very few grave stones awaited us. But first we saw a large monument near the old road that had three stone vertical slabs and a cross with engraving. These are pictured left. I surmise that many of the oldest stones were becoming weather worn and unreadable so the good citizens of T-Town took matters into their own hands. The created a monument for the many folks who helped start T-Town. They wanted the deceased remembered as well as the unborn. "Bridget Foley 1873" read the inscription on the monument. We were very impressed with the quality of the stone and the serenity of its location overlooking a small lake.

On the rolling hill below there were few stones and we began to look for Bridget. I found her in about ten minutes. Her stone was covered with moss on the side where the inscription was but I could make out several letters. We scraped the moss off and took pictures. It is very legible, amazing since it was the original 1873 stone.

The last thing that struck me was the shape of her grave stone. Hers and her husband Michael's gravestones were the same style and shape though they are buried in different places and died 16 years apart. When Michael died in 1889 it is clear that one of his children made the decision to give him a stone like Bridget had been given. That they might be together again symbolically. That little bit of their humanity spoke volumes about their children's love for them.

Our next stop was Saint Francis Church to pick up a record of Bridget's death. The ladies had looked it up for me. It was written in Latin:
1873 27, Februarii Brigitta Foley
Die 1pm Marti sepelivo Brigitta O'Brine Foley

There is one last sentence that is illegible except for one word "sacramentis". I believe this was a recording of Bridget being given the Last Rites.

The pictures above do not do this cemetery justice. The tallest stone near the center of these pictures is Bridget Foley's grave.

Saint Mary's Cemetery, Champaign Illinois

2005-10-15T22:36:00.000-05:00

Michael Foley's burial site was on of the quests of this blog site when it was started several months ago. On October 14, 2005, it was our goal as we left home.
I previously blogged about this here. http://foleygenealogy.blogspot.com/2005/09/michael-bridget-foley-found.html

Communication with Linda in Arizona put me on the trail of the cemetery in Champaign where Michael was reportedly buried. First, a name was determined. The oldest Catholic Cemetery was Saint Mary's Cemetery in Champaign, right on the Champaign-Urbana city borders.

We weren't sure of the exact location and drove to Champaign knowing we would have to do some searching. We exited at Neil Street when we saw a sign for "Tourist Information". Turning north we only saw a big mall and no other likely location. Sure enough, after turning into the mall parking lot we spied another sign. This was our first indication that our path was being determined for us by forces outside of our realm.

Into the Market Place Mall we went and found a kiosk with local tourism info. Kenesha helped us and though she was not sure about the cemetery location, she did have a map. And all of the cemeteries in Champaign were clearly indicated. Our street to travel to the Cemetery? Neil Street where we had turned off the Interstate. "I am not a fan of coincidence" is an adage I have espoused for many years and having two at this early stage had gotten my attention.

After a quick lunch in the Food Court of the Mall, we headed south on Neil Street to Saint Mary's Road where only a few blocks later we found the Cemetery. Saint Mary's is broken into sections and divided by roads. There was no gatehouse or office on site. We decided to find Michael by ourselves. Within about 15-20 minutes Nancy called out "I found them" and she had. The Foley, Hollingsed, Dunbar and Welty burial site. Michael Foley and three of his daughters. Here is what the site looked like on this crisp day.

Above top is Michael's grave and stone. On the right of his stone is the stone for James C. Hollingsed. The picture immediately above is the picture of Saint Mary's Church corner stone in Champaign. It is significant because Michael died in 1889. The Church corner stone indicates it was built in 1888. Michael would have been among the first 50 burials from this church.
Here are some pictures of the other stones on the site and of the Church itself.

And here are the rest of the grave stones on the sight:

An Autumn Day to Remember

2005-10-14T23:12:00.000-05:00

Friday October 14, 2005, was a bright, sunny day in the upper Midwestern United States. The kind of day that college students anticipate for a football weekend. The kind of day that senior citizens enjoy a drive in the country to take in the changing of leaves from vibrant green to luminescent yellows and oranges. The kind of day for enjoying the discovery of new things and observing the changes in the eternal cycle of life. The kind of day that inspires poets, writers and musicians to reach your soul with their artistry.
It was a perfect day as we set on the road from Davenport Iowa, where coincidentally new windows were being installed in our home and it was good luck that we had planned to be road warriors and could not be under foot.
We drove from Davenport at 9:00 AM with a destination of Champaign Illinois and then Teutopolis Illinois. The missions was simple: find the burial plots of my great-great grandparents Michael and Bridget Foley. It turned into more than that and there must have been a higher power leading our way. There were far too many coincidences to think that we were just lucky travelers.
I have decided to break this story down into parts. One will be about Michael, one Bridget another the charming city of Teutopolis or "T-Town" as all the locals call it. Pictured above is a serene lake setting adjacent to Saint Francis Cemetery In Teutopolis. Bridget is resting near here.
I hope to be able to do justice to this day and to Michael and Bridget and their memory. It is the kind of day for that.

Foley Family History Handed Down from Daniel Edmund Foley

2005-09-22T02:35:00.000-05:00

One of the documents that ignited the search for information on the Foley family genealogy was dictated by my great grandfather, Daniel Edmund Foley prior to his death in the 1930s.
Before you read this, please remember wise Irish adage "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story."

FOLEY FAMILY HISTORY AS HANDED DOWN FROM FATHER TO SON
(As Told By Daniel E. Foley To Daughter, Margaret)
One of our ancestors was one of the company of Brian Boru about 1050 A.D. The people of his company scattered after Boru’s death; our folks going probably to Cork or Kerry in the hills.
The next record then was that one of our ancestors settled in Waterford in the south of Ireland; married and had a family.
A son was accused of stealing a sheep from a neighbor and at that time there were no penitentiaries but the punishment for stealing was deportation. He was held in a dungeon of the manor house awaiting to be shipped away. A vessel landed at Dungarvin, close by, manned by pirates, English, French, Spanish. Our ancestor, Liam Foley (O’Foley) was sold by the Lord of the manor to the pirates for one pound. He sailed the seas for three or four years. The captain of the vessel was English; and there our ancestor learned the English language, also Spanish and French.
They struck the coast of North America, believed to be the state of Maine, about the year 1608. The crew landed to get water and the Irishman deserted, going to an Indian camp. He roamed with the Indians for several years. While camped on the coast (Massachusetts) some years later a vessel came in (The Mayflower). William or Liam made the acquaintance of the pilgrims and was taken into the group as interpreter. After six months they disagreed because of religion and after declaring his faith he was thrown into jail from one Saturday to the second Sunday and still would not go to (their) church. He was put into stocks. Later, the daughter of one of the pilgrims released him at night and they deserted together to the Indians. They traveled north from one Indian settlement to another, to lower Canada, probably Quebec, and settled down, living there about 25 years. William’s (Liam’s) wife died there leaving three boys and two girls. The oldest son named William, the second, Pat; others unknown.
William’s son, William, married a French woman. One of their sons becoming a priest and going to France for his education. Another son was killed by Indians.
William’s son, Pat, returned to Massachusetts to his mother’s (Pilgrim) people. Found the grandparents dead but two sons and three daughters living.
One daughter of Pat’s married an O’Brien, a shipbuilder, and settled down in Maine. Their descendants built the first ships for the United States. One of them becoming an admiral.

About 1800 two boys went back to Ireland, one settling in Cork and one in Waterford.

The one who married and lived in Waterford had two boys who came to the states about 1840, as grown men. They went into the Army during the war with Mexico. One returned to Illinois after the war and for his bounty from the government took a piece of land near Quincy, 320 acres. His descendants are at the present time still in that vicinity, one of whom is a priest.
The other boy died after the war and is buried in the soldiers cemetery at Springfield, Illinois, his is the first grave east from the entrance; his name is Patrick Foley. (Camp Butler Cemetery) Patrick 12/17/11865

My father’s father went back to Ireland, married a Fitzgerald. My father had an older brother, Patrick, Edmund; sisters, Bridget, Ellen, Mary.
Bridget married a man named Carey. William Carey, a first cousin came to Illinois, stayed a couple of years and went to Massachusetts. Carey had a brother who stayed in Ireland and studied maritime engineering. His son was captain of the vessel VESTRIS which sank so disastrously in 1927. (Captain Carey of Dungarvin, Waterford, Ireland.)
Ellen married an O’Donnel of Massachusetts.
Mary married in Massachusetts but died within a month and her married name is not known.
Michael Foley married Bridget O’Brien. Bridget had two half brothers named Daniel Hehir and Michael Hehir. Dan was a sergeant in the constabulary in Ireland (borne out of communications in 1871). Mike joined the army and died in Lajore, India. There were five sisters. One married a Cahill. A son was a member of the Irish constabulary (Witness: Picture in possession of family.)
Bridget’s parents had twenty acres of land, without deed, but granted to them as long as grass grew and water ran, for one shilling per year.
Bridget is buried at Teutopolis; Michael at Champaign.

Patrick Foley, Civil War Veteran UPDATE

2005-09-21T08:30:00.000-05:00

This blog previously featured a story on Civil War Veteran Patrick Foley.
The National Archives has now provided his military records.

Patrick Foley was born in Ireland in 1815, making him 50 years old when he joined the Union Army in Alton Illinois in 1865. He worked as a farmer and the $100 bounty he was offered to enlist may have been the reason to join.
He joined Company H of the 150th Regiment of the Illinois Infantry on February 6, 1865. He had dark hair and gray eyes and was 5'7" tall when he agreed to a one year enlistment offered by Captain Collins.

On July 8, 1865, Patrick became sick while serving garrison duty in the Atlanta area and was sent to the Crittenden U S Army General Hospital in Louisville Kentucky. His diagnosis was encephaloid tumor of the neck and abdomen.

On October 19, 1865 Patrick wrote the following letter from the hospital to Brigadier General R. E. Wood, Asst Surgeon General U.S. Army

Sir,

I have the honor to request a special transfer to the U. S. General Hospital at Springfield Ills.
Very Respectfully,
Your Obedient Servant,
Patrick Foley
Pvt Co "H" 150 Ills

Patrick's request was granted and he was transferred to the Camp Butler Hospital, presumably because it was closer to home, where he passed away on December 17, 1865.

Patrick only served in the military from February to July of 1865 and therefore only collected one third of his promised bounty. He was owed $70.50 for pay not received when he died.

Based on the Foley family history handed down, I believe that Patrick is the brother to Michael, this blog's namesake and my great-great grandfather. He would be my great-great uncle. I believe from family histories handed down that Patrick and Michael came to the United States together.

Michael, Bridget and Children Information Found

2005-09-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

Pictured above, the Paxton Depot, home of the Illinois Central Rail Road Historical Society.
Today's mail from the Urbana Public Library filled information gaps about the namesake of this blog, Michael Foley.
His resting place
Saint Mary's Cemetery in Champaign was established by Father Charles Berry on the south edge of Champaign near the center of county section 24-19-8. It is bordered on the north and east by the University of Illinois and the University farm. It is situated on one of the high rolling ridges that extend through the south part of Champaign. It is smartly laid out, fenced and meticulously maintained. It is supported by assessment and a permanent care fund derived from the sale of lots and under the jurisdiction of a committee appointed by the pastor of Saint Mary's Church. There are 18 Civil War veterans and four World War veterans buried there.
The stone on Michael Foley's grave reads simply:
Foley, Michael
Born (blank)
Died Jan. 31, 1889
68 Years

His Daughters in Champaign
Mary
Michael died while visiting with two daughters in Champaign, Mary Hollingsed, and Alice Dunbar.
Both are buried in adjacent lots to his, as well as Mary's husband, James C. Hollingshed.
Mary has three different birthdays listed on various records: grave marker reads born 1863, her death certificate reads born December 12, 1860, and the newspaper article recounting her passing reads that she was born on December 12, 1861. She was born in Chicago and, in 1884, married James Clinton Hollingsed, a conductor for the Illinois Central Railroad. Mary and James had four children: James C. Jr., D. J. (I think this is David) and two daughters who married to a J A Welty in Chicago and a W W Findley in Los Angeles. She had two brothers who survived her, Daniel E. Foley of Carbondale and William Foley of Terre Haute Indiana. And two sisters who survived her lived in Chicago, Ellen and Delia Foley.
Mary died from heart failure. She came ill upon the death of her sister Alice Donahue just five weeks earlier. A full accounting of this was reported in the January 26, 1934 edition of the Champaign News Gazette.
James, born in 1853, passed away in 1902.

Alice Marie
Alice M. Foley was born 1854 and died that same terrible 1934 winter. Alice died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. H. T. Williamson in Clinton Illinois, where she had been visiting over the Christmas holidays. Alice was born October 20, 1854 in Massachusetts. She married twice, first to Patrick Dunbar, then to Charles Donahue. Surviving Alice were daughters, Mrs. Charles Clayborne, Peoria, Mrs. W J Ryan, 613 West Green Street, Champaign at whose home the wake was held, Mrs. A J Berbaum, also of Champaign, Mrs. Williamson of Clinton and one son C. R. (probably Charles) Donahue, North Coler Avenue Urbana Illinois.
The January 2, 1934 edition of the Champaign News Gazette provided these details.
One of Alice's children was Wilhemina Dunbar, born January 14, 1882 in Champaign. Alice's husband Patrick was born in Ireland and was working as a brakesman on the Illinois Central Rail Road at the time Wilhemina as born. This information from a birth registry kept by the County.

Michael married Bridget O'Brien in Massachusetts about 1850. Mary Hollingsed's death certificate, indicates that both Michael and Bridget were from County Waterford Ireland. Some time after Alice was born in Massachusetts in 1854, the family moved to Chicago, where Mary was born.

Michael, Bridget Foley Found!

2005-09-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

Having never met my great-grandfather, Daniel Edmund Foley who was born in 1853, the likelihood of knowing much about his father were very rare. We knew his name was Michael and that he was born in Ireland, married Bridget. And we knew that he was buried in Champaign and Bridget in Teutopolis, both in Illinois. We only had a sketchy idea of even where they lived when alive

This week we found them both.

Bridget was rather easy in that Teutopolis was very small when she was buried and there is a good county historical society there. The State of Illinois has organized a project called Gen Web for the purpose of making historical records easier to trace online. An email to a former resident of Teutopolis now living in Arizona who maintains the county site got immediate answers. (Thank you Linda!)

There is only one cemetery in Teutopolis, named St. Francis Cemetery. It is a Catholic cemetery, associated with St. Francis Church in Teutopolis. The records show Bridget Foley is buried in Section 7, Row 5, grave #3. This is in the VERY old section of the cemetery. The stone reads died 2-27-1873 at the age of 52 years. There is no birth date on the stone but doing the math she would have been born sometime in 1821, probably not in Teutopolis. The town was founded in the early 1840’s. The cemetery was originally laid out in 1860. The stone does, however, state that she is the wife of Michael.

Michael was another story. I envisioned going to the cemeteries in Champaign until I found his headstone. The Urbana Free Library made that all unnecessary with two phone calls.

First, I learned from the archivist that there was a record of Michael Foley, born 1821 same as Bridget, being buried in St. Mary's Cemetery, another very old site. Incredibly, Michael's passing made the newspaper at the time, the Champaign Daily Gazette. Michael passed away on January 31, 1889. The Gazette story under a heading of "Local Brevities", tells of Michael Foley's passing away of rheumatism of the heart while visiting his daughters in Champaign, Mrs. J.C. Hollingshead and T. Dunbar.

Most interestingly, it indicates a familiar link, that Michael Foley was visiting from DuQuoin Illinois where he lived. This was an unknown. His son, Daniel, was born in 1853. A brief study of the history of DuQuoin indicates that the railroad was finished and the first depot built also in 1853.

Cousin Don remembers hearing the name Hollingshead in his youth. I can recall a lot of mentioning of DuQuoin Illinois from my father. We may have more cousins soon!

John Patrick Foley, Mexican-American War Veteran

2005-08-30T11:31:00.000-05:00

John Patrick Foley, from County Mayo, Ireland, was the only Foley from Illinois to enlist during the Mexican-American War. He was 5'7 1/2" tall, with black hair and blue or dark hazel eyes.

He was 21 years old when he joined Company D of the 16th Regiment of the United States Infantry. His occupation was listed alternately as Laborer or farmer. and he was born in St. Clair County Illinois. He was signed up by Captain L. McKenney at Dixon Illinois on April 8, 1847, received a six dollar signing bonus to risk his life for our country for 353 days.
Before being accepted he was examined by Dr. Gregory who signed an affidavit before the Probate Justice of the Peace, Lorenzo Wood, for the County of Lee, State of Illinois, that:
"I certify on honor that I have minutely examined the recruit, John P. Foley, previously to his enlistment, and that he was entirely sober when enlisted: that to the best of my judgment and belief, he is of lawful age".

His place of birth clearly says Saint Clair County, Illinois, but his Country of origin is listed just as clearly as Ireland and County Mayo. It may have been necessary at that time to establish citizenship in order to enlist.

The real question is "Is he one of our ancestors?"

A written history of our family was prepared by Daniel E Foley sometime before his death. He indicated that a Foley had joined the army during this war and was given a land grant for his service. That being 320 acres in the Quincy Illinois area. Now we seem to have a name, a location and approximate age. More research to do, but an interesting story no matter whose relation he is.

Helen Foley, Jack Howell and Helen Druar

2005-08-26T10:04:00.000-05:00

The two ladies to the right are Helen Bailie Foley and her daughter from her first marriage , Helen Druar. Helen Bailie married a Druar who past away shortly after. Their only child was Helen Druar.

Helen Bailie Druar, the mother on the left, was my paternal grandmother. For her second marriage she wed Louis Francis Foley who then adopted Helen Druar as his own daughter.

The younger Helen to the right married Winton Walkup and I knew them as Aunt Helen and Uncle Winton. There is a street named after Winton in Carbondale Illinois and it is still found today in Google: Walkup Street, just a few blocks from where the Foleys all grew up.

The little guy in the back is Jack Howell. Helen Bailie Druar Foley, let us just say Gram from here on, had a sister Cleta who married a man named Howell. He would have been a first cousin to the four Foley brothers and Helen Walkup. Tough times fell upon the Howells and Jack came and lived with Gram for a while. He had one a "Most Beautiful Baby" contest and from this picture it is evident that Jack was a real cutie.

Patrick Foley, Civil War Veteran, buried at Camp Butler

2005-08-24T11:20:00.000-05:00

The stones line neatly up, smart and ready to march. The rotunda sits gently to the left and one can imagine that Abraham Lincoln stood on that platform.
In searching for more information for this blog, I found myself standing in the National Cemetery at Camp Butler, Illinois, just outside Springfield. National Cemeteries inspire a tremendous amount of patriotism, especially when you look down and see your surname and the year, 1865. This was the case for my son and I as we found Patrick Foley's resting place, Section 2, plot 239. The Camp Butler National Cemetery had only been dedicated months earlier. It now holds the remains of both Union and Confederate soldiers and is still being put to use as a resting place for veterans.
Patrick Foley was in Company H, 150th Regiment, Illinois Infantry. His unit was mustered in shortly before the end of the war and had occupation duties across the south. The regiment lost 58 men to disease that year before being mustered out in 1866. More on Patrick later when his military records arrive from the National Archives.

The Three Foley Boys of Carbondale 1920 Lake Michigan

2005-08-15T12:52:00.000-05:00

Pictured from left to right in front are Louis Edward Foley (Ned), William Severn Foley (Bill),
Dr. Daniel Bernard Foley, and in the back their first cousin Jack Howell. Richard Emmett was not born at this time.
This was taken during a vacation to Lake Michigan about 1920.

Daniel Edmund Foley, Margaret Ann Purtill and their children Circa 1886

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To the left is one of the most interesting members of our family tree, Daniel Edmund Foley. He was born March 18, 1857, in Boston Massachusetts. He died February 24, 1938 in Carbondale, Illinois. He is pictured with his bride and children. Margaret Ann Purtill married Daniel when she was sixteen.
Margaret was born May 16, 1864, only 22 years old in this photo. Margaret died on January 19, 1930.
The oldest child is Louis Francis Foley. Louis was born in Centralia Illinois September 15, 1881.Daniel and Louis are pictured again together on this blog nearly 50 years later.
The second oldest is Ella Foley, born November 4, 1883 in DuQuoin Illinois. Ella died November 1, 1959 in Harlingen Texas.
The infant is Mattie Agnes who was born April 27, 1886 and is likely the reason for another trip to Wheatley Studios in DuQuoin.
The reason for the family's relocations around the state was the railroad. Daniel was a supervisor of a road gang. Although only 5'7" tall, he was supervising the gangs that laid tracks. In those days these were known as rowdies. And the boss had to be able to physically stand up to any challenges. Fistfights were common.
Daniel dictated our family history to his daughter Margaret, not yet born in the picture above.Margaret typed it and we still have it. Some of this is hard to document but that is the quest. The Purtill family history is well documented by a genealogy project that was done in 1965.
All of this information has been provided by Don Foley, Clearwater Florida who has been the gatherer of this information for the last thirty years.

Michael McCarty writes home after the Civil War Battle of Belmont Missouri

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The two images above are the front and back of a letter written by Michael McCarty three days after the Battle of Belmont Missouri. There is also a mini-family tree written many years ago to establish the provenance of this letter by Louis Edward (Ned) Foley.
McCarty was in the Illinois 31st (Nicknamed the "Dirty-First") Regiment fighting in this and other battles until he was injured near Atlanta. I believe he was injured in the Battle of Bennington, the last significant fight by Confederates in the war. Michael was one of thirteen Union soldiers from the Third Division, 17th Army Corps under the direction of Major General Frank P. Blair, Jr.He died in a Civil War Hospital and is buried in Mariettta National Cemetery plot # G 7220, Marietta, Georgia. He was the Grandfather of Helen Bailie. A complete transcription of this letter is below. It was provided by Brendan Foley who would be his great great great grandson. (Thanks Brendan!)
From more information supplied by Don and Brendan Foley: Michael McCarty Marries Ellen Bradly at Salem, Mass. She is 20, he 25. Only lists his birth place as Ireland. Married by a Catholic Priest.

In Michael McCarty's words:

Camp McClernand and Cairo Illinois
November 10, 1861
My dear wife, I take my pen in hand in order to let you know that I am well and I hope this may find you enjoying the same. No doubt but that you have heard of the great battle, which was fought on last Thursday the 7th. I was there and done all I could for my adopted country. The battle was fought in Missouri at a place called Belmont opposite Columbus on the Kentucky shore. The gunboats began the battle about 9 o’clock in the morning and we infantry a little before 11 o’clock, which lasted until night. I can not give you a full account of whole fight as it would fill several sheets of paper but this I know that I never saw such a time in all my life and I hope that I may never see such another. But if I must, I must and therefore am ready. I escaped unhurt, but how it was God only knows for I am sure that I don’t. Cannon and musket balls flew around me as thick as hale. Cutting down trees bushes and tearing up the ground in every direction. Others of whom there were many were less fortunate and met a soldier’s doom – Death. The Sesh were badly cut to pieces losing a great many more than our side, but ours is bad enough and who the victory belongs to it is hard to tell but it is claimed by the Union troops. We captured and spiked their guns but had to retreat to the boats hotly perused by the enemy who were reinforced by many thousands from Columbus. We lost a considerable of clothing. Consisting of coats and other equipments.
I would have written to you before but was expecting to get paid off every day and will write to you again when we get paid, we are looking for it every day. Write to me how you and the children are getting on. No more at this time, but remain yours
Michael McCarty

A complete report on the Battle of Belmont was written by Brendan and can be provided by contacting the blogger.

The Bailie Kids

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Pictured here are Tom Bailie, Helen Bailie and Cleta Bailie. This was taken in Wheatley Studios in DuQuoin Illinois about 1890. A fourth sibling joined them later, Winnie Bailie.
Many new spellings of this name have shown up in later documents, the most common being Bailey.

The Foleys of Carbondale Illinois

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Helen Bailie Foley, Daniel Edmund Foley and Louis Francis Foley
taken about 1930

Pictured here are three important figures in our family history.

On January 11, 1905, Helen Bailie married Louis Foley after her first husband had died. Her daughter from her first marriage, Helen Druar, was adopted by Louis. Louis called the older Helen, "Ella", and they had four more children, all boys. Louis Edward (Ned), William Severn, Daniel Bernard and Richard Emmett.

Between them is Daniel Edmund Foley, born March 18, 1857. Both Daniel and Louis worked their whole careers for the Illinois Central Railroad in downstate Illinois, Little Egypt.

Louis and Ella were Gram and Gramp to me and they both passed away when I was very young. I never knew my great grandfather. They lived in Carbondale Illinois most of their lives.

Ella, Louis and Daniel, Foleys that brought our family history to life for me.

The Foleys

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The Foley family has a very interesting story to tell and there is much yet to learn. Our first goal is to establish this blog so that we can post the information that we already have amassed. Don Foley, Clearwater Beach Florida has beeen gathering information for thirty years; has been to Civil War battlegrounds and cemeteries in the US and in Ireland. Our quest is to connect our roots all the way back to the "old sod" and we are very close.

We'll try to tell the stories one at a time for the readers who are interested in the immigration and nationalization of the immigrants from all over the world who came here and built a country.

We will give you the legends and the stories which are documented, with the documents, photos and other official records.

Stay tuned for an interesting blog.