Sunday, September 11, 2016

Our Clancy Clan in NY

I have often wondered what inspired Patrick Crown to come to NY when he did, thinking there might have been some Crown relations who preceded him there. But as has often turned out true throughout our family history, it was not just the male side of the family that effected change, it was also the female side. Indeed, it turns out that some of Ann Clancy's siblings were in Flatbush, NY before the American Civil War, and the rest of Ann's immediate family, including her mother, Jane Gilroy Clancy, came over after the war in the mid-1860s. In fact, our Ann might even have been the last in her immediate family to come to America (we're not sure when her brother Lackey arrived, some time before 1875).

Learning about our Clancy family is a work in progress, but here's what I have gleaned so far:
  • Joanna "Jane" Gilroy, 1814-1894, married to Charles Clancy in Ireland, and was apparently a widow by the time of the 1857 Griffiths Valuation in Barr of Farrow, Cloonclare, Leitrim, Ireland. She probably arrived in NY in 1865 when she was in her early 50s, accompanied by her youngest daughter, Margaret, 18.
  • Catherine Clancy, 1833-1892, married an older real estate dealer, Roger Clancy (we don't know yet if he was related); she did not have children who survived her.
  • John Clancy, 1837-1898, married Mary Clancy in NY (again we don't know yet if she was related); they had 8 children.
  • Mary Clancy, 1840-1903, married in NY first John Collins who died by 1875, they had 4 children; married second Robert Martin. Supposedly Mary's first child, Mary, was born in New York in 1858, which would mean her mother emigrated before that, thus implying the earliest date of our Clancy family in America (so far).
  • Ann Clancy, 1842-1888, married Patrick Crown in Ireland in 1860, arrived in NY just before 1870. As we know, they had 9 children.
  • Malachy Clancy, 1844-1896, also known as Lackey as well as by his Americanized name of Alex or Alexander, married in NY to Ann Murphy in 1876; they apparently had 4 children, none of whom survived.
  • Manus Clancy, 1845-1914, a real estate dealer, never married.
  • Margaret Clancy, 1847-1910, married in NY to Thomas Rooney, they had 7 children.
There's a possibility of other children who belonged to this family group, in particular one James Clancy, born abt 1831 who married Catherine Murphy. James died in Ireland, but his children also later came to America and seem to have ties to this family group. Research is ongoing.

Meanwhile back in Brooklyn, in 1881 Patrick Crown purchased property on East New York Ave. from his sister-in-law, Catherine Clancy Clancy, who had just been widowed at that time. Patrick paid $600, and so far, that transaction is the earliest deed record I can find of Crown-owned properties in Brooklyn. There's no question, however, that our Crown legacy in Brooklyn got its start from our Clancy roots.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

The Non-Existent Crown Child

I've heard stories about how some genealogies contain names of people who never existed, and I always wondered how that could even be possible. But now I think I just caught myself in the very act! Here's how.

As I have long stated, Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy had six children before coming to America, among them two sets of twins, the last set born just before the emigration to NY. How do I know that? From the 1870 census of Flatbush which shows the six Irish-born Crown children: Richard, 10; Sarah, 6; Charles and Kate, 4; and John and Patrick, 1. Other interesting notes of this census are that Mrs. Clancy, 60, (probably Ann's mother, see previous post) seems to have been head of household, and Ann's husband, Patrick Crown, does not seem to be accounted for.

But now that many of the Irish records are coming online, I've been able to look up the birth records for those six Crown children born in Ireland, and lo, I found only five: Richard, Sarah, Charles, Kate, and John. Especially if John was a twin of Patrick, then the two would have been baptized and registered at the same time. But no, only John. How strange.

Going back to NY, I remembered that the Crown children who died young were named on the family gravestone at Holy Cross. Sure enough, there are the names Margaret, Catherine, John, and Manus "who died young." No Patrick. There is no doubt in my mind that if Patrick and Ann had a son named Patrick who died young, his name would have been included on that gravestone.

So! No birth record in Ireland for Patrick Crown born in 1869, nor mention of him on the family gravestone in Brooklyn. I am coming to the conclusion that there was never a child born to Patrick and Ann named Patrick. In that case, who was the Patrick Crown, age 1, enumerated on the 1870 census? I have no explanation other than error by the census-taker. Patrick Crown, the adult, was probably not home at the time of enumeration, but his name was mentioned. And with so many kids running (or crawling) around, were there five or were there six? The census said six, but there really were only five. Lesson learned: every single genealogical record found needs to be corroborated in some way.

So for our family record, I am removing the name of Patrick Crown, b. 1869, from the family tree of Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy. May this non-existent child RIP.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Discovering Clancys of Barr of Farrow

I'm learning alot about Irish geography in the last month or so as I've been trying to group Crown families by location. You can find some very useful maps of districts, parishes, and townlands in counties Leitrim and Roscommon here.

My research has centered in Drumahaire barony where the Crown's and Travers lived in the 1800s, with most concentration in the the Drumlease civil parish. But records for Crown can also be found in the surrounding Leitrim parishes of Killanummery, Killarga, Cloonlogher, Killasnet, and even though not immediately bordering Drumlease, also Cloonclare. In fact, this last parish is where we believe we located the 1860 marriage record of our ancestors who later emigrated to NY, Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy.

However, two things have subsequently brought my attention back to Cloonclare.
  • While looking at Clancy families that were enumerated nearby to our Crown family in Brooklyn, I wondered if they were somehow related. One Clancy family tree I found which seems to connect to those early Brooklyn Clancy families documents them as coming from Farrabar, Cloonclare, Leitrim, Ireland. Hmmmm.
  • In a separate exercise, I was looking up the Ireland civil birth registrations for the children that Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy had before they emigrated to NY. The civil registrations give the address where the couple was living when the child was born, and interestingly for two of Patrick and Ann's children, the address of the parents was listed as Farrabar. Hmmmm.
So what about this place, Farrabar? Further investigation has lead me to a place in Cloonclare parish that was called Barr of Farrow (in Irish, Barr Fharaidh) and/or Farrow Barr (Farrabar), located in the D.E.D. (district electoral division) called Glenboy and the PLU (poor law union) of Manorhamilton.

And what about this other family tree? It documented its Irish ancestors as Charles Clancy and Jane McElroy. In searching for a couple with those names in County Leitrim, I did not find a marriage record, but I found several children born in Cloonclare parish to Charles Clancy and Joanna (sometimes Anne) Gilroy. Seems to me that Gilroy is very close to McElroy, and Jane could be the familiar version of the Latin name Joanna.

In checking the 1834 Ireland Tithes records in the Barr of Farrow, there were SIX Clancy men listed, and of immediate interest were Charles Sr. and Charles Jr. In moving on to the 1857 Griffiths Valuations in Barr of Farrow, there was no listing of any Charles Clancy, but lo and behold, there was listed Jane Clancy! Either Jane was a widow by then or maybe Charles preceded the family to NY? Either way, these early Irish documents establish there were indeed a Charles and Jane Clancy from Barr of Farrow!

All of which is very interesting, but even though I have a passing reference to Farrabar in Irish records of Crown, there is really nothing that ties my Ann Clancy Crown to Charles Clancy and Jane Gilroy. Until today. Today I revisited the baptism record of the first child of Patrick and Ann, Richard. Here is my transcription of the Irish baptism record which was written in Latin:

8 July 1860, Richard, child of Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy, 
sponsors Richard Crown and Joanna Gilroy.    

OMG. I always thought that the male sponsor was either Patrick's father or his brother, but I had no earthly idea about the female sponsor.  Now, thanks to the sharing of another researcher's family tree, I do! I now think the sponsors of Richard Crown were his grandparents, Patrick's father and Ann's mother.  Wow.

So there we have it. Happily, we now have a whole new story to explore, and likely more relations to meet! I'm still researching, but it appears to me that Patrick and Ann might have come over to NY with Ann's mother, Jane, who very likely was the older woman enumerated as Mrs. Clancy in the Patrick Crown household in 1870. After that, Jane may have gone to live with other Clancy relations, as it appears that she probably had other children also in NY. Jane Gilroy Clancy died in Flatbush in 1894, after her daughter, Ann Clancy Crown, who died in 1888. Jane was around the age of 80 when she died, and like all our early Crown relations, she was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery.

I'm a little stunned. I think about my father, Richard Charles Schaefer. The second son of my grandmother, Peg Crown, my father was definitely named for the Irish. Not only did Nana have a brother named Richard who died young, she also had two uncles, Richard and Charles, who were by all accounts bigger than life and who both died after Nana was married. And now we know something about how the Crown uncles Richard and Charles were named: one for our Irish ancestor Richard Crown, and the other for our Irish ancestor Charles Clancy. Amazing.