Remembering Crown Women

Late in 2014, a Crown descendant shared a Crown family tree that his father had drawn. That drawing clearly depicted our ggg-grandparents Richard Crown and Sarah Meehan as the parents of five children:  John, Patrick, Richard, Cormac, and Bridget, outlined in one of my previous posts.  As we know, things really took off from there as we have located descendants from each branch, and further confirmed with DNA matching.  What a miracle that family tree has been to all of us.

And yet, I've learned alot from my own experiences with genealogy over the past many years, not the least of which is that secondary sources (such as a hand-drawn family trees) need to be combined with primary sources and considered altogether in order to draw valid conclusions. The truth is that we have been unable to find any baptism records for the people mentioned here, the marriage records, where they exist, rarely identify the relationship of witnesses, and death records may or may not identify relationships depending on the informant.

All of which brings me to a recent discovery that made me question the aforementioned handed-down family tree. In reviewing early Crown marriages in County Leitrim, I was reminded of the marriage banns between Malachy Travers and Bridget Crown in 1852.  But this time I noticed another marriage bann just three years previous between Michael McMorrow and Mary Crown in 1849.  Both the Crown women in these banns were of Drumlease.  After a long pause, it started to dawn on me.  Mary Crown could be another daughter of Richard Crown and Sarah Meehan, one that was not included in the hand-drawn family tree.  I suddenly feel ridiculous that all this time has gone by, and I have never once considered whether Richard and Sarah had more than one daughter.  Of course they must have, daughters who were forgotten and subsequently unknown to the later generations who were recording our history.

So allow me to briefly introduce Mary Crown.  She was born about 1829, and she and Michael McMorrow had at least 7 children:  Catherine, Patrick, Bridget, Michael, John, Mary, and Sarah.  They lived in Kilroosk.  Mary died in 1878 at the age of 49, and Michael died in 1904, so he can be found in the 1901 census living with his youngest daughter.  We might wonder together how we could associate Mary as a daughter of Richard and Sarah. Certainly the proximity of Kilroosk to Pollboy is notable, but better yet, Richard Crown was a sponsor at the baptism of Mary's son, Patrick, in 1854.  As of this writing, we know about only one Richard Crown who was alive and old enough at that time:  Richard Crown of Pollboy. Richard might have been some relation other than Mary's father, so I'm trying to temper my sense of excitement.  Wish me luck with that.

I have since located a couple DNA matches between me and other known Crown testers and descendants of Mary Crown McMorrow.  Those matches aren't enough to confirm relationships that long ago, but I've been learning how to use triangulation to help confirm a common ancestor.  Until then, Richard could have been Mary's father, or possibly her uncle (maybe daughter of Arthur, see previous post). Even if neither of those speculations can be proved, we know now about Mary - she existed - and I suspect she had sisters as well as brothers, aunts as well as uncles, a mother and maybe grandmothers who helped her with childbirth and mourned her passing at a relatively young age.  Mary Crown had a part in our story.

Finally, let me also acknowledge that 100 years ago today, the United States permitted women to vote, two years after that right was given to Irish women.  Mary Crown McMorrow didn't live to see that time, but her daughters might have, and her granddaughters most certainly did.  I think all our female Crown ancestors would be proud to know that their lives are remembered in our own voices and choices moving forward.