Lost in the California Gold Rush: Where is Uncle Richard?

I was surprised when I learned that I was not the only member of my family who lived in California. My great granduncle Richard Corbett was a ship's carpenter who had preceded the Corbett family, my great-grandfather Dominick, his widowed mother Anastasia and big brother Patrick to the US. They were settled in Taunton, Massachusetts by 1855 where Patrick and  Dominick followed the trade of carpenter. They appear in the 1855 state census. However brother Richard is not with them in either the 1855 or 1865 state census or the 1860 US census when they were joined by three other siblings, Johanna, Ellen and William.

Two ads posted in the Boston Pilot http://infowanted.bc.edu/ gave me information allowing me to trace the family back to their place of origin in both Ireland and the US and recover baptism records for my great grandfather and some of his siblings. Richard was baptized March 21, 1830 in the parish of Oning and Templelorm, Fiddown, Kilkenny. His family was living nearby in Turkstown, Kilkenny when he was a young man. That town had a ship building business run by the Dwan brothers who lived on the same property as the Corbetts. Perhaps Richard and his brothers gained their carpentry skills working in it. He also may have experienced the lure of the sea since vessels could come up the Suire river from the seaport of Waterford as far as this small town.  The ads note that he “followed the sea for some years” . He had arrived in the US “some years before”. 

I believe that based on that information Richard appears on a passenger list, a carpenter coming into NYC  on the Siddons Jan 6, 1851. Did he jump ship there and decide to travel to the gold fields influenced by the many ads for travel there and stories of quick riches?

If so It is possible he is the R. Corbett listed on one of the ships heading for the Isthmus of Panama (where passengers crossed on foot or riding donkeys to meet a ship on the other side to head to California.) 1849 gold had been discovered and a "gold fever" seized many miners seeking to hit it rich. Ads like this one  in newspapers promised a swift journey instead of the long one round the tip of South America or the long and arduous one across the US by wagon. All the family knew was that he had arrived and was working in San Francisco when they wrote the ad looking for him in June 1855.

San Francisco early 1850's

If Richard signed on as a ship’s carpenter (on the Siddons or another) to get free passage,  he might have taken the much longer and more dangerous passage via Cape Horn. Whichever way he traveled Richard apparently reached San Francisco between 1852 and 53 and wrote to his family. He is not listed in the California State census of 1852. By the time he arrived in San Francisco the nearby fields were overcrowded and not producing the prodigious amounts of gold that they had in the early days. He  lost no time heading north – perhaps by stage coach or coastal boat for northern California writing from Shasta Co to his family that he was heading from Shasta to Yreka in Siskyou co. In June of 1855 the family was trying to get in touch with Richard and referred to his letter of May 1854. This much the family knew when his brother Patrick tried again to find him in another ad in 1857 searching for him in Yreka.They had evidently had at least two letters from him - the original from San Francisco and a later one from Shasta.

Stage Yreka California

Gold was discovered in Yreka in 1851 at a spot called "Thompson's Dry Diggins". Miners poured into the town which was called Shasta Butte City. Residents found this confusing with the town of Shasta, in Shasta County, so the name was changed.  Joaquin Miller described Yreka during 1853-54 as a bustling place with "...a tide of people up and down and across other streets, as strong as if in New York". More stage lines used the town for a stage stop than any other community in the state. The Deadwood district of Siskiyou included the towns of Liberty, Sawyers Bar. The miners produced a steady stream of gold until late in the 19^th century.

The rugged area on the California Oregon border

Chinese andCaucasian miners in No California

In the 1860 census for the Deadwood district in the town of Liberty there is a Richard Corbett of about the right age living with three other miners. All are Irish ranging in age from 33-22 and each has a total of $250 in property.  In that census the miners are mostly living in groups of less than 10 grouped perhaps by language. There are men from all over the US and from Europe. The town is predominately male and young. Large groups of Chinese miners are also listed, sometimes only listed by one name or only "Chinaman" and one age for all in the group. They were perhaps 1/3 of the population. Only 3 Chinese women appear none of them married.

There are only 13 families in the town 7 of whom have about 24 children between them in the 14 page census. Women and children are a definite minority. For the most part the census taker didn't bother to total them correctly in the tally at the end of the page. A recent widow runs a hotel with her California born children, the youngest of which is only a year. There must have been enough of school age children for a schoolhouse since one of the women is listed as a schoolteacher. All of the other white women are married most of them to miners.

Rare woman at a mining site

Those who run a business such as a hotel, a stable or a blacksmith shop, are considerably better off than the average miner like Richard with real estate and personal property worth $1000 to $10,000. The wealthiest persons in town are the lone lawyer, merchants and hotel owners. The presence of many Irish like Richard led to the  location of Catholic places of worship at Liberty and Sawyers dating from the mid 1850’s. There are two other Corbet(t) in town: a Mike also from Ireland and a William born in Massachusetts. If they were related to Richard they are not living with him. 

Since there were no other ads by his family one wonders if they were hearing from him by this time or had given up hope of finding him? Unfortunately the correspondence did not survive the death of his older brother Patrick around 1870 or his mother in 1873. His younger brother Dominick, my great grandfather was in New London, Connecticut in 1860, later moving to Vermont and fighting in the Civil War as a ship's carpenter in the Union Navy. He married in Vermont in 1867. My grandmother had little memory of her father who died in 1877 and never mentioned an uncle or her grandmother Anastasia. Dominick had named her older sister Anastasia “Annie” but evidently she didn’t know the connection.  Dominick named his his only son, John Richard,  after his father and Richard after the long lost brother.

John R. Corbett nephew

Richard does not appear on any of the Voter Rolls for California but then again he may not have become a citizen. Richard’s who appear in 1870 and 1880 in US census in California are not likely matches because age is too far off and most live far south of where he was in 1860. There is a Roger Corbett who settled in the Liberty area and is buried in the Catholic cemetary of Sawyer's Bar but he is younger and born in 1844 in Massachusetts. There are Army enlistment records for several Richard Corbetts, from Kilkenny who served in the 1860-1875 period. Is one of them Richard? In the 1870 census for Boise, Idaho there is listed a Richard Corbett,  born in Ireland, about the right age, now a US citizen, working as a miner. It makes sense that Richard would follow the mining lure still hoping to “strike it rich”.

So where is Richard? Even what I have discovered shows me that he was a person who liked adventure and was a risk taker.

 It is possible that Richard died before he was 50 as did his father and three of his four brothers. There appears that some congenital defect – perhaps heart trouble plagued these men. No record of death has been found in Idaho but their death records start in 1890.A search of California death records also came up a blank.record.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/californiagoldrush.htm

Acadian Expulsion II: Exile brings my 5th great grandparents together

It was a clear fall day in Port Royal, L’Acadie (now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia) when Anne Doucet age five , my 5^th great grandmother, stood on the deck of the ship that would take her, her parents Jean Doucet and Anne Bourg and her two younger siblings Joseph three and Jean Baptiste less than one year old, away from all that was dear and familiar to them. Did she stand tall straining to see over the rail as their world went up in smoke? Did she tearfully cling to her mother’s skirts as her parents held her younger siblings? Little did she know that day what more changes would come in her young life. Oddly enough if her family had not been exiled she probably would never have met her future husband Charles Dupuis, age 9, who was being deported from Grand Pre the same year.  Exiles they would be brought together by fate in the British colony of Connecticut. There they would exchange wedding vows about 8 years from now.

The ship, possibly the Experiment, was bound for New York under a British order expelling over 6,000 Acadians from their home which they had occupied for over 150 years. They were being scattered all over the British colonies in North America and the Antilles. For some reason this ship stopped in St. Christophe, an island in the Antilles held by the British. There her father Jean would die of the chicken pox at age about 30. Her mother would continue with her small children to New York and eventually Connecticut where she met and married another deportee, Joseph Herbert who  had lost his spouse Madeleine Dupuis, sister of Charles Dupuis my 4^th great grandfather. Anne is listed with him there in 1763 and their combined family of nine children. By the time they would be free to leave exile Joseph Herbert and wife Anne would have five more children. Did Charles and Anne meet when Joseph and her mother married and there were relatives of his first wife in attendance? Charles Dupuis, an orphan, was also living in Connecticut with his brother Simon-Pierre and his family. Connecticut was more prepared and hospitable to the deportees and the legislature made provisions for the Acadians of whom 700 eventually wound up on their shore.

They were civilians caught up in Le Grand Derangement – the Great Expulsion of neutral Acadians during what is called in North America, the French and Indian War and in Europe, the Seven Years War. They had lived under British rule since before Anne and her parents were born. (See my blog Acadian Expulsion I for explanation of the reasons for the expulsion and the story of Charles and his 10 siblings)  

The British victory in the  battle on the Plains of Abraham, near Quebec City, in 1759 and the treaty  of 1763 gave the refugees from L’Acadie another hard choice. There was little possibility of returning to their farms confiscated and given to British settlers. A few stayed in the colony to which they had been deported but most sought to find more culturally congenial places to live. Those deported to England where conditions were harsh asked to be sent to France. There was a promise of land but the French King failed them and most left again to immigrate to a new territory. Louisiana had passed from French to Spanish rule by 1762 and the Spanish were welcoming to new settlers especially Catholics. The first Acadians arrived in Louisiana in April 1764 and a flood would follow them as news got back about the area. Some who went to the Caribbean to the island of Dominique, French territory eventually wound up in Louisiana.

Charles and Anne exchanged their wedding vows privately before two witnesses around July of 1768 in Connecticut, since there was no priest present to witness their marriage. Perhaps they  were already preparing to go back together to Canada. Daughter Marie Anne would be the only of their 11 children born in Connecticut. Nine months later, in the parish church of Laprairie in the Richelieu valley south of Montreal, they renewed those vows in April 1769. Charles was the only one of his siblings who would return to Canada – perhaps because of his marriage to Anne as most of the Herberts would return to this area as well as her mother and step-father Joseph Herbert and her half siblings. Only Anne’s brother Joseph appears to have decided to follow other Acadians south, perhaps via the Isle of Dominique to finally settle in Louisiana. In 1772 at age 20 he marries Anne Landry, a fellow Acadian,  in St. Martinsville, Louisiana and they settle and raise a family in Opelousas where he dies in 1803.  Jean Baptiste disappears from the records and may have died during the expulsion or while in Connecticut. In a list of Connecticut residents in 1763 Joseph Herbert and second wife Anne Bourg are listed with nine children only, Jean Baptiste would have made 10 if he was still alive.

Anne Doucet’s family now merged with that of Joseph Herbert decided to return to French speaking lower Canada (now under British rule) and settle in the Richelieu valley and join her daughter and her husband. There was no hope of returning to L'Acadie and reclaiming confiscated lands. They probably were homesick for their own language, customs and religious tradition. They arrived in 1774 when her mother’s 1762 second marriage in Connecticut was blessed in the church of Laprairie.  They brought five small children born in Connecticut between 1763 and 1773 which may account for their longer stay in Connecticut. Did tensions between the American and their British rulers influence their move?Joseph died six years after they had their marriage blessed and recorded in the parish records. Members of Joseph’s family including his father had settled in Laprairie area after 1763.

Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet would have  10 more children in Lacadie and in Laprairie where they moved in the 1780's. Anne died 10 days after giving birth to their youngest child in 1790 and Charles in 1798. Both are buried in Lacadie. They never saw Salome their  granddaughter my 2nd great grandmother born there to their son Antoine and his wife Josephte Montminy in 1822.

Acadian Explusion: a family scattered

Contemporary painting of another Acadian town being burnt - Thomas Davies 1758*

On a summer day in 1755 my 4^th great grandfather Charles Dupuis, age 9 watched from shipboard as everything he knew receded over the horizon. He, with 10 of his brothers and sisters, their spouses, uncles, aunts and cousins watched in horror as British soldiers set fire to their farm houses and barns. He left behind the graves of his parents Antoine and Marie Josephte Dugas who died when he was only a year old. He would be the only one of his family who would return to what had been French territory. Before that he would be a refugee in the British colonies of North America.

My great grandmother Adeline Raymond pictured on the right,  was descended from many of the original settlers of L'Acadie. (modern Nova Scotia)  Her mother was listed as "Sally Wells" on US records. I knew she was French and eventually discovered that her real name was Salome Dupuis, daughter of Antoine Dupuis resident of Lacadie, a small town south of Montreal in the Richelieu valley. Her paternal grandparents Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet were both born in L' Acadie - he is Grand Pre in 1746 and she in Port Royal around 1750. Hence both as children would have been witnesses to the expulsions and emigrations from Acadie which began in the late 1740's and escalated 1755-1762. It is unlikely that Salome knew her grandparents as both died before she was born. Did she learn of the exodus from stories passed down in her family? If so did she pass them on to Adelaide?

The fate of the children of Antoine Dupuis and Marie Josephe Dugas, parents of Charles, gives a sample of the various places of deportation and emigration experienced by families in L’Acadie. Antoine and Marie both died in Grand Pre in 1747 right before the Acadian Expulsion known as L’Grand Derangement. My ancestor Charles, twin brothers Joseph and Jean Baptiste and sister Euphrosine were all under 10 when the parents died and likely were taken into the homes of older married brothers and sisters.

Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet had lived under British rule all their lives.  Britain ruled L'Acadie since 1713, before both of their births. Their ancestors had settled this area in the early 17th century.  After the British takeover initially their families' lives on their prosperous farms had continued as before. The "Great Meadow" had rich farmland that had been reclaimed from the sea by a system of dikes. In 1730 the Acadians swore an oath of allegiance to the British on condition they would not have to fight the French or their Native allies. But toward the end of the 1740's there was unrest in the area due to British insistence on an unconditional oath of allegiance. Wars being fought far away in Europe had repercussions on the land of L'Acadie. Unrest spread and between 1749-1755 active armed resistance to British rule spread throughout the area.

The 11 living Dupuis children (which included two sets of twins) their spouses and children were scattered through the British colonies and England. The names of Charles' brothers, uncles, cousins, brothers-in-law all appear on the list of men scheduled for deportation in 1755. Some of these colonies were hospitable to the refugees but others resented having these families thrust upon them - French speaking and Catholics in an English speaking and Protestant colony. Those who went to England fared worse since they were regarded as enemy combatants and prisoners of war. Three of Charles siblings were sent to England: Francoise Osite Dupuis, her husband Honore Daigle, their children, his brother Jean Baptiste age 10, and eldest sister Marie Josephe Dupuis with her children and  husband Pierre Theriot. Of these Francoise died in England as well as brother -in-law Pierre.

Older brother Antoine Dupuis, wife Marguerite Boudrot and family were sent to New York. Simon-Pierre, wife Marie LeBlanc and children may also have originally been sent to New York but made their way to Connecticut with widowed sister Marguerite Dupuis Boudrot, Charles and sister Euphrosine. His  sister Marie Anne and husband Michel Boudrot were deported to Portabac in Maryland Joseph Herbert and wife Madeliene Dupuis were sent with their teenage children to an unknown British colony perhaps New York with Jean Baptiste's twin Joseph.  Later, after Madeliene's death,  they wind up in Connecticut where he will meet and marry my 5th great grandmother Anne Bourg widow of Jean Doucet, parents of Anne Doucet who would later marry Charles Dupuis. (but that is a story for another blog entry)

When the war between France and Britian ended with a treaty in 1763 the Acadian exiles were free to move to more congenial locations. Between that date and 1767 siblings and their families went to the French speaking island of Dominique (present day Haiti) in the Carribean. Antoine and wife  baptized their children born in New England in Mirebas. Both  parents  died and were buried in Mirebas. Some of their children would continue on to Louisiana. A Spanish colony in 1765 it was especially hospitable to Catholic immigrants seeing them as a bulwark against the British. Acadians who stayed in Dominique were forced to more again during the Haitian Revolt and many moved to  Louisiana which was once again French and back to the former British colonies now the United States.  Marie Dupuis Boudrot and family  brother Joseph, Marguerite Dupuis Boudrot and children,  also sought refuge in Louisiana. Marie Anne Dupuis widow of Michael Boudrot deported to Portabac Maryland went with her family to Louisiana. In 1802 with the Louisana purchase that territory became part of the expanding United States.

Those in England went to France: eldest sister Marguerite Dupuis Theriot  now widowed, her children and Jean Baptiste age 21. In 1767 they were among 78 Acadian families living on the island Belle-Ile-en-Mer off the coast of Brittany. It is from an affidavit sworn by her that much of the information about the family migrations is known. Those in France were often disappointed because the French government did not live up to promises of land and support for the refugees. Some Theriot children who went to France eventually wound up returning to the New World and settling in Louisiana. Jean Baptiste died, unmarried in France in 1783.

 Of the 11 living children of Antoine and Marie Josephte only my ancestor Charles found his way back north after being deported to Connecticut. While in Connecticut he met and married Anne Doucet (her family story will be another blog entry)  In 1769 he came back to former French territory with his new wife and some of her relatives,  to have their 1768 marriage blessed in the newly founded town of Lacadie, Quebec. This town was founded by Acadian refugees and its church Ste Margaret of Blainfindie has the records of the many descendants of Charles including my 3rd great grandmother Salome Dupuis.

This summary of the fate of Antoine Dupuis and Marie Josephte Dugas' children is a microcosm of the Acadian Expulsion - to the British  colonies, to France, England and the French Caribbean islands and eventually migration back to French Canada and Louisiana.

* http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/artwork_e.jsp?mkey=3755

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DNA revisited: Viking, Visigoths and assorted others!

After receiving an initial DNA ethnic profile I puzzled over the combination of British Isles, Scandinavian, Southern European and assorted unknowns that my Irish and French Canadian ancestors seemed to have passed on to me. A refinement of the profile is even more interesting: As was no surprise my DNA profile comes from Europe 97%, with the remaining 3%  2% West Asia (Caucasus) and 1% Central Asia. The bulk of the ancestry is Irish 68% which still is a bit of a mystery - since some of that DNA should come from my father who was French Canadian. The rest is scattered over three regions Italy/Greece10%, Europe West 5%, and Scandinavia 5% Iberian Peninsula 3% Great Britain 3% Europe East 2% , Finnish/Northern Russia< 1%, and European Jewish< 1%.  All of those ethnic markers leave room for the Vikings and the Visigoths which I speculated about in an earlier blog entry, But it contains some interesting twists for example the European Jewish trace.

My candidates for the lines producing some of these DNA traces could be: Raymond dit Toulouse line. The ancestor who immigrated to the new World was a soldier named Jean Baptiste Bertrand dit Raymond dit Toulouse son of Raymond Bertrand from the city of Toulouse. That area would have been the meeting place of southern European DNA (Romans, Visigoths, Greeks). Plus I am twice descended from this line with both of my paternal great-grandmothers being Raymonds.

It is interesting that the profiles of others with similar DNA have a large amount of Acadian surnames from my Dupuis side. Some genealogists speculate that this population had a percentage of both Scottish and British mixture. My Melancon line is supposed to have originated in Scotland and from the city of Quebec I am descended through at least two of the daughters of Abraham Martin nicknamed "the Scotsman".  Of course there is always the soldier Jose Bertrand from Valladolid Spain, ancestor on  my Dad's side for the dash of Iberian pennisula.  Irish legends have my Celtic ancestors migrating through the area now known as Spain as well.

On a recent visit to France I visited the Paris Museum of Jewish Art and History. In the Marais where the  Museum is located there has been a Jewish community since the middle ages. Since many of my ancestors came from Paris and area around the city including the Marais district this could have been the connection.

The 3% that is not European is divided into West Asia 2% (Caucasus2%) and
Asia Central< 1%.  I still have hopes that some of the Asia central was through my (documented) Native American ancestry and a bit disappointed that they didn't pass on more.

Sarmartian soldiers

The Caucasus was equally a surprise. Since I just visited Turkey (and loved it) traveling through this same area it was nice to know some of my DNA made its way from there to Europe. An Internet search for how some Turkish DNA might have found its way to northern Europe led me to the Sarmartian solders who served in the Roman Legions. They were fierce warriors respected by their enemies the Romans. So much so, that in 147 C.E. after defeating them, Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius enlisted 8,000 in his legions. 5,500 cavalrymen were sent to the north of England around York on the Scottish border. When there service was over Roman soldiers were often given land and remained where they had served, marrying into the local population. Wonder if that is how DNA from Turkey found its way into my family tree?


It is fun to speculate!

Strays: Unexpected ancestors

Lost in Limerick

Finding the Irish ancestors once you get "over the pond" can be difficult if not impossible. My Shea and Farrell side are from Limerick according to information on a family gravestone and family oral tradition. Tracking them down was a combination of serendipity and detective work.

Mary Agnes Shea and granddaughter

Michael Shea and wife Mary Agnes Farrell left Ireland with (according to family tradition) their daughter Mary Bridget, my great grandmother. She was too young to remember Ireland or the voyage. They had at least 5 or 6 other children. Tracking the census information on all of the children led to the discovery that Mary Bridget's brother Michael was also born in Ireland. There is another Shea family in St. Johnsbury VT where Michael and Mary Agnes settled: Patrick Shea and wife Hannah Haley. They are buried in St. Johnsbury and were researched to see if there was a connection. So far none has been proved.

During the famine many ships went from Limerick directly to Canada. Since Canada was part of Britain the passage was cheaper.  No statistics exist on how many people in the Limerick area died during the famine. Nationally, the population declined by an average of 20%, half of whom died and half emigrated. While the Great Famine reduced the population of County Limerick  by 70,000, the population of the City actually rose slightly, as people fled to the workhouses Ships berthed on the Limerick quaysides ready to transport produce from one of the most fertile parts of Ireland, the Golden Vale , to the English ports. Francis Spaight, a Limerick merchant, farmer, British magistrate and ship owner, recorded 386,909 barrels of oats, and 46,288 barrels of wheat being shipped out of Limerick between June 1846 and May 1847. Giving evidence to a British parliament  select committee  inquiring into the famine, Spaight said that: "I found so great an advantage of getting rid of the pauper population upon my own property that I made every possible exertion to remove them ... I consider the failure of the potato crop to be the greatest possible value in one respect in enabling us to carry out the emigration system." The same quaysides were the departure point for many emigrant ships sailing over the Atlantic. (see the Wikipedia article on Limerick)

Immigrants were often promised that they would receive help on arrival but this was usually not forthcoming. Walking over the border into Vermont was possible and tempting. Once the railroad started running between NH and VT and Canada that was another way immigrants arrived. In a report by the trustees of a Vermont "poor farm" (a place for indigent people where they assisted with farm work in return for board and room) in the 1850's it expressed alarm at the influx of immigrants. The trustees felt they were coming just to take advantage of the benefits offered by the county poor farm. Some men left their families in Canada and went ahead of them. Since the Shea family wound up in Caledonia Co. Vermont on the east side of the state it is possible that they crossed  into Newport, Orleans Co. They were one of the lucky families if they did come through Canada. Many of those immigrants wound up in quarantine on Grosse Isle and died there from fever. Fear of immigrants was also connected to a fear that they brought contagious diseases.

The first census of a family that fits them is in 1850 in Newbury, Orange Co, Vermont.   Michael O'Shay 34 b. Ireland 1816, Mary O'Shay 34 born Ireland 1816, John 10 b. 1840 Ireland, Mary 7 born 1843,  Ireland, Michael 4 born Ireland 1846 and Bridget 1 born Vermont 1849. This would give them an arrival date of 1847 Ages and names fit except for eldest and youngest. No death record has been found for Bridget but it would explain a John mentioned in the will of Michael Shea in 1881. (Mary was Mary Bridget) This census also has a  Patrick and Hannah Haley Shay spelled Chay - they live near the O'Shay family in Newbury. They also movcd down to St. Johnsbury. On their gravestone it notes their origin in Ballysheane, Co. Clare. (not far from the Limerick border).

By 1860 both families are living in or near St. Johnsbury. Michael and his family are in Lydon on a farm near the city which remained in the family until the 1920's. Their name gets mangled in the census and appears as Chay.  He is listed as 33 but was probably older. He is a RR laborer. Mary b. 1843-44 is listed as born in Ireland and the other children in Vt. (Later evidence shows that 2 children were born in Ireland) There is no John listed in the family but a John P. Shay age 21 is living in Lyndon in John Darling's hotel  that year. His occupation is painter and his birthplace is listed as Canada East.  Michael owns $1200 worth of real estate in 1870 and is listed as a farmer.  According to family oral tradition Mary Agnes was a midwife as was her daughter Mary Bridget. Both spoke Irish and Mary Bridget absorbed many of the Irish folklore and stories which she passed to her children. She believed in the "little people" and would leave some milk by the door for them. (Making neighborhood cats very happy)

The most important clue to exactly where in Limerick the family came was an "Missing Friends" ad in the Boston Pilot which read: "MICHAEL FARRELL, of parish Mungret, 2 miles from the city of Limerick, who sailed from Limerick in ship Clare, in July, `50. He wrote to his mother about 9 months ago, when he was in Creamwell, Paulding co, Ohio. Please address his sisters Bridget Flanagan and Mary O`Shea, care of Mich Flanagan, St Johnsbury, Vt.  Sept 22, 1855 "  http://infowanted.bc.edu/.  

The ad may indicate that Catherine Farrell their mother was living with or near the Flanagan or Shea families since it refers to a letter received in 1855 from Ohio. A ship passenger list for the Clare arriving on  August 23, 1850 from Limerick Ireland into NYC were John Farrell 13, Mary age 40 and Michael age 22 .  Michael would fit the profile as would his brother John. Is the Mary his older sister Mary Margaret? There is a death record for a Catherine Farrell born 1792 who dies in Burlington in 1857. While this might fit Catherine Supple Farrell her husband is listed as Murt not Michael.

I had no record for my Mary Agnes that showed her parents but when Bridget Farrell Flanagan died Vermont death records list her parents  as Michael and Kate. Unfortunately early records from the parish of Mungret are not available but from the clues in this ad, a search of Limerick records database through brsgenealogy.com  yielded   a Bridget, Margaret and Ellen whose father is Michael and mother is Catherine Supple -b. 1817, 1814 and 1820 in Ballybricken and Bohermore Limerick. (not far from Mungret about 8 miles from Limerick City)   Her sister, Mary Agnes , born  earlier (1812-16) does not appear. The same site gave me the baptism records in Mungret for several of Bridget's children (she and her husband Michael Flanigan were married in Ireland. The same parish had Michael Shea, son of Michael and Mary Farrell baptized in September of 1845. No records were available for his older sister Mary Bridget Shea. Since the records start about that time the marriage record for my great great grandparents will probably not be retrievable but it is likely it was around 1840.

Mungret today is a suburb of the city of Limerick http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/mun004.pdf had almost 3500 inhabitants in the 19th century when the Sheas and Flanagans lived there. It was on the road to Adare.  One of the earliest monastic settlements was founded here going back into the earliest days of Christianity here. In the middle ages there was a large abbey with six churches and as many as 1500 monks. The abbey was a magnet for Viking raids and was destroyed at least 5 times between the 9th and 11th century by Vikings, fire and other raiders. For Mungret map see: http://www.maplandia.com/ireland/mid-west/limerick/mungret/.

Ballybricken and Bothermore were farming areas eight miles from Limerick City. http://ukga.org/ireland/Limerick/towns/CahirellyorBallybricken.html  It was smaller than Mungret having about 1400 inhabitants. A mid 19th century description writes: "CAHIRELLY, or BALLYBRICKEN, a parish, in the barony of CLANWILLIAM, county of LIMERICK, and province of MUNSTER, 8 miles (S. S. E.) from Limerick; containing 1346 inhabitants. This place appears to be of considerable antiquity, and its church is said to have been founded by St. Ailbe, Bishop of Emly, in the time of St. Patrick; it would also appear to have attained an early degree of importance, as three castles were erected within its limits. The parish is situated on the river Comogue, by which it is bounded on the south; the mail coach road from Limerick to Cork passes within a quarter of a mile of its western extremity; and it is intersected from north to south by the road from Limerick to Hospital. It comprises 2636 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act, of which 33 acres are roads and waste, and the remainder arable, pasture, and meadow land, of which last a great portion is frequently overflowed by the river. the western portion is rich grazing land, mostly belonging to large dairy farms, and the greater part of the eastern portion is in the occupation of small farmers, and is generally cultivated by spade labour. "