What happened to Mary Nolan ??

Finally I am back on the trail of Mary Nolan and her son Robert James Logie and following on from my last entry, we will endeavour to find out what happened to her.

We last found Mary Nolan in the 1900 US Census, where she was living with her parents, Thomas and Ellen and son Robert James. Here she was listed as being a Widow but lets go back a little first to see what we can find about her marriage or if we can find a record of one.

I have assumed she married Robert's father, Thomas Logie around the year of 1892 and  so far have been unable to trace a marriage certificate or record.  Thomas Logie is said to have been born in Michigan, this has been mentioned several times throughout census entries.

Thus this leaves us without any actual record of Mary's marriage to Thomas Logie.

It has been recorded in a census extract that Mary had 6 children with 1 living only and this morning I may have had a little break though in perhaps finding a couple of entries detailing the birth/christening of some Logie children to a Thomas and Mary.

Name	Logie
Gender	Male
Birth Date	28 May 1885
Birthplace	St. Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota
Race	White
Father's Name	Thomas Logie
Father's Birthplace	Michigan
Mother's Name	Mary
Mother's Birthplace	Ireland

Name	Logie
Gender	Male
Birth Date	28 May 1886
Birthplace	Saint Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota
Race	White
Father's Name	Thomas
Father's Birthplace	U.S.
Mother's Name	Mary
Mother's Birthplace	Ireland

These details can be freely accessed here https://familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Athomas%7E%20%2Bsurname%3Alogie%7E%20%2Brecord_country%3A%22United%20States%22&collection_id=1680827

These maybe some of the missing children belonging to Mary & Thomas, but NOTE  I do say maybe and the repetition of the birth dates does not do much for verification.


Mary's only surviving child Robert James Logie was born on the 28th November 1887 in Minnesota, this birthdate is taken from his WWI Draft Card.

Taking the previous 1900 US Census information into account where we see Mary is listed as a Widow we can assume that Thomas Logie died somewhere during the period of 1887 - 1900. Though I have found no factual record of a death for him at all.

I will take a break for now and continue on with Mary next time. Time for a much needed coffee I think.

Thank goodness for the US Census - finally found some Nolan family data

The plot thickens with trying to get down to actually finding some concrete evidence in regards to the Nolan family and their  whereabouts in Minnesota after the 1880 Census

I finally stumbled across some information from the  1890/1891 St Paul Minnesota Directories 

Here is what I found listed as follows:

Thomas Nolan 240 Sherburne Ave, Labourer.

Not a lot I know but I am pretty sure this is our Thomas Nolan.

The 1900 US Census reveals a little more info on the family, though no sign of my great grandfather John  it seems. I cant make out the address on the actual census form and will need some help from an expert to decipher it. The street number is 334.

 



Household	Role	Gender	Age	Birthplace
Thomas Nolan	Head	M	68	IRELAND
Helen Nolan	Wife	F	65	IRELAND
Mary Logie	Daughter	F	35	MINNESOTA
Robert J Logie	Grandson	M	13	MINNESOTA

Upon studying the image a few more details can be revealed,
Extra details determined are :
Thomas  Nolan
States his birth year and month as being 1832, December.
35 years married
Immigration year to the US 1860
Occupation Labourer
11 months not employed
Can not read or write.
Dwelling is rented  and is a house
Helen Nolan
States her birth year and month as being 1835,April.
35 years married
1 child living
Immigration year to the US 1860
Can not read or write.
Mary Logie
States her birth year and month as being 1865, December, birthplace Minnesota.
Lists herself as a widow
8 years married
6 children with only 1 living
Occupation Domestic
2 months not employed
Can  read and write.
Robert J Logie
States his birth year and month as being 1887, November
Father born Michigan
At school
Attended school 9 months of the year .
Can read or write.

The image can be viewed here https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-6W3K-9K?mode=g&i=5&wc=9B7W-CXM%3A1031098701%2C1032507701%2C1034503601%3Fcc%3D1325221&cc=1325221


Wow now getting your head around all these new snippets of information is a tricky business. Once again look at the variations from my previous details.

Ellen is recorded as Helen - that totally threw me but it is more likely an error or she may have just decided to change her name lol.
Daughter Mary records her birth place as being Minnesota. ????

Next time I will endeavour to follow Mary Nolan and her son Robert and see where that leads me.




Hope you have enjoyed the longer read today and as Arnie says "I will be BACK"

A new home - Nolan family to America

Following on from my last blog we now have Thomas and Ellen Nolan and their daughter Mary embarking on their journey to America. As previously stated I believe they arrived via Canada, but that is  only my assumption based on various opinions and views.

Unfortunately no departure lists exist in Ireland or Britain for that period and  authorities were more concerned with people entering the country, not departing it. Therefore no information detailing there departure is available to be found.

Most immigrants arrived in Canada via  the ports of Quebec and Halifax, although many came to New York and then travelled to Canada by way of the Hudson River, Erie Canal and Great Lakes.

There a no comprehensive lists of immigrants arriving in Canada prior to 1865, shipping companies were not required by the government to keep their passenger lists.

Right lets get going with what we actually know from published  documents.



View of St. Paul, Ramsey County, M.N., 1888
Fig 1  
 

Our first actual record in the US for the Nolan family is in the 1880 US Census. 

        

US CENSUS - city of St Paul - county of Ramsay - state of Minnesota.

Enumerated on the 1st of June 1880

Household	Role	Gender	Age	Birthplace
Thomas Nolan	Self	M	45	Ireland
Ellen Nolan	Wife	F	45	Ireland
John Nolan	Son	M	12	Minnesota, United States
Mary Nolan	Daughter	F	19	Ireland
Cornelius O'Conner	Other	M	29	Ireland

The family are living at 8 Chestnut St, St Paul, Minnesota.
Thomas is listed as a Labourer and we also have the first mention of his son, John, who is my great grandfather.
Both Thomas and Ellen are indicated as neither being able to read or write and that their parent's were all born in Ireland.
John is listed as having attended school within the census year and Cornelius O'Connor is a boarder with the family.

The details listed somewhat verify Mary's birthplace as being Ireland and give an approximate birthdate of 1861.

The actual record can be viewed here online at https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYBN-B9J?wc=QZ2W-YYH%3A1589406338%2C1589399260%2C1589402393%2C1589394841%3Fcc%3D1417683&cc=1417683

I know I have jumped ahead to 1880 and missed providing the birth details of John Nolan but I wanted to introduce him via the census information as it gives us a date and place of birth and something to work with and its my first actual factual document on the family.

Stay tuned for some more information in my next entry and even some family hearsay gossip.
Everyone loves abit of gossip lol.

Fig 1 - The map here can be purchased here at
http://www.worldmapsonline.com/historicalmaps/1W-MN-SP-1906.htm

Thomas and Ellen Nolan - getting to know you

Ok lets get down to it.

What do we know. ????? I want to build you a picture of him and his wife  and what led to them leaving their homeland.

Thomas was born around 1833 in Ireland, I have no details as to a county at all, as Ireland is his place of birth listed on all documents from the USA.
He married an Ellen in Ireland approximately around the year of  1859.
Ellen's approximate birth year is said to be 1835.

Thomas and Ellen had a daughter Mary Nolan born 23rd December 1860 in Ireland . Mary's birth has not been verified and once again the variations through out all the US census entries just throws it all out of whack.

The family immigrated to America (USA) or North British America (known now as Canada)  between the years of 1860-1861.



 Mahoney's sketch
of the woman and child in 1847
Fig 1

Lets go back to Ireland though and set the scene. We all have read about the horrific Potato Famine from 1845 -1849. Leading up to this period almost two thirds of the eight million Irish people depended on agriculture and the single crop of the potato for their survival. The year of 1846 bought a devastating disease  called Blight which along with unusually cool moist weather and a strain of Phytophthora,  caused the disease to flourish and decimate full crops causing utter starvation to a high percentage of the population. This continued annually for successive years and it claimed the lives of over one million Irish people from starvation.
After successive crop failures over a period of years a mass exodus of the Irish people began.  It is said that one million Irish immigrated to America alone.


At the time of the beginning of the famine in Ireland, Thomas would of been roughly 12 years of age and Ellen about 10 years old. I could not imagine the grief and desperation that they both would of had to endure during this period of their lives.



Sailing Ship Around The Period Of 1860
Fig 2

Next we jump a few years and I will take you to the 1860's era and give you a little information  on immigration to America. There were two directions that you could of travel through.  One being a transatlantic voyage to the East Coast Ports, mainly Boston and New York and the other  by land or sea to Canada, which was then called British North America.
At this time Ireland was still part of Britain and fares to Canada were a lot cheaper than fares to the USA.


I have only surmised that Thomas and Ellen would of chosen the Canadian route as they eventually settled in Minnesota in the USA and that is a border state with Canada. As Canada was not an independent nation and still a British Territory Irish immigrants did not need  to apply for Naturalisation because they were British subjects already.

Well what have we summarised today.

I feel like I have only provided mainly assumptions in this blog however I have tried to build a picture of what life would of been like for Thomas and Ellen in Ireland and why they felt they had to emigrate to the Americas in search of a better life.

How sad it must have been for them to leave all their extended families behind knowing that they might never see them again.

Note : All information is provided concerning the Potato Famine and the emigration of the Irish people has been summarised from reading through some fabulous sites. I have listed a few here if you would like to do some extra reading.

http://www.irishamericanjourney.com/
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/america.htm
http://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Famine-Irish-history
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/irishfamine.htm

Fig 1 - A sketch completed by the artist James Mahoney who was living in Cork, Ireland. In early 1847 he was asked by the Illustrated London News to tour the surrounding countryside and report on what he saw.
Fig 2 - Picture courtesy of  http://www.irishamericanjourney.com/



 

Plan Of Attack - a genealogy must

Where to begin ?????


Well after going though all my files and data I have decided to focus on one side of the family at a time. One big word


FOCUS



I have a slight problem with drifting off track and diverting to other tasks, so this little picture here will keep me on task.

Do you thinks she looks like me. LOL




I have chosen my Nolan family line to commence with. One reason behind this is that my Mums sisters and brothers are all big supporters of me continuing on with the research and writing a book.
They love hearing all the new information and I love our catch-ups at Aunty Joan's house.
Many theories and old hearsay rumours have been assessed at these meetings and a good old laugh occurs always.


The data displayed here in this image below details the Nolan line and you can clearly see where I have some gaps to fill.

 

Perhaps the most logical place to commence is with Thomas Nolan (my ggrandfather) and his wife Mary. I think this might be one of my biggest stumbling blocks and its going to take some digging for sure.

 

Now its off to start the delving ......................

 

 

 

Read and Refresh - the 2 R's when it comes to family history

With a nice strong coffee in hand and my favourite recliner chair wound back I made a start on my re-reading of my records and files. Two hours later, I was still going and decided I needed to put a halt to it as it was getting close to tea time and hungry mouths were calling me.



What I found is that I am quite organised as to how I store my hard copy files but its my online data that needs some sort of  system. What a must this is in the world we live in, I need to be able to access this data as fast as possible, not search and go through a mountain of discs to find what I want.


Do I use an external hard drive or copy everything over to my Dropbox account. ????
I will need to check out other storage options at a later date, but now I need to make a decision as to which way to go. I am leaning towards Dropbox because I can access that on both my phone and tablet.

Going through my hard copy files brought out many emotions. One being WOW, I have actually amassed quite a lot of information.
I also came across a few pages of Nans infamous Snake Stories, what a read, she was indeed a brilliant story teller and writer. Hopefully you can have a read here with page 1 shown.


So my brain is now familiar again with where I am up to in my research and what's missing.


The next process is to set out a research plan to empower myself with the updated resources so I can follow along with my missing links.

The Bug Is Back - the family history one that is.

Well I finally discovered on Sunday that the good old family history bug is back with me. Yes its BACK.



How and why now is a mystery but it just feels like the time is right to continue on with my research and write it all down.


Who knows I might drop off the perch tomorrow and all my past research and knowledge might be lost. :(


I started researching when I was 16 years old and I am now 49. Whoa is feels like a lifetime ago and I have kept almost all of my handwritten letters and notes from all those years ago.
Now everything is done on computers but I still have some of treasures.


Who started me on my quest at aged 16,  well it was my dear Nan and Grandad. Listening to their stories and recollections is where I developed my  passion for wanting to know where I came from. I was like a sponge and spent most of my childhood in their company just soaking any story telling up and asking a million and one questions to them both. Nan had already begun a bit of research herself and had kept a good collection of photo's and family hearsay. So I had a good start and just had to continue on where she left off. How lucky was I !!!!!

On one occasion Grandad was so busy telling me a story that I had to stop him at one point and say "Grandad your shoes are smoking" Lol he had put his feet to close to the heater and he got carried away with the story and forgot about his feet, he felt the cold so much. So he had smoky shoes for a few hours. But we had a good old belly laugh and continued on.

What memories :)

Looking forward to getting my reading on this afternoon and refreshing my brain as to where I am up to with it all. So I will brew the coffee and find a calm place.