My great grandmother (b about 1800) was a Hennessy from Ballylanders, Limerick, Ireland. Mary Hennessy was the daughter of John Hennessy and Mary Hayes. While attempting to track the ancestors of Mary Hennessy, I joined several cousins who were working to the same end. Some of them were the descendants of Mary Hennessy and some were the descendants of Mary Hennessy's sister Winifred.
We decided to pool our resources and see if we could determine who was who. In my experience, the Irish have a propensity to call everyone cousin, especially if the came from the same county and were acquainted with each other. Actually they probably were cousins when you think about it.
A Timothy Hennessy of Chicago had written a history of the Hennessy family of Counties Cork and Tipperary in 1954. This history began with birth, about 1700, of Timothy Hennessy in Dagan, County Cork.
As we combined our information, we were able to establish a 10 generation Hennessy Family Tree. It consists of 588 individuals and covers a span of 311 years. The family migrated from Cork and Limerick to Chicago, Houston, California, and Australia. There are 8 Timothys, 7 Thomas', 9 Michaels, and 7 James' and 8 Johns. 7 Marys and 5 Alices add to the confusion. Just to make it more difficult, about 1820 (+/- 10 years) Alice Hennessy (duaghter of John Hennessy and Mary Hayes) married Timothy Hennessy (son of Thomas Hennessy and Bridget Cleary).
Is the John Hennessy who married Mary Hayes an ancestor of Timothy Hennessy who married Alice Hayes? If not, where did he come from. This tree is not sourced and may never be due to the state of Irish records, but we do know the villages/parishes to look at for proof. What will we find.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteWould one of those named James have immigrated to the United States between 1833 and 1838 along with his wife Mary, daughter Bridget and (maybe) a son Patrick? James and family settled in Paw Paw, Van Buren, Michigan and had a number of children, including George H. Hennessy, b. abe 1849 in Paw Paw.
I truly am trying to get enough information to know from which county and parish these people came, but have been unsuccessful to date. Hope you can help.
Thank you.
JK Standish
Please contact my g-mail account and I will share the file of the Hennessys that I created. There were Hennessys that immigrated to Michigan in the 1840s but I didn't see a James. The 1880 census might help to isolate the year of immigration. My Irish ALWAYS said they were from the "Free Irish State" on the census. They never said Ireland.
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