52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 40 "10"

This week’s prompt is “10”. 10 whatever and coincidentally this month I stumbled across the 10^th child of my maternal grandparents.

It had always been said that my mother was one of ten children but finding all the documentation has proven difficult. It shouldn’t have been, they didn’t move around, I knew where they went to church, it was a time when good recordkeeping was happening, but it was difficult.

He was the ninth child born to Alice Fleming and Michael Connery in late November of 1910. He would have been the child closest in age to my mother.

One of the complicating factors was that there were two men named Michael Connery living in the same area of Chicago in the relevant time period. They both belonged to the same parish where their children were being baptized during  the same time frame.

As I was doing other research on the family, there it was, the record of the death of “Baby Boy” Connery who was both born and died on 28 November 1910.[i]

Page in list of burials 1910 Archdiocese of Chicago.

Cemetery records from the Archdiocese of Chicago tell us that the premature Infant Connery is buried in lot 10, block 2 of Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. The baby had died and was buried on 28 Nov 1910 and the associated address was 4140 Washington Blvd.. The service was officiated by Fr J P McDonnell.[ii]

A search of the baptism records for St Mel Parish on Washington Blvd in Chicago does not yield a record of the Infant Connery being baptized on 28 Nov 1910, so he was probably baptized at birth by the doctor or a nurse which is commonly done if a baby born to Catholic parents is in danger of death. 

This child would have been the fourth son born to Alice Fleming and Michael Connery and without finding the death record, he would have remained unknown to us since he never appeared in a birth record or census.

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[i] "Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers, 1871-1915," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7DL-D2T : 11 March 2018), Connery, 28 Nov 1910; citing p. 58, Ln 2840, , Cook County Courthouse, Chicago; FHL microfilm 1,315,049.

[ii] "Illinois, Archdiocese of Chicago, Cemetery Records, 1864-1989," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2HF-184H : 11 March 2018), Connery, 28 Nov 1910; citing Hillside, Cook, Illinois, United States, Mount Carmel, Archidiocese of Chicago; FHL microfilm 1,763,394.