Daniel McCavitt was a little trickier to track down at first. I found U.S. immigration papers that give his birthdate as July 15th, 1898. He was still in County Down for the 1911 Census, as were his sisters Rose and Maggie, although Maggie was to cross the Atlantic herself soon thereafter. The Census official took…
[Note: for some reason I did not publish this post, but I've forgotten why. Maybe I was barking up the wrong tree, so bear with me if that's the case. I need to get back into the Maggie/Willie story and finish it up. Did Maggie die in 1934?? I found their marriage record -in Annaclone,…
Elizabeth "Lizzie" McCavitt was one of the 8 McCavitt children born to James and Bridget in the years spanning 1883-1895. Her younger sister Mary -my great-grandaunt- left County Down and settled in Chicago as a young woman. Elizabeth's emigration story also takes her to the United States, but she ends up in the West, in…
At the risk of harping on a theme, I'm going to write some more about the McCavitts - the family of my great grandmother, Susan McCavitt Hughes. Of Susan's siblings, Mary, Elizabeth and Daniel all went to America. Starting with what we already know, Susan Philomena McCavitt (b.1890 d.1947) was daughter of Bridget Byrne and…
Lizzie Grogan was Henry Curran’s first wife, before he married Cathleen Poland and mother to Johnny Curran - my great grandfather Topper. I hadn’t done any research on the Grogans, so I jumped in. Lizzie was born in Dungannon in 1872. She died in 1898 in Newry at the age of 25, after a week…
This is where I left off on my search for Susan, my great grandmother, having found a marriage record that seemed to point towards her: The date is January 9th 1917, which is about right, since Granny Curran/Mary was born in 1919. Patrick is a railwayman, his father James is a labourer, and Susan’s sister…
My last post on Granny Curran (Mary Ellen Hughes) led down an interesting but inconclusive path, the story of Mary's grandparents dying young of TB, leaving her mother Susan to live with her uncle/aunt. Susan's marriage details seem a bit off, though, so I went back into my notes to take another look. For a…
[Update: I've been going back through my notes to look at the Susan v Sarah question, which may render the family story below interesting, but perhaps not ours. More to come, here @McKevitts 2.0!] I've been digging around to see if I can confirm any details of my grandmother's (Mary Hughes Curran) maternal line. I…
Having already worked out that Topper/John Curran had served in the 4th Royal Irish Rifles around the time of WW1, it's been interesting to find that his father, Henry, also served in the Rifles. A reference on FamilySearch.org referred to the British Army Militia Record for 1888, which suggested Henry served in the 6th Battalion Royal…
This is what I have managed to piece together. I am 90% sure that this male line is correct, going back to Henry Curran who was born in 1823, and his wife Elizabeth Wood (b.1821) - almost 200 years. This is pretty good going, I think, given how tough it can be to trace…
A Curran History 