Katherine ODonnell and Her Family

Seven years ago I asked for additional information on Kathryn ODonnell (1858-1939). She was a sister of my great great grandfather, Patrick Francis ODonnell (1856-1931).

Kathryn was born in Killybegs, County Donegal, Ireland. By her first husband, Charles Mason, she had two children, Margaret and John. She then remarried to Patrick Kennedy. She died in California in 1939. I had been able to track Margaret's moves, marriage, and child.

Finally fuller stories for Kathryn's son, John Mason, and her second husband, Patrick Kennedy, have come to light!

Spoiler alert: I have not found additional information on Charles Mason, the first husband. His first and only appearance is in the 1885 state census in New Jersey. 

New Jersey State Census, 1885. Bayonne, Hudson County.
Charles Mason, Irish male, age 20-60.
Kate Mason, Irish female, age 20-60.

In the 1900 census, Kathryn was in Brooklyn with her two children but no husband. A missing husband and widowhood either meant that he died or left the family.

1900 United States Federal Census
Brooklyn, Kings County, New York
Katie Mason and her two children, Margarite and John. She worked as a nurse.

Since writing the original article in 2018, indexes of deaths have come online for the State of New Jersey and Kings County, New York. I have not found a good match for Charles Mason. Indexes for deaths in the State of Connecticut do not start until 1897. If Charles died after Kathryn appeared as a widow in the 1900 census, this record could be anywhere.

Using the newspapers now available for searching online, I set out to discover when Kathryn acquired her second husband.

Newspaper article in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
November 27, 1914.
Widow of Patrick Kennedy to inherit his estate.

Patrick Kennedy was born about 1841 in Ireland. He married Ellen Callahan and they had one son, John, born around 1872. Patrick worked as a police officer in New York City. By 1900 he was retired and worked on his land in Connecticut as a farmer.

In 1911, Ellen died. In 1912, John shot his father, Patrick. John was unable to see or hear because of typhoid fever, an infection suffered when he was a child. Yet somehow he was able to purposely carry out this action.

Newspaper article. John Kennedy held in jail after shooting his father,
Patrick Kennedy, in Stratford, Connecticut. 1914.

Patrick was not expected to live. Enter Kathryn. She nursed him from the brink of death.

John Kennedy was sent to the Connecticut State Hospital for the Insane in Middletown, Middlesex County. He died there in 1930.

Patrick and Kathryn married in April of 1914. Patrick Kennedy died on November 22, 1914. Kathryn inherited one-third of his estate.

In 1920, Kathryn was still in Connecticut. She was living in Bridgeport with her son, John Mason. By 1930 she was living in California with her daughter and son-in-law, Margaret and James Joyce.

What became of John Daniel Mason, the son of Kathryn ODonnell and Charles Mason?

Searching newspapers led to the answers- probably. (The last death certificate I ordered from the State of Connecticut took one year to fulfill. Two years and counting for fulfillment by the City of Bridgeport.) John D Mason was buried in Saint Michael's Cemetery in Stratford - the same cemetery as Patrick Kennedy. He died July 31, 1932, age 43 years. "World War . . . Co. C. 319th Inf." is carved on the stone.

An obituary appeared in a few newspapers in Connecticut and Brooklyn. A mother and sister were mentioned but not by name.

Newspaper article 1932
Johnny Mason, dancer, died in alley in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Johnny Mason danced with Lew Dockstader (1856-1924) and George Primrose (1852-1919). Is this the same John Daniel Mason? Throughout his records he listed his occupation as a laborer.

Library of Congress
Primrose & Dockstader's Great American Minstrels

I also found advertisements for a boxer or fighter by the same name.

Ad in newspaper about a boxing fight.
Johnny Mason versus Eddie Mack.
October 30, 1922 in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

I was hoping to find pictures of John Mason. He performed with some well-known personalities. Perhaps he was an unnamed background actor in the vaudeville acts.

I will order the death certificate to see if the names of the parents are Kathryn ODonnell and Charles Mason. This could take a year for Connecticut to do.

So that is the story of Kathryn ODonnell's son, John Mason, and her second husband, Patrick Kennedy. Still missing is what became of her first husband, Charles Mason.

Tracing Another Sister of Patrick ODonnell

A death certificate from California confirmed that I accurately tracked a sister of my maternal great great grandfather, Patrick Francis ODonnell (1856-1931).

Patrick's obituary from the Bayonne Times listed a sister I did not know about: Kathryn Mason Kennedy of Stockton, California. (The mother of Reverend Charles Leo ODonnell was another sister, Mary.)

The earliest record I could find for Kathryn was the 1885 New Jersey State census in Bayonne. She was Kate Mason, living with Charles Mason.

In September of 1885 in Bayonne, Margaret Mason was born. I have not found a birth certificate for her filed with the State. She was baptized at Saint Mary's Church in Bayonne, which was frequently used by the family.

Kathryn's next appearance was in Brooklyn, New York in the 1900 federal census. She was widowed, age 48, with two children:

Magarite C Mason, born September 1885 in New Jersey; and
John D Mason, born April 1889 in Connecticut.

I do not know how accurate this is, but for the question of children, Kathryn had listed four children, three still living.

I have not found Kathryn in the 1910 federal census.


In the 1920 census, Catherine Kennedy, widowed, was living in Bridgeport, Fairfield County, Connecticut with John D Mason, age 30. Daughter Margaret was living in San Francisco, California with husband James Joyce.

In the 1930 census, Kathryn had joined her daughter in Stockton, San Joaquin County, California.

Catherine Kennedy died in Berkeley, Alameda County, California on September 20, 1939. Her parents were listed as Peter ODonnell and Margaret Gallagher of County Donegal, consistent with the records of her siblings. Catherine's place of birth was listed as Killybegs. From this I also learned that her husband's name was Patrick Kennedy.

This certificate arrived ten weeks after my request.

I do not know what became of Kathryn's two husbands, Charles Mason and Patrick Kennedy.

Kathryn's son, John Daniel Mason, served in World War I. He twice stayed in Togus, Maine at a National Home for Disabled Soldiers. I do not know what became of him.

Thank you MJ for the medical terminology

Kathryn's daughter, Margaret, had one daughter, Grace Catherine Joyce, born in 1917 in California. Grace married Robert John Duggan (1913-1991) and had children and grandchildren.

I would like to find out when and where Kathryn's husbands died and if she had more children.

An Exact Match for ODonnell Y-DNA

My ODonnell cousin has an exact match for his Y-DNA test at the 37 marker level at FamilyTreeDNA.

This surname of this Y-DNA cousin is not ODonnell or a variant.  FamilyTreeDNA provides a "Tip" report, estimating the chances that these two individuals share a common paternal line ancestor as we go back through the generations.  By the time we go back seven generations, there is a 95% chance that the lines will have merged.

This match can trace his direct paternal line back about two hundred years to the Isle of Bute in Scotland.  I can also trace back two hundred years, but land in Donegal, Ireland.  These two locations were near enough to be accessible around the year 1800.

If someone is knowledgeable about traveling in Ireland and Scotland in this time period, please weigh in.

Francis Patrick ODonnell was born about 1856 in Killybegs and came to New Jersey, United States, before 1880.  So the lines were separated by an ocean for three generations.  If they arise from the same ancestor, this merging will be found in the early 1800s or 1700s.

If this 37 marker Y-DNA match is related within seven generations, he may share autosomal DNA with any of my ODonnell relatives.  He has not done this type of DNA test, though.

My ODonnell cousin has thousands of matches in his Y-DNA results.  Even an exact match may not be a match at all because of convergence.  Markers change over time.  These two people may not be recently related, but rather their marker values could have mutated towards the same values and are now identical.

So far, there is only one ODonnell match at the 111 marker level.  This is the same person who was the initial top match at the 37 marker level.  Both testers upgraded to 111 markers and still match very closely, 106 out of 111 markers.  Two hundred years ago his ODonnell ancestors were in Boston, Massachusettes. 

Without other ODonnell cousins with similar Y-DNA markers, we cannot be secure in our placement as an ODonnell line based on markers alone.  In an upcoming article, I will demonstrate the necessity of using the markers of multiple distant cousins with my Duryea line.

New Ancestry Database: Social Security Applications and Claims Index

Ancestry added a new database, U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007.  For decades, the United States Social Security Death Index has greatly aided researchers tracing people born in the late 1800s forward.  Copies of the actual applications can be ordered directly from the Social Security Administration for a fee.  This new database goes beyond the Death Index.  I played around with it and noticed that many people listed in the Claims Index, but not in the Death Index.  Plus, the Claims Index can include names of parents- and parents are a search field!

The Claims Index is an excellent tool for figuring out what happened to someone when other trails run cold.  I'll use Grace Catherine Joyce to illustrate how to use the Claims Index to trace someone.

Grace Catherine Joyce was born January 9, 1917 in California to James William Joyce and Margaret Catherine Mason.  Grace was a second cousin to my maternal grandmother, Jeannette ODonnell (1920-1993).  Their common ancestors were their great grandparents, Peter ODonnell and Margaret Gallagher, who were probably born around 1820 in County Donegal, Ireland.  Jeannette descended from their son, Patrick Francis ODonnell (1856-1931).  Grace descended from their daughter, Kathryn.  I did not know about Kathryn until I read about her in Patrick's obituary in the Bayonne Times newspaper.

This obituary was printed in 1931, so I looked in the 1930 federal census for Kathryn Mason Kennedy in Stockton, California.

In 1930, Katherine Kennedy was residing in Stockton, California with her daughter, Margaret C; son-in-law, James W Joyce; and granddaughter, Grace.

Katherine was not easy to trace.  She moved a lot.  In the 1900 census, she was living in Brooklyn, New York, as the widowed Katie Mason.  Her children, Margarite and John, used the last name Mason.

I did not find Katherine in 1910.  In 1920, she was living in Bridgeport, Fairfield County, Connecticut, with her son, John Mason.  Between the 1920 and 1930 census, Katherine married a man by the name of Kennedy, was widowed, and moved to California to live with her daughter.

In the 1940 census, Katherine is not living with her daughter, Margaret; perhaps she has passed.  This is the end of the trail for Katherine's granddaughter, Grace C Joyce.  What became of her?

I tried the Claims Index for Grace Joyce.  I searched for someone whose father was James Joyce and mother was Margaret Mason.  Found her.

Grace Joyce married Robert Duggan and changed her last name, making it more difficult for me to find her.  But I did.  She died December 23, 2003 in California.

Grace had children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  I don't see Grace in any family trees, but I've added her to mine.

Irish Catholic Records: ODonnell and Gallagher in Donegal

If you have not heard, you can now access digital images of Catholic records on the website of the National Library of Ireland.

A lot of these images are not (currently) indexed.  Some parish pages have links to potential indexes.  You need to know where in Ireland you want to search.  The map is great.

For my maternal grandmother's Irish lines, I only know the origins of her paternal grandfather, Patrick Francis ODonnell:  County Donegal.

I clicked on Donegal and the parishes appeared.  I had to make a further selection.

I chose Ardara based on a poem written by a cousin.  In the poem, Father Charles Leo ODonnell (1884-1934) wrote that his father (Cornelius ODonnell, a brother of Patrick Francis) was from Ardara and his mother (Mary Gallagher) was from Killybegs.  I hoped that Margaret Gallagher, the mother of Cornelius and Patrick ODonnell, was from the same area.

Before you jump into a batch of records without an index, you should map out what it is you are looking for.

Over the years and through many research efforts, this is the little family cluster so far discovered.

Parents:  Peter ODonnell and Margaret Gallagher.  Born suppose about 1820.  (No direct records of them.)

Five Children born in Ireland from around 1840 through 1860:
*Cornelius "Neal" ODonnell, married Mary Gallagher; lived in Indiana.
*Kathryn ODonnell, married Charles Mason and Mr Kennedy; lived in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and California.
*Patrick Francis ODonnell, married Delia Joyce; lived in Bayonne, New Jersey.
*Rose ODonnell, married James Kenny; lived in Bayonne.
*Charles Mhici ODonnell; was living in Altnagapple, Ardara, County Donegal in 1923.

All of the children, except Charles, were probably in the United States by 1880.  I do not know if Peter and Margaret left Ireland.

The records for review for Ardara were:  Marriages 1867-1875 and Baptisms 1869-1880.  These were not years conducive to my little group, but I looked through all the images anyway.  Nothing jumped out at me.  There were lots of entries for ODonnells and Gallaghers, but little information beyond names of the parties and sponsors.

Neighboring Killybegs was my next choice.  These records were for Baptisms 1850-1881.  I was more excited for this collection because these years would contain the five children of Peter and Margaret.  Yet I found no children baptized with parents named Peter ODonnell and Margaret Gallagher.  Again, plenty of people with these surnames.

I found two baptism entries for the year 1855, listing Peter ODonnell as a sponsor.  Margaret ODonnell was also a sponsor for one; Margaret Byam for the other.  "Peter" is not a common name in this collection.

March 23, 1855:  James, son of Patrick Mc[?] and May [?Boyle?];
sponsors Peter ODonnell and Margaret ODonnell.

September 9, 1855:  Mary, son of Denis ODonnell and Mary Byam[?];

sponsors Peter ODonnell and Marg Byam.

From this information, we don't know if we have the correct Peter ODonnell and Margaret Gallagher.  These records may place the couple in the area.  Perhaps their marriage record and their children's baptismal records are in a neighboring parish, if those years are available.

Of note is that these records from Donegal did not contain any entries for some of the other Irish surnames in my lines:  Preston, Joyce, Sheehey, reflecting Ireland's areas of surname concentrations.

ODonnell of Ireland and Y-DNA: The Matches

My ODonnell cousin is matched with over 700 other men who share a very similar Y chromosome at FamilyTreeDNA.  Very few matches list an ODonnell paternal ancestor.  As we go back in time, it is important to remember that surnames were not consistent and may not have followed the pattern of father to son transmission.

The beauty in Y-DNA testing is that the common ancestor is going to emerge from only one ancestral line:  the direct paternal line, meaning father to son and his son and so forth.  Compare this type of DNA inheritance to autosomal DNA, where the common ancestor will be from any line.

The most distant ODonnell ancestor that I can find for my line is Peter ODonnell, probably born around 1820 in County Donegal, Ireland.  I do not know if he came to the United States.

At the top of the list is someone who can trace back about 200 years to an ODonnell ancestor, so I started with him.

This ODonnell line lived in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts.  Irish are plentiful in Boston.  There were (only) two men named Philip ODonnell in the targeted time frame; and both were born around 1820.

A lot of records are online for Boston, so I lucked out.  Boston city directories are on Fold3.com.  Images of original vital records are at FamilySearch.org.

After gathering records, I determined that the great great grandfather, Philip ODonnell, of the Y-DNA cousin was a son of Manassas ODonnell.  Manassas was born in Ireland in the 1790s.  He first appeared in the Boston city directory in the year 1840.

 Manassas ODonnell died in 1869 from a fractured skull and ribs.  His death ledger entry lists his parents as Philip ODonnell and Bridget.

Death caused by fractured skull and ribs.
Did he fall or was he attacked?
I did not find a corresponding article or death notice in the newspapers online.

The DNA results tell us that the direct paternal line of my ODonnell cousin will merge with the direct paternal line of this Y-DNA cousin.  I can trace back 6 generations for the Y-DNA cousin, but only 4 on my own ODonnell line.  If the ancestors of Manassas are more discoverable than my own, I might make the breakthrough on my own line by researching the Manassas line.

This ODonnell group in Boston did not produce many hits in the newspapers or at FindAGrave, which are usually great sources of information for me.  If anyone out there is experienced in locating newspapers, burial records, probate files, or other useful sites for Boston, please comment below.  Thank you.

Are probate records online for Suffolk County, Massachusetts for the 1800s?

ODonnell of Ireland and Y-DNA

ODonnell is a common Irish surname.

My maternal grandmother was Jeannette ODonnell (1920 - 1993).  Her mother, Anna Preston (1890 - 1921), died the year after Jeannette was born.  Jeannette was raised by her paternal grandparents, Patrick Francis ODonnell (1857 - 1931) and Delia Joyce (1862 - 1929).  Jeannette's stories about her grandparents and great grandparents were great leads when I set out to document the family history.

The oral story was that Patrick ODonnell immigrated to the United States from County Donegal in Ireland.  To uncover more, I visited cemeteries, court houses, archives, and libraries.  I viewed census records; birth, marriage, and death certificates; wills; newspapers- all the possibilities in a genealogist's treasure chest.

Patrick was single and living in Bayonne, New Jersey in the 1880 census.  I found a few siblings born in the 1840s and 1850s and uncovered their father's name: Peter ODonnell.  They were from Ardara in County Donegal.  And that is as far as I could stretch.  It's not that I can't find ODonnell; rather, the opposite is true:  there are so many people named ODonnell (or Ó Domhnaill in Gaelic), that I can't distinguish my ODonnell line from any other.

Enter Y-DNA testing.

The immigrant Patrick ODonnell passed his Y chromosome virtually unchanged onto his sons and they passed this same Y chromosome onto their sons.  An ODonnell cousin in this direct male line agreed to test at FamilyTreeDNA and the results are in.

Surname ODonnell
37 marker Y-DNA test

I was surprised to see a flag and "Niall of the Nine Hostages."  The results for two other Y-DNA tests, Lutter and Duryea, did not have any special designations.

I had to do some reading.  Niall was a man who may or may not have existed.  According to legend, he was a king of Ireland in the 4th and 5th centuries, which accorded him the right to have relations with many women, resulting in abundant offspring, and some of them also ruled and made lots of babies.

My ODonnell cousin has 772 matches on the Y chromosome.  For comparison, my father has zero matches.  My Duryea cousin has 38 matches.

Whether or not Niall actually existed, about 20% of men in northwestern Ireland (where County Donegal lies) and 1 out of 50 men in the New York area have an almost identical Y chromosome that originated from a prolific man.  To be allowed such behavior, the man would have to be a king or man of great power, hence the idea that he was Niall of the Nine Hostages, or a very close relation to Niall.

This reminds me of the idea that Charlemagne may be an ancestor to most people of European heritage.

A study from the journal Genome Research offers that our collective maternal heritage is much more diverse than our paternal ancestry.  In genetic bottlenecks throughout history, for every 17 women who passed their genes onto the next generation, only one man did so, reflecting the power of a few elite men who procreated abundantly.

This information about Niall is interesting, like looking into a crystal ball, but into the past, not the future- where one of my ancestral lines was located 1500 years ago.  In the meantime, I am stuck in the 1820s in County Donegal.

In a separate post, I will discuss the more recent ancestry that the matches provide.

A More Precise Irish Hometown?

I found a website detailing the history of a school in Meentinadea, County Donegal, Ireland.

I was directed to the page by searching for a priest in the family, Father Charles O'Donnell (1884-1934).

The site mentions that Father O'Donnell's father (Cornelius or Neil O'Donnell) was from Altnagapple, "two miles from the school," and his mother, Mary (Gallagher), was from Cullion, Killybegs.  Father O'Donnell "visited his ancestral home at Altnagapple" on a return trip from Rome in 1923, saying Mass while an uncle, Charlie Mhici O'Donnell, "and relatives were present."

This information expounds upon the little information I previously had, which was from Father O'Donnell's book.  In a poem in the book, Father O'Donnell wrote that his father was from Ardara and his mother from Killybegs.  They met on the road in Donegal.

Father O'Donnell's father, Neil O'Donnell, was a brother of my great great grandfather, Patrick Francis O'Donnell.  Neil and Patrick's parents were Peter O'Donnell and Margaret Gallagher.  I am hoping that Margaret Gallagher was also from this area of Donegal and is related to the Mary Gallagher who married her son Neil O'Donnell.  That should make finding records easier.

I did not know that Neil and Patrick had a brother, Charlie, who remained in Ireland.

Hopefully this additional information will enable me to locate some more generations in Ireland.