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.

Family Tree Repair: O'Donnell, Part Two

To correct my O'Donnell tree, I need to documentation that Mary, wife of Cornelius "Neil" O'Donnell, was an O'Donnell herself and not named Gallagher.

A possible marriage was in the Indiana, Marriage Index, 1800-1941 at Ancestry.com for Neil O'Donnell and Mary O'Donnell in Hancock County 1869.  A paper copy of this marriage was received from the Hancock County Clerk's office with a turn-around time of one week.

Without other identifying information, I can't be sure that this is the same couple from my tree.  No town, no ages, no parents, no witnesses.

The first child, Rose, was born in 1870.  The 1870 federal census in Center (Greenfield), Hancock County, Indiana, enumerates a couple that is probably my Neil and Mary O'Donnell, plus Neil's brother, Charles.

In the 1880s, the family relocated to Howard County, where Rose O'Donnell married Frank Lungren in 1889 and Agnes O'Donnell married Cornelius Carey in 1902.  These marriages are online (free).  Again, no towns, parents, ages, or witnesses.

http://www.howardcountymemory.net/item.aspx?details=29205

http://www.howardcountymemory.net/item.aspx?details=31385

The Carey-O'Donnell marriage is for this branch.  Father Charles M Carey, son of Agnes O'Donnell, edited the book of poems by his uncle, Father Charles L O'Donnell.

Additional records that may yield clues include Catholic church records and death records.

If anyone is familiar with research in Indiana, please let us know if there could be recordings of marriages at the town or state level that yield distinguishing information.

Family Tree Repair: O'Donnell

More markers were tested for an O'Donnell cousin's Y-DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA.  We originally started with only 37 markers, but the results were too numerous to work with.  Now 111 markers are tested.

(Y-DNA is passed almost identically from father to son through the generations.  A match on the Y chromosome means that somewhere back in time, two men share an ancestor on their direct paternal lines.  The fewer the differences between their Y chromosomes, the more recent the common ancestor.)

At this point, there are over 800 matches at 37 markers, but over 1400 matches at the higher level of 67 markers.  Jumping to 111 markers eliminates all but three genetic cousins.  If someone did not test at the 67 or 111 marker level, then they would not appear in those subsets.  A lot of the 67 marker matches are viable.  They just have not tested more markers.

The top match at the 111 marker level is the same O'Donnell cousin of my initial focus.

This O'Donnell line came to Boston, Massachusetts from Ireland.  When I originally encountered this line, the most distant ancestor was listed as Philip O'Donnell.  After some research into two men both with this name living in Boston in the 1800s, Cornelius O'Donnell (1828 - 1899) seemed like a better match for the tail in this tree.  Cornelius' death record listed his parents as James O'Donnell and Mary Kerr of Ireland.

Adjustments have been made in my O'Donnell line as well.  To research in Ireland, you need an exact location.  I had a hometown courtesy of a more prominent branch containing Father Charles Leo O'Donnell (1884 - 1934).  The obituary of Patrick O'Donnell (1856 - 1931), my great great grandfather, stated that Father Charles, president of Notre Dame University, was his nephew.

Online trees and articles provide the parents of Father Charles as Cornelius "Neil" O'Donnell (1837 - 1909) and Mary Gallagher (1852 - 1924).  I thought that Neil O'Donnell was a brother of Patrick O'Donnell, my great great grandfather, and so my line was from Ardara as per the poem.  But- keep in mind that none of this online information is a primary or even secondary source.

I noted that Mary Gallagher had the same surname as her husband's mother (working with the idea that his parents were Patrick's parents), but both names are plentiful in Donegal and not indicative of recent familial ties.

Then greetings came from Ireland.  (Thanks EO!)  A cousin of Father Charles wrote to me.  Neil O'Donnell was not the brother of Patrick O'Donnell, but rather a brother-in-law.  Mary was not named Gallagher; she was an O'Donnell herself.  So my O'Donnells were from Killybegs (see the poem), not Ardara.  Patrick and Mary were siblings; their parents were Peter O'Donnell and Margaret Gallagher.

I had no marriage record for Neil O'Donnell and Mary "Gallagher."  Their first child, Rose, was born in Indiana around 1870.  The Indiana marriage index (online at Ancestry.com) has an entry for Neil O'Donnell and Mary O'Donnell, married 4 November 1869 in Hancock County.  I ordered the certificate by mail to try to confirm if this is the right couple.  They may have met "on the road, in Donegal," but they married in Indiana.

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.

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.

Second Cousin Found at 23andMe

Another cousin has been located through 23andMe!

We will call him "PK."  He is from my maternal grandmother's branch.  He is a second cousin of my grandmother.  They share a pair of great grandparents:  Peter ODONNELL and Margaret GALLAGHER, say born around 1820, in Ireland.  They had four children (so far discovered):  Katherine, Rose, Patrick, and Cornelius, all born in Ireland, but came to the United States.  PK is a grandson of Rose ODonnell, while everyone else in these DNA comparisons are descendants of Patrick ODonnell.

At 23andMe, PK supplied the names of his four grandparents and their locations.  I knew which of his lines to pursue when I saw the surname ODonnell and the location of Bayonne, New Jersey, United States.

My grandmother is long gone, but her first cousins have kindly supplied their DNA to help our family history research.  They are sisters and second cousins of PK.

PK matches one of his second cousins 192 cM over 9 segments and the other 264 cM over 14 segments.  This is within the expected range for second cousins.

When 23andMe expanded the comparison function from 3 people to 5 people,
the corresponding chromosome chart also expanded and does not copy well.

To see how the DNA passed from one generation to the next, we can compare PK to the children of one of these second cousins.  Notice that one of these children shares a tiny segment on chromosome 5 that is not shared by his mother.  This can be because of a misread in the DNA or can indicate that this child is also related to his mother's cousin on his father's side.

PK has five people from my branch who are second cousins, once removed.  You can see the variation in the amount of shared DNA.  Different branches inherit different pieces of DNA in smaller amounts.  This is why third cousins and more distant will share little to no DNA.  That is the design.

Below is the comparison of PK to my mother and to my sister and me.  Genetically, a second cousin twice removed is the equivalent of a third cousin.  Note that my sister shares only a very tiny segment with PK.  This is very important, as a lot of people (myself included), might disregard such a small match as "too distant" to realistically identify in a family tree that only extends to the 1800s.  Yet uncovering PK's relation was not difficult at all.

Now that we have a cousin from the ODonnell/Gallagher branch in the genetic pool, we can compare him to our plentiful DNA cousins to narrow down where we must look for a common ancestor.