More ONeil Cousins

We have another set of potential ONeil cousins.

Two people who are second cousins to each other share DNA with my father and his three siblings.

The common ancestors of these DNA matches are Andrew O'Neil, born about 1798 in Ireland and his wife, Bridget Goodfellow, born about 1798, possibly in County Cavan, Ireland. They settled in New York City in the late 1840s.

1855 New York State census, New York City
Household of Andrew ONeil and wife, Bridget.

In the 1855 New York State census, Andrew and Bridget resided in New York City with their five children, ranging in age from 12 through 22: Michael, Peter, Andrew, Margaret, and Patrick. Note that Michael O'Neil had been in the city for 11 years, while the rest of the family was present for six.

To work up these DNA connections, you need to find descendants of this couple in the DNA database. But- even if this couple has descendants in the DNA database, the connection is distant, so no detectable and reportable shared DNA may exist.

ONeil is a popular Irish surname with a variety of spellings. Over half a million people lived in New York City in 1855. (Today about 8.5 million people reside in Manhattan.) Tracing the marriages, children, grandchildren, and so forth of ONeils is tricky.

Margaret ONeil married Bartholomew Neville. When she died in 1907, she was widowed and childless. She left behind a will that was probated in Kings County, New York. From this will, we find out that she had another brother, Terence. He was not with the family in the 1855 census. More about Terence later.

Excerpt of will of Margaret Neville (born ONeil) (1842-1907).
Proved November 19, 1907 in Kings County, New York.

"Second. I have not mentioned my
brother Terence O'Neil's name in this Will
nor made any provision for him herein, for
the reason that I consider him well enough
provided for with his own property and poss-
essions."

Andrew O'Neil died in 1868. He was originally buried in Jersey City at Saint Peter's Cemetery in Section G South, plot 14. In 1885, Andrew, other O'Neils, and Murphys were removed to Calvary Cemetery in Queens, New York. (The Newark Archdiocese maintains an electronic database of burials at Find A Loved One Search.)

A brief notice of the death of matriarch Bridget appeared in the local paper The Sun in 1885. She was described as a "native of county Cavan, Ireland."

Obituary of Bridget O'Neil from the newspaper The Sun in New York City, July 4, 1885.
Note: July 4, 1885 was a Saturday. The obituary states she died on Saturday, July 3.

"O'NEIL. - On Saturday [Friday], July 3, Bridget O'Neil, aged
84 years, native of county Cavan, Ireland.
Funeral to take place from her late residence, 87 Washington st., on Monday, July 6."

Maybe Bridget's husband, Andrew ONeil, was also from Cavan. Some records survive for County Cavan in the 1800s. I looked for Charles ONeil and Catherine Brougham, the supposed parents of my third great grandmother, Mary Neil. I found a marriage record for Patrick Neal and Cath Brogan from 1824 in Urney Parish. Could this have been Mary's parents? More research is needed. Maybe the name is more commonly spelled Brogan and not Brougham.

Marriage of Patrick Neal and Cath Brogan in Urney, County Cavan.
August 18, 1824.
Witnesses Patrick Brady and Petra??? Brogan.
Collection at Ancestry

Summation

My line:
Mary Neil (later O'Neill), born about 1830 in New Jersey, later Ireland.
Daughter of Charles O'Neill and Catherine Brougham of Ireland.

Potential relatives number 1:
Hugh ONeil, born about 1834 in Ireland.
His wife, Margaret ONeil, born about 1838 in Ireland. Daughter of James O'Neil and Margaret.
Settled in Washington.

Potential relatives number 2:
Andrew O'Neil, born about 1798 in Ireland. His wife, Bridget Goodfellow, born about 1798, possibly in County Cavan, Ireland. Settled in New York City.

More on Terence ONeil

To trace Terence ONeil, we cannot stop at the records available at Ancestry. Additional documents were filed to probate Margaret's estate. Some are available at FamilySearch.

Probate Administrator Records for Kings County, New York.
Available on FamilySearch.org Image Group Number 004362601.

"Administrator Records" provide several pages listing names and addresses of Margaret's relatives. Terence ONeil, her brother, lived at 153 Steuben Street in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Below is Terence's death certificate from 1910 and a picture of his gravestone in Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.

Death certificate of Terrance O'Neill, died June 16, 1910
in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey.
Father- Andrew. Mother Bridget.

Holy Name Cemetery, Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey
O'Neill gravestone in Block M
March 30, 2019

This DNA connection was only recently brought to my attention in the current year, 2026. Yet the dates on the records of Terence is from 2019.

Why did I gather this information seven years ago? Because Terence's son, Andrew Leo ONeill (1863-1941), married into my mother's family. My mother is not an ONeil descendant, but she has cousins who are.

Terence's third great granddaughter is among my DNA matches. She and I are third cousins, once removed on my mother's side. We share a segment of DNA. Ancestry does not report shared DNA between her and my father.

Note that Ancestry does not provide you a list of everyone who shares DNA with you. Both testing parties would need to upload their DNA files to GedMatch to check for shared DNA. Not finding someone listed as a DNA match at Ancestry does not mean that you don't share DNA.

ONeil DNA Cousins

Have relatives of Mary Neil (1830-1898) been identified among the DNA matches at Ancestry?

Mary Neil, or Neill, or ONeill, was my great great great grandmother. She was born around 1830. On the record of her first marriage in 1847 to my third great grandfather, Calvin Cook (1826-1889), names of parents were not recorded. The names of her parents are from the record of her second marriage to Nicholas Keating (1825-1898) in 1892: Charles ONeill and Catherina Brougham. Mary's death certificate from 1898 only provides her mother's first name, Katie.

Only the names of Mary Neil's parents are known.

In contrast, Calvin Cook's ancestors are well-plotted at this point in my research. As a bonus, this was an intermarrying group with lots of descendants. As a result, I have hundreds of DNA matches who trace back their ancestry to the ancestors of Calvin Cook: Wiggins, Peer, Post, White, Vanderhoof, Stegers, Young, Hopler, DeMouth, Muller, etc.

Ancestors of Calvin Cook, mostly from Morris County, New Jersey.
They intermarried. Their descendants share more DNA because of this intermarrying.

DNA Strategy

This is the strategy for identifying relatives of Mary Neil amongst the DNA matches:

Mary Neil and Calvin Cook have around fifteen descendants in the DNA database at Ancestry. Use of the "Shared Matches" feature (only available for an additional monthly subscription) finds other relatives. These shared matches might be connected through Calvin Cook OR Mary Neil. If the shared match has ancestry amongst Calvin's ancestors, then the connection is probably not through Mary Neil.

A few people do not share matches with the Calvin Cook Morris County ancestry. These are potentially related through Mary Neil's ancestors.

One of the problems is that we are working with tiny segments of DNA that trace back at least six generations. If we land in Ireland, there are few written records to demonstrate a relation.

DNA Matches of Interest

We will look at three people who match descendants of Mary Neil and Calvin Cook, but do not match anyone in the Morris County group. There are more matches who fit this scenario, but they have cryptic usernames, no trees, private trees, scant trees, and do not answer messages.

All three matches share less than 20cM of DNA with my group, or about one small segment of DNA. This indicates that the relation is likely third cousin or more distant.

The sorting feature places the DNA match's matches at the top. (Also a paid feature.) This is such a helpful mechanism for figuring out how relations relate to one another.

We will label the three matches as Person 1, Person 2, and Person 3. Person 2 and Person 3 are siblings. Person 1 turned out to be their second cousin.

Their common ancestors are Hugh ONeil (1835-1888) and Margaret ONeil (1838-1906) of Ireland and Washington, United States. (Washington became a state in 1889.) Person 1 descends from their son George. Person 2 and Person 3 descend from their son Charles.

Household of Hugh ONeil and his wife, Margaret, in the 1880 census.
Washington Territory, United States of America.
Children: Evelena, Minnie, John, Charles, Francis, George, and Kate.

Having the same surname as Mary Neil is great, but this is a common Irish surname and means little until we have paper documentation. Spoiler alert: we do not have any records connecting them at this juncture.

Hugh ONeil was a veteran of the Civil War. He died in 1888, the year before Washington became a state. His death record was a line in a ledger book. His parents were not listed.

Margaret ONeil died in Oregon in 1906 while visiting her children. Her death certificate provides the names of her parents as James ONeil and Margarete, last name unknown by informant, G W ONeil.

Death certificate of Margaret O'Neil.
Died March 15, 1906 in LaGrande, Union County, Oregon.
Collection online at Ancestry

Was Margaret also ONeil? The records of her children provide no other surname. Some of their records are easily viewable online, such as marriage, death, and Social Security Death Index. No surname other than ONeil or ONeill was given for their mother.

Yet her memorial page at Find A Grave provides Cook as her birth name. Hmmm.

Find A Grave memorial page for Margaret ONeil (1838-1906)
Buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in Walla Walla, Washington.
How was her birth name of Cook found?

Cook is a common name. My Cook ancestry is Dutch, not Irish. The name was Van Der Koeck.

Future Research

More DNA connections will appear with new leads.

More records will find their way in an easily accessible format online.

I'd like to see Brougham turn up amongst the matches.

Mother Cadmus or Caddan

Patrick McCabe (1845-1912) and Ann Somers (1845-1904) were born in Ireland. In 1867 they married at Saint Peter's Catholic Church in Jersey City, Hudson County New Jersey. The buildings were reconstructed and expanded over time and are now part of Saint Peter's Preparatory School.

Three questions arise when first encountering an immigrant couple:

Where were they from?

Who were their parents?

Who are their relatives in their new home? 

This information can be found on marriage and death records, when the creator of the record writes down such information. Spoiler alert- nothing more than "Ireland" was on these records for Patrick and Ann.

Marriage records filed with the State of New Jersey for the years 1848 through 1878 are in the form of ledger books and can be (mostly) found on Ancestry. 

Ledger entry for marriage of Patrick McCabe and Ann Somers.
Married July 28, 1867 in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey.
Acces through Ancestry.com collection

Close up of the names of the parents of Patrick McCabe and Ann Somers.
Surnames of mothers were omitted.

The marriage record at the State level gave the names of Patrick McCabe's parents as Ed and Elizabeth. Ann Somers' parents were Patrick and Julia. We need surnames for the mothers.

The records of Saint Peter's Church were copied to microfilm and then digitized; however, you cannot view the images at home. You can view the index- not the images- from home at FamilySearch.org.

Indexed entry for Saint Patrick's Church, Jersey City.
Patrick McCabe and Ann Somers married July 28, 1867.
Film number 1403371.

 

Location and availability of images of Saint Peter's Church records
via FamilySearch

Unlike the record filed with the State, the church record contains the names of the parents- according to this index. A trip to the nearest Family History Center enabled access to the image.

Ledger book of marriages at Saint Peter's Church in Jersey City.
The entry for Patrick McCabe and Ann Somers is on the left page, middle.

Close up of marriage entry for Patrick McCabe and Ann Somers, July 28, 1867.
See below for text.

The text appears to be:

July 28, 1867 

McCabe Patrick, aged 23, son of Edward McCabe and Elizabeth Caddmus,

to Ann Somers, aged 26, daughter of Patrick Somers and Julia Reilly.

Witnesses: Michael Welsh and Delia Rafferty.

Patrick Cody

 

I wrote "appears" because I am unsure of the name of Patrick's mother. The indexer typed "Caddan," but when viewing the entry, the handwriting looks like "Caddmus." Both are Irish surnames.

The added bonus of viewing the church record is the entry for witnesses. Presumably Michael Welsh and Delia Rafferty could have a relationship to either the groom or bride. At this point, I do not know their relationships, but at least the names are not terribly common.

The next source to view names of parents is the death certificate. Ann died in Jersey City in 1904 from apoplexy (most likely a stroke). I copied her death certificate from the Archives in Trenton. (New Jersey death certificates are not online.) Her parents match on both documents: Patrick Somers and Julia Reilly.

Death certificate of Ann McCabe.
Died July 18, 1904 in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Copied at New Jersey State Archives.

In 1912 Patrick died in New York City from chronic interstitial nephritis. I do not know why he moved there. Vital records for New York City are online at the website of the Department of Records and Information Services, but with clarification: 77% of the records are digitized. Deaths in Manhattan 1876-1919 have not been posted to the website as of this writing.

Screenshot of website of New York City Department of Records and Information Services.
77% of historical vital records have been digitized as of January 2025.

Patrick's death certificate is viewable at the Family History Center. It's a poor image. I hope that a cleaner image makes its way online.

Death certificate of Patrick McCabe.
Died August 18, 1912 in Manhattan.

The name of Patrick's mother on the death certificate could be Caddan, but I think it looks more like Cadmus.

Names and places of birth of Patrick McCabe's parents, as written on his death certificate.
Father- Patrick McCabe. Mother- Elizabeth Cadmus?
Both born in Ireland.

Below are both versions of Patrick McCabe's mother. Elizabeth's surname differs a little. The marriage record is the earlier record and should be more reliable than the later record. Patrick was alive at the time of making the marriage record. The informant for the death certificate may have had no personal knowledge of Patrick's parents.

Name of Patrick McCabe's mother.
Top image- marriage record from 1867.
Bottom image- death certificate from 1912.

The marriage and death records were necessary to obtain, but they only get us so far. McCabe is a common surname, perhaps too common to chase with this limited information.

Somers was easier. I located three siblings for Ann Somers in New York and New Jersey, thanks to DNA matches and cemetery records. That is for another article.

The next research move is to view the the baptismal records for the children of this couple. The sponsors could be related. Nine children have been identified so far, born from 1868 through 1884.

Viewing a Family Tree at My Heritage

My Heritage now offers pedigree views of family trees. This was a desperately needed modification.

In this view, you can see the ancestors of a person.

My Heritage originally offered only a "family view." If you clicked on a person, you saw one line of ancestors and could not click back to the original person. This made navigating a tree frustrating.

I discussed this issue three years ago.

My Heritage became an important factor in genealogy research when the DNA testing site 23andMe enabled customers to link to My Heritage to display family trees.

My Heritage is free to sign up, but a subscription charge must be paid to add larger trees and access records.

My Heritage offers its own autosomal DNA testing services. The price for a kit is in line with the other testing companies. DNA tested at My Heritage is compatible to upload to GedMatch.

If you tested your DNA elsewhere, you can upload the file for free to My Heritage for an ethnicity estimate and family matches. No subscription is required to access this information.

I have found many more matches from United Kingdom at My Heritage as compared to the other testing companies.

In the examples below, the tester's parents were from Ireland. At other testing sites, he has many distant matches. At My Heritage, he has several close matches.

Mystery DNA Cousin Demystified

A few years ago at 23andMe a close match appeared for my father, his siblings, and their third cousin, Bob, on their shared Cook/Neil line of Morris County, New Jersey.  Common ancestors are Calvin Cook (1826-1889) and Mary Neil (1830-1898).

The amount of shared DNA ranged from 1.66% with my uncle to 3.82% with cousin Bob.

The probable relation would be second to third cousin.  The variance in amount of shared DNA is within normal.  Or the higher amount could indicate that this mystery cousin is closer to Bob.

Either way, the person ignored my requests to connect through the 23andMe website.

Recently, 23andMe required users to not be anonymous.  This person bypassed this non-anonymous requirement and instead blocked sharing requests.

This person won't make or break my family tree, so I moved on.

Then Cousin Bob's cousin contacted me.  They share ancestors Patrick Bernard Brady (1830-18xx) and Elizabeth Duffy (1837-1918) of County Meath, Ireland.  They were the parents of Mary Brady (1870-1942), wife of Francis Asbury Cook (1851-1919).

She wondered how Bob was so closely related to her highest DNA match.  This Mystery DNA Cousin had limited contact with Bob's cousin and revealed Brady ancestors on two separate ancestral lines from two counties in Ireland, Cavan and Donegal.

In this situation, we are not using haplogroups to assign relationships or ancestral lines.
We are using them to confirm that we are dealing with the same elusive DNA tester.

The shared percentage with Bob, as well as the haplogroups, were the same for the Mystery Brady Cousin as for the Mystery Cook/Neil Cousin.

So if the Mystery Cousin is the same for both situations, this explains why Cousin Bob shares more DNA with the Mystery Cousin.  They are related through Cook/Neil ancestors as well as the separate Brady line.  For Bob, these lines merged in his great grandparents, Francis Cook and Mary Brady.

The above diagram is my theory on how the Mystery Cook/Neil Cousin (Mystery Brady Cousin) is related to my branch.  If this person comes forward, we can revise the this diagram if needed.

Genetic Communities by AncestryDNA

Genetic Communities is Ancestry.com's newest feature for DNA testers.

This is not the same as an ethnicity estimate.  Please see The DNA Geek's more elaborate explanation and discussion of Genetic Communities.

Ancestry.com's DNA test estimates my ethnicity as 56% Irish with no further breakdown.  [Living DNA provided a regional breakdown within England, but not Ireland.]

The Genetic Communities tool detects a heavy link among my DNA matches to people with roots in northern Ireland, or Ulster Irish.  The Irish is from my mother's side.  I have not determined a place of origin for most of her ancestors, but her great grandfather, Patrick Francis ODonnell (1856-1931) was from County Donegal, which is part of the region encompassed by Ulster on Ancestry's map.

The other Genetic Community was a pleasant surprise because we are out of Europe and exactly where most of my father's ancestors were in the 1700s:  New York and New Jersey.  Early Settlers of New York tended to hail from certain areas of Europe, which is reflected in my father's ethnicity estimates.  Until the Genetic Community tool, there was no DNA-based connection to New York.

When trying to find the most recent common ancestor of a DNA match, you need a geographic connection.  In the match's family tree, the focus falls on branches who lived in the the New York area.  This New York Genetic Community provides support for this approach.

Chasing Irish Hometowns

Spoiler alert:  Irish hometowns not discovered (yet).

I am trying to discover where in Ireland Patrick Joyce (1830-1905) and Margaret Campbell (1835-1870) were from.  They were my maternal grandmother's great grandparents.  Their first appearance in the United States was in the 1860 Federal Census in Patterson, Putnam County, New York.

Ancestry.com Family Tree of Jody's mother.
I recently figured out how to change the background color to purple.

We start with Patrick and Margaret themselves.  I do not know if they married in New York or Ireland.  I have found no church records for the Patterson, Putnam County area circa 1860 and no mention in a newspaper, which is not unusual.  Patrick's death certificate from 1905 in Pawling, Dutchess County, lists his birthplace as "Ireland" and names one parent, his father, Richard, of Ireland.  Margaret's death in 1870 was recorded on the federal census mortality schedule and in newspapers without mention of her town of origin or her parents.  Deaths were infrequently reported to the state at this time.

So next we turn to the records of their children.  My direct line is through Patrick and Margaret's daughter, Delia Joyce (1862-1929), who married Patrick ODonnell (1856-1931) in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey in 1887.  I cannot find a record of this marriage filed with the states of New Jersey or New York.  Saint Mary's Church in Bayonne, New Jersey has a record of this marriage.  Delia's parents are listed without a place of birth.

Even if a marriage record surfaces for this couple in the New Jersey State Archives from 1887, the certificates in this time period asked for the country of birth of the parent, so the answer could be merely "Ireland."

You can view this digitized microfilm at a Family History Library.
John Joyce was a brother of Delia Joyce.
Rose Kenny was a sister of Patrick ODonnell.  She married James Kenny in 1883 in Bayonne.

Delia died in 1929 in Bayonne.  Her parents were listed as Patrick Joyce of Ireland and Cannot Learn of Ireland.  (Sixty years after Delia's mother's tragic death, her name had been forgotten.)

So next we turn to Delia's siblings, the other children of Patrick Joyce and Margaret Campbell.  There were three:
Mary, born about 1861, last seen in the 1870 census
John, born about 1867, married Mary Delaney
James, born about 1869, married Ellen [-]

After Margaret died in 1870, Patrick Joyce remarried to Bridget Cortney (1850-1910) and had several more children.

The problem with finding records for the siblings of Delia Joyce is that they are in New York.  For New Jersey records, I can go to the Archives in Trenton and retrieve the records myself and copy what I need.  For New York records, you need to place an order via postal mail and pay at least $22 (US Dollars) and then wait.

The more time that passed, the less likely Patrick Joyce's children and grandchildren would remember the ancestral Irish hometowns, if this information was even requested.

Obituaries for these siblings were not difficult to track down thanks to FultonHistory.com.  (This site is a free resource of digitized newspapers, mostly from New York.)  Still no Irish hometowns.

I ordered the marriage certificate for John Joyce (1867-1934) and Mary Delaney (1866-1941).  They were married in Pawling, Dutchess County, New York on October 28, 1888 by Reverend Daniel J McCormick of Saint John's Church.  Only the names of the parents were requested; not the birth place.

The bride's parents were Edward Delaney and Catherine McCue.

The witnesses were John Delaney and Mary Ann Walsh.  Delaney was likely for the bride.  I don't know who Mary Ann Walsh could be.  Maybe the lost older sister of John Joyce?  More research needed!  Always investigate the witnesses.


The records kept by Saint John's Church in Pawling may be a great help.  This family was also buried in the church cemetery.  If anyone has a way for me to look at these records, please reach out to me.  Thank you.

Matrilineal DNA, Destination Ireland

In December I tested my mitochondrial DNA ("mtDNA") with FamilyTreeDNA.  My first mtDNA test was over five years ago with Ancestry.com and is now essentially defunct.

My mtDNA haplogroup is H1au1b, which is not very common.

Well, I have four matches to work with.

This DNA test looks at a specific kind of DNA in the mitochondria of cells.  Unlike autosomal DNA in the nucleus of a cell, mitochondrial DNA does not change from generation to generation.  A person's mitochondrial DNA is an exact copy (minus some mutations) of that person's mother's mitochondrial DNA.  The mitochondria are nicknamed the "powerhouses" of cells.  Their DNA is portrayed as circular like bacterial DNA, not a double helix like nuclear autosomal DNA. 

My direct maternal line is not long on paper.  I can trace back to my great great grandmother, Bridget Sheehy.  She was born in Ireland about1857.  She married John Preston (1857-1928) around 1877 in Dutchess County, New York.  The mitochondria in my cells are identical to the mitochondria that powered Bridget's cells.



Bridget Sheehy (1857-1916), wife of John Preston
Courtesy of Irene Preston

Bridget died almost one hundred years ago on 5 April 1916 in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey and is buried at Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.  Her death certificate listed the names of both of her parents, Edmond [or Edward?] Sheehy and Bridget Frawley.

There was a couple by this name living in Dutchess County, Edmond Sheehy (1825-1893) and Bridget Frawley (1826-1905).  Bridget's death certificate lists her parents as John Frawley and Mary Shea of Ireland.  I lucked out again.  The death certificate for every ancestor on my direct maternal line includes the full names of both parents up through this possible fourth great grandmother.

A wonderful clue was in a newspaper article from 1936 in The Harlem Valley Times from Amenia, Dutchess County.  [Free access through FultonHistory.com.]  The article detailed the 50th wedding anniversary of a couple, Thomas Culligan (1863-1937) and Ellen Sheehy (1866-1938).  Ellen's parents were "Edward" Sheehy and Bridget Frawley of Limerick, Ireland.

Was Ellen a sister of my Bridget?

I want to assign my Bridget Sheehy to this family from Amenia.  But there is no connection in any of the documents I found so far.  In the anniversary article above, no relatives named Preston or from Bayonne are mentioned.  The only child mentioned in the 1905 obituary of Bridget Frawley Sheehy, possible mother of my Bridget, is her daughter from the newspaper article, Ellen Sheehy Culligan.

My Bridget's first definite appearance is in the 1880 federal census in Stanford, Dutchess County, when she is already married to John D Preston and has children.  But in the 1875 New York state census is a Bridget Shehea, age 22, born in Ireland, a servant to the Bertine family in Amenia.  The next family is James Shea of Ireland, his wife, Catherine [Ahearn], and their children, Thomas, Nora, Catherine, and Margaret.

The seven year old Thomas Shea in the 1875 census is Thomas James Shehea (1867-1885) at FindAGrave and linked to parents James T Sheely (1828-1902) and Catherine Ahern (1838-1925).  This tells me that the surname underwent spelling modifications.  This family, as well as the Sheehy and Culligan families, are buried at Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Amenia, Dutchess County, New York.  Is my Bridget related to James Shehea/Sheely/Sheehy?

Consider the 1892 New York State Census.  "Edward" Sheehy and Bridget Sheehy are enumerated in Amenia.  The prior family is Mary Ahearn, age 40; she is a daughter of Edmond/Edward Sheehy and Bridget.  At the bottom of the page is a Sheehy family, unfortunately cut-off.  The male head of household is 64 years old, just one year shy of Edward Sheehy.  Could this be James Sheely/Sheehy and his wife, Catherine Ahearn?  The eleven year old child is also unviewable, but the next page has Nellie Sheehy, age 14.  Nellie was a daughter of James Sheehy and Catherine.

Were Edmond/Edward Sheehy and James Shehea/Sheely/Sheehy brothers?  Or is James a relative of Mary Shea, the possible maternal grandmother of Bridget?  Or were the names of Bridget's parents wrong on the death certificate?

To utilize my mtDNA test, if Ellen Sheehy, wife of Thomas Culligan, was a sister of my Bridget, and we could possibly find a living direct maternal line descendant of Ellen, that person's mtDNA would be identical to mine.  Ellen had one daughter, Florence (1898-1979), who had children with John McEnroe (1923-2005).  If any of those children are still alive, they could test; otherwise, the eligible candidates would be children of Florence's daughter, Eileen McEnroe (1932-2011), wife of Guenther Hans Strauss (1927-1999).