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.

Cousin Prediction

A promising DNA match has appeared at 23andMe.com.  She shares a good chunk of chromosome 4 with my father and his three siblings.  As with all matches, I also check for DNA shared with my father's close relations.  If a distant cousin matches my father and his close cousin on the same segment of DNA, then I look for the shared ancestor in the branch of the family tree shared by my father and that cousin.  That is the strategy behind DNA testing not just yourself, but your aunts, uncles, and cousins.

You need to be careful when a distant cousin matches two close family members on different segments.  This could be indicative of two different ancestral lines, meaning that the distant cousin is not related to both close cousins by the same ancestors.

Beautifully illustrating this point, the promising match shares DNA not only with my father, but his mother's cousins and his father's cousin- on different segments.  To date, my research has not revealed any shared ancestors between my paternal grandparents.  (Though one of my grandmother's cousins shares a segment of DNA with my grandfather's cousin.)  This newest match may be connected in three different ways to my family, or maybe just two.

Hopefully a few generations of her family tree will be forthcoming and I can figure out the ancestor responsible for the chunk of chromosome 4.  My prediction:  third to fourth cousin.  IF she is related by a common ancestor to one of the grandparent's cousins, she should not be closer than a third cousin because they are the prior generation and their shared segment is too small for a second cousin range.

Segment Mapper by Kitty Cooper

Adding an Irish Leaf

An inquiry from Ireland has helped me expand a branch of my Joyce tree.

Someone contacted me, trying to discover what had become of a grandaunt, Helen Beston.  The information was that Helen was born in Tipperary in 1892 and married John Joyce in New York City in 1920.

I looked for men named John Joyce in my tree and found only one.  John Joyce was born around 1867 in Pawling, Dutchess County, New York, United States to Patrick Joyce and Margaret (or Mary) Campbell, both of Ireland.  John was a brother to my grandmother's grandmother, Delia Joyce, and he witnessed Delia's marriage in 1887 in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey, to Patrick Francis O'Donnell.  John and Delia's mother was killed in 1870 after being hit by a train at Katonah Station.

John Joyce married Mary Delaney and had two sons.  John worked as a police officer in White Plains [Westchester County, New York], eventually becoming Chief of Police.  The historian for the police department kindly located some pictures of John.

John died in 1934 and his wife in 1941, so he could not have been the John Joyce who married Helen Beston in 1920.

ItalianGen.org offers an index of New York City marriages.  Helen Beston appears in the index as marrying James Joyce on July 4, 1920.  This date struck me because the New York State birth index has a John J Joyce born July 4, 1889 in Pawling.

The oldest son of John Joyce and Margaret Delaney used the name "James" or "James Lawrence" Joyce on all the records I found for him, though it appears that he may have been given the name "John" at birth.

In the 1910 census, James and his brother Edward were single and living with their parents in White Plains.

In the 1920 census, James was still living with his parents, but listed as "wd," the abbreviation for widowed.  Also in this household was James Joyce, Jr, age 7.

The 1915 New York State census allows us a glimpse at James Joyce's first marriage to Catherine.

James Joyce's first wife, Catherine, must have died in between the 1915 state census and the 1920 federal census.  On July 4, 1920, James Joyce remarried to Helen Beston.

The White Plains city directory from 1928 contains this branch of Joyces:  father and mother, John J Joyce, Chief of Police, and Mary.  Their sons, James and Edward, both with wives named Helen.  Edward Joyce was a police officer.  James was working in dairy at this time.

James Lawrence (or John) Joyce and Helen Beston had several children.  The 1930 census illustrates a household of children from both of James' marriages and the census taker's attempt to make the numbers fit so that all children were a product of the current marriage.

Notice the gap in the age of the oldest child (16) and the second oldest (8).  This is a clue that we could be dealing with two different wives.

Lillian was not Helen's daughter.  The census taker made Helen's age at marriage seventeen, so that James and Helen were married 21 years ago- in an attempt to show that Helen and James were married when Lillian was born 16 years ago.

Lillian would fit as a daughter from James' prior marriage.  However, Lillian was not living with her parents and brother in the 1915 state census, nor was she living with her father, brother, and paternal grandparents in the 1920 census.  Where was she?

If the descendants of James Lawrence John Joyce could come forward, that would be great!