The Crowley Side

2. March 2009 by Tim.

I know it seems that I’ve been ignoring this branch of the Tree.  I’ve made some progress on my maternal grandmother’s side (Saucier and Pichette), but virtually no progress on my maternal grandfather’s side (Crowley and Brady).  This is mainly due to my great-grandparents having come to this country from Ireland in the early 1900s and me having no way to trace them back beyond that point.

All I had to go on were things my mom had told me and a few random things I remembered from when I was very, very young.  Obviously, my mother’s memory would be no use - after all, her affliction with Alzheimer’s is what prompted me to start this project in the first place.  In other words, there wasn’t a lot.

I had hoped that some of the things my parents had found during their trip to Ireland would be useful, but we can’t find anything from that trip.  It may be buried in storage or it may have been packed by my sister, Suzanne, before she left to go back to South Dakota.  In any event, I recalled a few things from their trip, but not a lot, and, of course, any documents they had found are missing.

About all I know for sure is my great-grand parents were Timothy J Crowley and Theresa M Brady.  He was from County Cork and she was from County Roscommon.  I knew from the records on Ancestry that Timothy was born March 18, 1888 and I was guessing that Mary was born around 1886, perhaps 1887 or 89 - there were conflicting dates in the census records.  I also found evidence they came to this country in 1907.  I have what might be a ship’s manifest for each of them, but nothing definitive to tie the people on the manifest to me.  Lastly, I found a record of their marriage on April 23, 1913.  That was it, and that was what I recorded in my Tree on Ancestry.

Then, out of the blue, I received an email from a woman in Ireland named Aoife (pronounced Ee-fuh) who offered to do some on-site research.  Im guessing she got my email from Ancestry.com, but I dont really care.  I took her offer to look into Timothy and Theresa for $20.  I didnt know what to expect, but $20 seemed like a fairly small risk. 

 So far, it has paid off better than I had hoped.

Aoife was able to find a record of the 1901 Census of County Roscommon that listed a Theresa Brady as the son of Martin Brady.  This matches the info on the ship’s register.  The census also listed Theresa’s aunt, brothers and sisters, and Martin’s father Patrick.  Amazingly, this matches a record of Patrick Brady Aoife found in the “Griffith’s Valuation” circa 1852.  No demographic details there, just a list of renters.

Quite a bit of progress, but still a long way to go.

In the meantime, I am still trying to get some info from my uncles on who their uncles’ wives were.  As I said, a long way to go.

Posted in Crowley Side, Progress | 1 Comment »