Vita brevis; genealogia longa
Kohl, Nicholas & Bertha E. grave marker, St Johns Cemetery, Tipp City, Miami, USA; photograph by Luanne Shaw, 19 Jul 2009. Digital copy privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Linden, California. 2013.
Kohl, Bertha “Mother” grave marker, St Johns Cemetery, Tipp City, Miami, USA; photograph by Luanne Shaw, 19 Jul 2009. Digital copy privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Linden, California. 2013.
Kohl, Nicholas & Bertha E. grave marker, St Johns Cemetery, Tipp City, Miami, USA; photograph by Luanne Shaw, 19 Jul 2009. Digital copy privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Linden, California. 2012.
Kohl, Nicholas “Father” grave marker, St Johns Cemetery, Tipp City, Miami, USA; photograph by Luanne Shaw, 19 Jul 2009. Digital copy privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Linden, California. 2012.
Per Miriam’s splendid suggestion, I’m going to attempt a writeup of one of my current challenges in family history. (I’m not overly fond of the phrase “brick wall”.) As a novice genealogist, however, I am modifying Miriam’s instructions, in that I am perfectly glad to be told “you should check database thus-and-so.” I don’t expect anyone to do my work for me. 🙂
John KELLY’s parents, and the date and location of his marriage to Johannah LEAHEY.
John Kelly is listed as a 22yo farm laborer from Ireland with no personal property of value (unlike the other two farm laborers listed with the family).
John Kelly is listed as a 31yo white male farmer, Irish born, with both parents of foreign birth. He is also listed as a citizen. He is shown with his presumed wife Johannah, age 20, born Ireland, and presumed children Catherine (3, born Canada), Ella (2, born Ohio) and John (3/12, born Ohio).
John KELLEY, age 40, farmer, is listed with wife Johanna (age 30) and children Catherine (14, born Canada), Ella (12, born Ohio, as are her younger sibs), Johnny (10), Margaret (8), Thomas (6), Mary (4), Edward (3), and farm laborer John PIERCE (50, born in Ireland).
John Kelly, born Nov 1839, age 60, widowed, born in Ireland of Irish parents. Arrived 1859, in the country for 40 years, naturalized. Occupation farmer; he can read, write, and speak English.
John’s oldest daughter Catherine KELLY DILLON is visited by a census taker who helpfully writes “Tipperary” above the “Ireland” listed for the place of birth of both her parents.
John’s youngest son Robert Emmett applies for a passport, stating of his father:
… my father John Kelly was born in Ireland and is now deceased; that he emigrated to the United States from the port of Liverpool England on or about 1849; that he resided 57 years, uninterruptedly, in the United States from 1849 to 1906 at Darke County Ohio; that he was naturalized as a citizen of the United States before the Darke County, Ohio [“court” is on the form here, but is lined through] […]
Phyllis Crick of the Garst Museum in Greenville, OH kindly sent me their surname files on KELLY. She found an 1865 naturalization for a John KELLY, but in Darke County. A check of KELLY naturalizations in Miami County in this time period only turned up a Samuel KELLY. She also sent me the will and letters testamentary for John KELLY, the purchase and sale records for his farm in Darke County, and copies from extraction books of the Union City newspapers.
Ancestry.com search (exact) for KELLY/KELLEY in Brown, Miami, OH in the 1800s in census and voting records shows three groups of KELLYs: a John born in Ireland which I believe is my subject, a group born in Delaware (includes a John and a Samuel), and a group born in New Jersey.
A Footnote.com search for John KELLY between 1845-1880 in Ohio turns up four Civil War pension file index cards. I dismiss two because they are for widows (we know my John outlived his wife). The other two are for invalid pensions. It seems like an unlikely lead (see my Theories, below), but if someone tells me I should check it out, you should also tell me how. 🙂
Searched http://dcoweb.org and http://randolph.dcoweb.org for KELLY and KELLEY. Found an obit for Thomas Francis KELLY, John’s son. Found a 1902 directory for Union City, IN which lists on Rural Route 5 “Kelley John — Thos, Ed, Maggie, Mary, Robt., Jose, Celia”.
I have two theories for why his eldest daughter was born in Canada, when all her younger siblings were born in Ohio or Indiana. First: he was ducking the Civil War by skipping north over the border. Second, that he went back to Ireland to marry his wife (I don’t know where the marriage was, or when, except that Johannah first appears as his wife in the 1870 census, and their oldest child was born in 1865) and returned with her through Canada, taking enough time at it that Catherine was born north of the border. Speculation on these lines very much welcome!
My mother (b. 1946) reports being taken, a couple times, to reunions for ARMSTRONG-KELLY-CULLEN-LEAHEY. Of note is that she remembers the older attendees lamenting that the younger generation didn’t have much interest in the reunions, as they didn’t know their cousins. This made me very excited when I determined that Johannah LEAHEY KELLY’s mother was Catherine ARMSTRONG. It also makes me think of chain migration. I have ample evidence that these LEAHEYs originated in Tipperary, which makes me trust the information from Catherine KELLY DILLON’s 1920 census the more.
Nicholas John KOHL and Bertha WEYRICH KOHL with their grandson, P H Tierney, July 1945.
Kohl, Nicholas and Bertha, with P H Tierney, Tipp City, Miami County, Ohio, USA; photographer unknown, Jul 1945. Photograph privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Linden, California. 2009.
Kelly, John grave marker, St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, Union City, Randolph, Indiana, USA; photograph by Suzanne Stamper-Youmans, 23 Apr 2008. Digital copy privately held by Jean Marie Diaz, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Linden, California. 2009.
John KELLY is my second great-grandfather. He’s one of the more elusive characters in my tree… at least of the ones whose names I know. Thanks to a fortuitous error by an overzealous census enumerator in 1920, I know he and his wife hail from County Tipperary, Ireland. However, while he’s consistently listed as naturalized, I’m not convinced that the naturalization papers found in Darke County, Ohio are actually for him, because at the time they were filed, he was living in Miami County! What about naturalizations there, you say? None for John Kelly! And then there’s the mystery of his eldest daughter, who is consistently (across six censuses) listed as being born in Canada… well after the dates given for John’s immigration. (All her siblings were born in Ohio or Indiana, which makes sense as they were living near the state line.) Did John go back to Ireland to get his wife, and take enough time at it for their first child to be born on the way back? Mysteries.
