Hanora Enright

Jerry,

This family is well documented on Ancestry once they emigrated to the US, but in searching the church records on irishgenealogy.ie for both Cork and Kerry, I did not find any records of a marriage between Patrick and Hanora nor any birth records in either county for Mary Anne or Michael. How certain are you that they came from Cork or Kerry?

Regards,

Carolyn, Much of what is on Ancestry (and on Find a Grave) was put there by me or my immediate family. We have one obituary that lists the county as Kerry and only old family rumors that it was County Cork. So, to answer your question, I'm not at all sure what county they came from. We've never located a primary source that said more than "Ireland." 

I suspect that they knew family that settled in Wisconsin as Hannah was born there, as documented in several sources. There is about a 5 year window from when Michael was born (1852, to when they arrived in Meeker County MN. and for a portion of that they were in Wisconsin. I theorize that they were staying with, or at least near, family while there and have located Finnegan's in the 1860 census in numerous counties which I'm trying to track down. 

But none of that helps make the leap back across the pond unless I find Hannah's birth/baptism record and it says where in Ireland they were from.

I've been trying to bust through this brick wall since the late 1970s. I'm determined to look under the right rock before I die so we can cement the connection. We hope that someone in Ireland has an old family bible that mentions them or takes a Y-DNA test that shows a strong connection.

Jerry