O'Malley, Kelly, Geoghegan

Tery you have done a thorough job!

I'm wondering if this could be Mark (from www.rootsireland.ie/)?

Name:Mark MeliaDate of Birth:
Date of Baptism:22-Dec-1841Address:
Parish/District:KILCUMMIN OUGHTERARDGender:MaleCountyCo. Galway
Denomination:Roman Catholic
Father:Patrick MeliaMother:Bridget MeliaOccupation:
Sponsor 1 /
Informant 1:Mark Davine Sponsor 2 /
Informant 2:Catherine Walsh 

The only John Kelly - Melia I could find:

Date of Marriage:25-Feb-1879
Parish / District:WOODFORD
County:Co. Galway
Husband: John Kelly Address Derrybrine Civil Parish / District Occupation:FARMER Age 26 Bachelor
Wife CatherineOmelia Address:Knockmoyle Denomination:Civil Parish / District Age 32 Widow
Husband's Father Pat Kelly FARMER
Wife's Father JohnMurphy FARMER
Witness 1 Name:MichaelMahony
Witness 2 AnneKeelyAddress:
Notes:

Married By: CALLAGY JOHN

No luck with the Winifred - Gegan searches.

I assume you don't have any death locations or years for  any of them?  

Col

Thanks, Col, and thanks for doing those searches. 

I saw that record for Mark and am just not sure. The only way I can think of to verify is to find his brother Edward with the same birth parents, which I have not been able to do. I have a guesstimate birth year of 1836 for Edward, based on computing from the 1911 census record: http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Galway/Cahermore/Killo…;.  That's all I've found of Edward so far. I haven't been able to find Mark anywhere other than his children's birth records. His son Edward was born in 1883. Mark is not listed with the family in the 1901 census, so I'm thinking he died before or around that time. I've had the most difficult time finding death records for anyone in Ireland. It does seem like the family didn't move around much, since my mother and her siblings were all raised in Gort, my aunt died there in the last 10-15 years, and some of my aunt's children still live there. 

I don't think that can be the right marriage record. I know that ages in census records are not reliable, but those put his wife's age as about 30 years older than I have her from the census records. I'm missing dates for a couple of my mother's siblings right now, but my mother was born in 1909 and I know she was not the youngest.  

Tery/Col:

I will alert our parish liaison for Gort about your message. 

Roger McDonnell

Thank you!

Thank you so much, Sister. I have a lot to sort through here. I'm a very visual person so I'm going to have to map all of this out to understand it.

I hope to be able to see the cemetery for myself in spring, when a few family members are going to visit Kerry (where my father was born) and Galway. 

My aunt's name was Margaret O'Donohue. She was born 24 Jun 1914 and died 28 Sept 2005. She married Stephen O'Donohue and had several children, some of whom still live in the area: Ann, Anthony, Bernard, John, Margaret, Matthew, and Phyllis. I believe some of the men are contractors, which is what my grandfather is listed as in the 1911 census. I think some of the children go by O'Donohue and some by Donohue. 

As far as I've been able to tell, only one of my relatives who lives in Ireland is at all interested in family history. He's one of the elderly Geaghans. I had the amazing luck of having someone who recently visited the Geaghans cotact me and send me the page related to Bridget Geaghan from this man's genealogical records. So I now know that her parents were Patrick Geaghan and Winifred Healy. I'm really pleased to have found the Winifred Geaghan my mother told me about. 

It means so much to me to have this information. I never got to meet any of my grandparents, though my grandfather on my father's side was alive until I was about 7, I think. We were raised to care a lot about family, but at the same time all the family we knew started with our parents generation. So while I can't meet my ancestors, I can learn about their lives. One of the ways I'm learning about my ancestors is by reaing your book on Kiltartan, which is a treasure.

Best,
Tery Griffin

Nice work Sister de Lordes, great to see some photo's of the headstones.

Fred Nolan

Should I be able to see photos? If so, I'm not seeing them.

I might be able to post photos at some point. When my sister and brother-in-law visited, they took photos of gravestones they were told were family. I don't know what they have but will see if I can get my brother-in-law to send them to me. If he does and they're relevant, I'll post them here in case anyone else would like the photos.

I don't seem to be able to edit a post, but I got the name wrong for one of my Aunt Peg's daughters in my response above. It was not Margaret, but Maureen. 

Tery

I have more information now, but I'm not sure how much is accurate, so I'm wondering if you can help.

It turns out the John Kelly on the headstone really is my grandfather, John Kelly, who married Mary O'Malley. My sister and brother-in-law visited Ireland several years ago and video recorded my cousin Maureen O'Donohue (daughter of my mother's youngest sister Peg, who never left Gort) walking them through the cemetery. It showed Maureen at the headstone of the John Kelly who died 1 March 1922, and she told my sister that was our grandfather. I only recently found out that they had that tape. 

I'm wondering if that means the death record listing Martin as present at his brother's death is the right record. I have not been able to find any death record for the date listed on the headstone. I did find a 40-year-old John Kelly who died 3 Apr 1922 in the Galway Hospital. The informant there was one of the Sisters at the hospital--it looks like Sr M F Kevany. But it does seem like the family would have known the date on which John died and would not have been off by a month. 

I'm trying to sort this out because if John really did have a brother named Martin, then I might have found John's family. A Martin Kelly traveled to New York in 1907 with my mother's uncle on her mother's side, Ed O'Malley. Ed was 21 at the time, and apparently using the name Mealy--at least that was what was on the passenger record. I'm sure I have the right Ed because they were going to stay with Ed's sister Agnes Mealy, in Hartford CT. The Martin Kelly traveling with Ed was 18 years old and born in Gort. It seems logical that a Kelly of about the same age as my mother's uncle on her mother's side might well be her uncle on her father's side.

I found a Martin Kelly born in Newtown, Gort in 1890 to Thomas Kelly and Margaret Corbett. That would be about the right age for the Martin traveling with Ed. That Martin had a brother named John born in 1881, which would be about the right date for my grandfather. Thomas and Margaret had several other children: Bridget (1879), Patrick (1880), Thomas (1883), Mary Anne (1885), Margaret (1887) and Lily (1893). I can find birth records for all but Lily, who seems to appear on the 1901 and 1911 censuses but nowhere else that I've found so far. 

It looks like Margaret Corbett's parents were Thomas Corbett and Catherine Carty. Thomas Kelly's father was John Kelly (according to Thomas and Margaret's marriage record). 

Do you have any sense of how likely it is that I have the correct family here, with Thomas Kelly and Margaret Corbett? 

My trip to Ireland is finally scheduled! My cousin and I are coming over in Sept. We'll be in Glenbeigh, Kerry (where our fathers are from) from Sept 7 - 14, then in Gort from Sept 14 - Sept 21. 

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Tery Griffin

Hi Terry

I might be able to help you.  Believe it or not when I was trawling through the 1911 census and  was curious as to who the O'Malley family were as I never heard the name growing up. I was born in the next townland and some of my relations are from Kilamoran .I will check with my Mother  and Aunts  who might be able to shed some light on this family

Sean

Hi Sean,

Thanks! That would be great. I have some information about the O'Malleys but don't know anyone who really knew the family. I'm going to meet an O'Malley descendant, my second cousin, at the Celtic Connections conference in August, but even she didn't really know the family. She barely remembers her grandfather, Ed O'Malley, and doesn't know anything about anyone before him. 

I have almost no information on the Kelly family. You see them living with the O'Malleys in both 1901 and 1911. The Mary Kelly on those records was Mary O'Malley, daughter of Bridget Gegan O'Malley, who is also on those censuses. I can't even find a marriage record for John Kelly and Mary O'Malley. I have nothing with his birthdate or any names of anyone in his family. But they must have been from the area since people generally married people who lived nearby then. Could you ask about the Kelly family as well?

Tery

Tery

I will come back to you in a couple of weeks  as I will be going to a family event in Galway where I expect I will be able to glean information from some of my neighbours and relations from Gort. There is a still a Kelly family who live in Kiilamoran and I will check to see whether they are the same family.

Sean 

Thanks, John. That would be exciting, if it’s the same family. My cousin and I are going over in September and will spend some time in Gort meeting relatives. 

If these are the right Kellys, they would be related to Margaret (Peg) Kelly, my aunt and John Kelly’s youngest (I think) daughter. Peg married an O’Donohue and at least some of that family still lives in Gort. Unfortunately, the ones I’ve been able to get in contact with don’t really know anything about family history, at least on the Kelly side. They would not have met John Kelly as he died in 1922. Peg probably didn’t even remember him. 

That should have been Sean, of course. Guess I was thinking about my grandfather so typed John. Sorry!

Tery

I spoke to my mother on the phone and she was able to tell me without much prompting that there was a Malley family  in the village as indicated by the census. However, the way she pronounced Malley in her south Galway accent could explain where the Melia link came from. It sounded a bit like Melia. She said that Jack (John) Kelly married a Malley.girl.  I has a look at the census record from 1911 and I think I can fill a gap. If I'm not mistaken, a number of more children were born and lived in that house post 1911.  I actually remember  two of them (Paddy and Michael Kelly) as they passed away in the last 20 years or so..

I will keep digging but I'm fairly confident that the Kelly family you are looking for are one and the same as your Kelly family.

Sean

Yes, that's the family. Patrick died in 1991, Michael in 2002. I hadn't thought about the accent, but my grandmother's father went by Melia and her grandfather by Mealy. Then they went to Malley. Maybe the accent is the reason for the varied spellings. 

Anything she knows about John Kelly or his siblings or parents would be wonderful. How old he was when he died. Whatever comes up. 

I love that accent. Both of my parents had it. My mother's Galway accent was softer than my father's Kerry accent. I miss hearing it. 

And thank you so much for doing this. This is the first actual solid information I've gotten about my grandfather, other than the names of his wife and children and the year he died. 

Tery

Hi Tery:  

Here is a link to the Glenbeigh group that may be able to assist you with the Glenbeigh side of your family. 

https://reeksdistrict.com/providers/culture-heritage/mid-kerry-genealogy/ 

All the best,  

Jane

Thanks, Jane.

I'm not sure if Sr. de Lourdes Fahy is still following this thread. 

I'm going to be visiting Ireland with a cousin in September. We'll be staying at Sullivan's in Gort from Sept 14-21. I would love to meet you if you're available during that time. 

I'm also hoping to look at some parish records. I would love to find John Kelly and Mary O'Malley's marriage record, which I think probably exists nowhere except in the parish records (if it even exists there). I have good information for two different John Kellys and I'm hoping to figure out which one I should continue following.

I'll be seeing relatives, mostly O'Donohues--children of my mother's sister, Margaret (Peg) Kelly O'Donohue. My sister was over a long time ago, though, and told me there were some Kellys around the area as well. I've only met one of the O'Donohues who's still there (Peg's daughter Maureen), so I'm very excited about that and about seeing where my mother grew up. 

Best,

Tery Griffin

Dear Tery:

Thank you for your message on the message board.  I'm sure that Sr deLourdes will see this, but if she doesn't reply in a week or so, I will follow up with her.

Please let me know on this thread if you do not hear from her by the 26 of August.

All the best,

Jane

Thanks for looking, Sister. The parish records were the last place I could think to look. I was hoping to find John's father's name. 

I think I'll be meeting some Kelly relatives in just a couple of weeks, when we visit Gort. I know I'll be visiting with some of the O'Donohues. Perhaps I will see you as well. We'll be there the weekend of the 15th & 16th so are going to try to spend some time at the Kiltartan Gregory Museum then. 

Best,

Tery Griffin

Consider search Oughterard records.  Geoghegan/Kelly/Melia (aka O'Malley).

There was a Melia family that married into the Geoghegan's the Melia family I know of had the following children (4 married Geoghegan's)

Bridget, Honore, Katherine, Rose, Mary, Thomas.

Bridget, Honre, Rose and Katherine all married Geoghegan's.

Also - There was a Thomas Geoghegan that married a Mary Kelly in 1866 in Oughterard - likely a sibling to your Kelly. 

Tery - are you still researching this?  I believe we are researching the same Kelly's and I am alomost positive I have the tree you are seeking and that we are likeley connected.  

If you are still researching, please email me at 

skibbereen71 at yahoo

cheers-

Tery - are you still researching this?  I believe we are researching the same Kelly's and I am alomost positive I have the tree you are seeking and that we are likeley connected.  

If you are still researching, please email me at 

skibbereen71 at yahoo

cheers-

I just emailed you.