According to my research, Owen Lavelle was born in Cross (Boyd), Belmullet, Mayo, Ireland sometime around the year 1810-15. Wehave little knowledge of his life, but know that he married Margaret Kane (uncertain of the spelling Cain? Keane?). Three of their children, Margaret, Peter and Mary, were born in Cross, Co. Mayo and baptized at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Binghamstown, County Mayo. In 1834 the Tythes for Kilmore, the official government tax record, indicated that Owen was paying taxes on the land where he lived, Cross (Boyd) next to the village or a part of Cross where he was born. In Griffith's Valuation for 1855, Owen Lavelle is still listed in Cross (Boyd) but in 1856-57, the only folks listed for Cross (Boyd) in Kilmore are Dennis Bingham, Owen Lavelle and Luke Lyons. They were most likely "granted" this land by the Crown or were leasing it from one of their relatives who had the grant. Given the known history of the British Bingham, Lyons and Richards families, particularly the Bingham "Exterminator", it is fairly easy to extrapolate what happened to Owen's hold in Cross and why his family was gone by the 1870s. The Third Earl of Lucan was known as the "Exterminator" because of the ruthless number of evictions he enforced on his estates, burning homes/shacks and sending people away with merely the clothes on their backs. The Exterminator died in 1888, so it is very likely that he evicted the Lavelles, precipitating their move to the USA. We lose track of Owen here and are uncertain if he ever emigrated with his children. According to the various US Census, Owen's son, Peter (my 2nd GG), arrived in 1870 and was naturalized in 1874. Peter and his wife Ellen Geraghty Lavelle (whom I am also looking for information on) lived in Leetonia Ohio with 6 of their 11 children, the youngest two then living had been born in Leetonia (several others would be born later in Pennsylvania.)
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| Date of Birth | 1st Jan 1815 (circa) | |
