Michael & Ellen Connery, Lindsay, Ontario, Canada

Ellen Roche and Michael Connery were born in the early 1800s in Ireland. They married in about 1830, had at least two children then emigrated, sometime around 1840, to Lindsay, Canada, where at least four more Connerys were born. The oldest, Nora, married John Pyne in Lindsay in 1856, then moved to the Buffalo area where they raised their family. One account states that other Connerys moved from Lindsay to Iowa.

Ellen and Michael's children were:

• Nora (b. 1834-42, Ireland)
  married John Pyne in 1856,last found in Buffalo, NY in 1900
• Mary (b. 1838, Ireland)
• James (b. 1845, Ontario)
• Michael (b. 1848, Lindsay - d. bef 1861)
• Richard (b. 1849)
• Margaret Ann (b. 1852)

Ancestry Message Boards

I suppose 20 years after purchasing the great Rootsweb free genealogy site, Ancestry would like all of it's users to be paying Ancestry users and is slowly throttling Rootsweb. My supposition. In recent years, there has been a huge decline in Rootsweb use. Perhaps this is because serious genealogists are now all subscribing to different services - Ancestry, MyHeritage, etc. - and are now using their member-only message boards, essentially fencing themselves off from the greater genealogy community. I just posted a message to Rootsweb and received an almost immediate comprehensive response. Now I see that my post to Rootsweb is automatically posted on Ancestry's version of the same message board, but the helpful very informative reply was posted only to Ancestry's version, though shared with me, the author of the original post. In other words, others researching this family will not see the information unless they are Ancestry members, so will need to post their own queries. This makes the public Rootsweb message boards much less useful. Intentionally, by Ancestry, I would guess. I think this is unfortunate for what used to be an open genealogy community. Sigh.

Garrett & Bridget Kiernan (1st), Ann Gilchrist (2nd), Cranston, Rhode Island

Bridget Dunlavey & Garrett Kiernan were Irish immigrants, born in about 1821 and 1815, respectively. I don't know whether they married there or after coming to the United States. They settled in Cranston, Rhode Island (near Providence) where they had at least 5 children, beginning with Thomas in 1839, before Bridget passed away in the late 1840s. Garrett had 6 more children with his second wife, Ann Gilchrist, in the 1850s. (Ann was also born about 1815 in Ireland.) Garrett was a laborer. He served briefly as a private in Company D of the 2nd Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers (Oct 1864 to July 1865). They may have had a daughter born in the early 1830s. Garrett's mother, also Bridget, was living with them in 1850. Garrett and Ann passed away in the 1870s. Garrett's oldest son, Thomas, our branch of the family, was a musician in the Civil War, after which he came out to northern California with his daughter, Sarah.

Children of Garrett & Bridget were:

• A daughter born in the early 1830s
• Thomas (b. 1839)
  married Mary Ann Rogers in 1860, served as a musician in the Rhode Island 12th Infantry, then moved to northern California with his oldest daughter, Sarah. Died about 1912.
• Bridget (b. 1841)
  married Thomas Russell in 1860, died 1927
• Bernard Burns (b. 1844>
  married Emma Irons 1867, died 1922
• Ann (1845-1913)
• and Peter (b. 1847)
  married Mary Conerton 1863.

Children of Garrett & Ann were:

• John (1852-1932)
• James (1854-1911)
• Mary Elizabeth (b. 1855)
  married Edward Brennan 1878, died 1928
• Catherine (1857-1897)
• Julia (1858, died before 1860)
• and Ellen (b. 1859)
  married Charles Capron 1885, died 1902.

Thomas & Mary Cummings, Rhode Island

Mary Kane & Thomas Cummings were Irish immigrants, born in about 1838. Thomas immigrated in about 1853. They probably married near Blackstone, in western Massachusetts in about 1859. They soon moved to Cranston, Rhode Island where they started their family. Thomas was a stone mason. They had 8 children that I know of, though there may have been a few short-lived children that missed an accounting in the censuses. In the early 1880s, something happened that caused son Daniel to take charge of his remaining siblings. In 1890, Daniel married Sarah Kiernan and they came out to California to start their family. I could not track the remaining Cummings family. The last trace I found was Thomas and his youngest (surviving) son, William, living with a family in the Newport area in 1905. At least two of the kids passed away in the 1880s.

Their eight children were

• Patrick F. (b. 1861)
• Daniel Kane (b. 1864)
  married Sarah Kernan 1890, died near Oakland, Calif. in 1932
• Mary Ann (1865-1882)
• John (b. 1867)
• Katie (b. 1870)
• William (b. 1872)
• Bridget (b. 1874)
• and Joseph Henry (1878-1880).