Courtesy Boston Public Library Photo Archives-Charlestown Boys Club- library |
Monday, April 18, 2016
Another Memory Monday
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Common and Uncommon Surnames
TAPPLY TAPLEY |
Why would this matter? Well, let's say you're having trouble pinning down where your relatives with the unusual surname emigrated from or immigrated to; this map might give you a start deciding where to look. It also tells you whether the name has remained "active" or is dying out.
This map tells me where in the world I am most likely to find Tapply with my particular spelling. You can see that the highest incidences are in the United States, England, Australia and Canada. Change the spelling to Tapley and you can add in New Zealand.
Going one step further you can see that most of the Tapplys in the United States are people I know are directly related to me. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Colorado would be where they are. Since Charles Tapply Senior had only 3 sons and mostly daughters this map reflects the children and grandchildren of Bob and Charlie Tapply. The only outliers are Tennessee and New Jersey. That might be interesting to explore. (There are some Tapplys in the U. S. descended from Charles's brother Thomas J. Tapply. ) Since the highest incidence of the Tapply surname on the first map was in the United States and on the second map it appears to be direct relatives, I think we can say that the name is declining.
You can see where this would be useful in tracking down relatives and determining where they fit in the tree. Be sure to click on the two links I've included and see if you can track down an unusual name in your family tree. I think this is lots of fun.
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
The Fitzgeralds
You may remember in a previous post about my great-grandfather Andrew Fitzgerald, I puzzled over this chart. I made this to puzzle out why the ages seemed so diverse and inconsistent. My cousin Jon pointed out, and rightly so, that Andrew may not have been literate and may well not have know his age. The real outlier was the immigration passenger list. I decided that if I threw THAT out, I might make some real progress. So I have added a column on the right based on some new information I just found. (I still think he was deliberately shaving his age in some cases) And remembering that birthdays were NOT a big to-do over a hundred years ago, I think I may have been able to add some family in Ireland to the tree.
I was looking at the marriage application document from the last post.
I was looking at the marriage application document from the last post.
The names of HIS parents and hers are real leads in the Irish records. I looked at the Charlestown marriage record and the same two names appear again: Andrew Fitzgerald and Margaret Callahan. So based on that I was off and running. Ancestry posted a link to some updated records they just added from the Irish National Library. This is baptims and marriages in Roman Catholic parishes. And plugging in the three names..........
Here it is in Latin at the very bottom of the page "Andreas Fitzgerald filius Andrea et Margarit
Callahan sp. Eugenia McCarthy et Margrite ?." (not sure of that last name) So could this be true? 1820?
I decided to go to the records and start combing. How common was the name in Cork? How common would a combination of both names be? I went page by page and found siblings. And every time the parent names were consistent. And 1820 would not be so very far off from 1814. Before long I had a tree that looked like this:
What I see in the records seems to fit what I know. I can't be absolutely certain, but I think this is it! Where I had a spindly little chopped off tree, I now have some ancestors.
I was curious about the locale. The front of the register said Diocese of Cloyne, parish of Macroom. There again, I ran into all the Irish geopolitical divisions. So I went directly to the Library of Ireland page and there was a handy dandy map next to the image from the records I had been using.
I checked out the information on the parish and it turns out that the church name also matches the name I found in the front of the birth register: St. Colman's. Macroom, according to Wikipedia, is a market town fourteen miles west of Cork. It was a bustling town until the great potato famine when, according to this source, it was "decimated by death and emigration". Now by the time Andrew decided to emigrate in 1850, the famine was past, but perhaps he saw no future for himself in this place. Or perhaps he was still young enough to dream of adventure. I still wonder if Catharine, his wife, was some cousin, however distant. She emigrated at about the same time. I think I'll have to give the passenger lists another close look. Those birth records were full of Fitzgeralds. Only one other Andrew. Too far off in date to be mine and different parent names. But I also saw some Desmonds. And that was Catharine's mother's name. The next task was to go into my favorite Google street view and see what this place looks like. This is the site of the various baptisms: St. Colman's Roman Catholic church. It has quite an extensive bit of land. Perhaps a school or convent as well as the church.
And, of course, I had to get a good look at the town. I plunked the little man in Streetview in various spots. It seems to be a quiet little Irish town.
Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, I've made some real progress on the Fitzgerald side of my tree!
Hope you have the luck of the Irish in your search for ancestors.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Love and Marriage
St. Vedast Church- London |
James Henry Tapply and Elizabeth Payne |
Michael Cooke and Mary Feehily(Feely) |
Andrew Fitzgerald and Catharine Fitzgerald |
Eliazer Rogers and Martha Young |
Maybe a closer look at some marriage records will clear up some mysteries in your family tree.
Happy Valentines Day!
Sunday, February 7, 2016
A Snowy Winter Day.....
Garfield Street, Fitchburg, Massachusetts |
Garfield Street |
These were the only snow pictures I could find from that generation or the previous one.
Amesbury, Massachusetts |
Houston, Texas |
Count the number of snow pictures in your family collection. I'll bet even if you live in Minnesota or far east Maine there aren't that many.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
A Holiday Dinner Mishap
Fitchburg Sentinel, December 23, 1924 |
Apparently there was a bit of confusion over the groceries. I can understand why. When you look at a picture of a 1924 Ford Model T, you can see that one black car might look more or less like another parked on Fitchburg's main street.
a 1924 Model T |
So this unfortunate gentleman went home without the holiday roast and I'm sure there was hell to pay....or was there? Could this be an early example of the the gold coin in the red kettle? We will never know. Officer Tapply to the rescue.
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Memories Monday
Courtesy of Boston Public Library Photo Archives |
Santa. They had wonderful holiday decorations and amazing windows. Everyone has heard of the wonderful Filene's basement- home to the most chaotic markdown scene anywhere. But this photo is more about walking into a real department store with one of my parents and enjoying the magic of Christmas.
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