Ellen Maher

Ellen Maher was my great-grandmother. She died in 1920, long before I was born. I've been trying to determine her parents and her family for quite some time. I only recently came the conclusion that I believe I know the answer to that question.

According to her obituary, she came to the USA when she was 20 and two years later married Patrick Joseph Murphy. She married Patrick Joseph (PJ) Murphy in Iowa in 1871, which would put her year of immigration as approximately 1869. If she was 20, then that would put her birth year as approximately 1849. Her headstone records her birthdate as January 12, 1854, which would mean she was 15 when she immigrated to the USA and 17 when she married (highly unlikely).

The church record of their marriage lists two sponsors one of which is a Bridget Dalton. Bridget was the daughter of Patrick Maher and Bridget Mullally. She married Patrick Dalton in Gortnahoe, before immigrating to NJ. On the 1870s census, they are living in NJ with 3 children all of whom were born in NJ.  Sometime after the census was taken, and before PJ and Ellen were married, they moved their family to Iowa where they remained for the rest of their lives.

Patrick Dalton and PJ Murphy were both foreman on the railroad at the time of Ellen's marriage. Many, if not most, of Ellen's other relatives (found through newspaper records) were also employed by the railroad.

Ellen’s mother's maiden name is not exactly clear on her death certificate (see below). It looks like it originally said "Murphy" and then they corrected it by writing something over it. It looks like Mullaly or maybe Mulhall, with the y at the end coming from the original "Murphy". 

On the 1900 census she lists her birthday as Jan 1851 (at that time she was living in Little Falls, NY).

As mentioned above, in the 1870 census, which was taken in June of 1870. Patrick and Bridget Dalton were living in New Jersey, and had three children, all of whom had been born in the United States. Ellen was not living with them.

There are several relatives that I’ve traced through DNA and newspaper articles, that lived in central NY and that were also from Gortnahoe.  And a search of all Irish baptismal records only finds an Ellen born to a Patrick Maher and a Bridget Mullally or Mulhall in Gortnahoe. Yes, both families in Gortnahoe.

For a time, I was unsure and thought that perhaps the Patrick Maher married to Bridget Mullally is the same Patrick as the one married to Bridget Mulhall. The marriage to Bridget Mulhall took place Feburary 16, 1847 (although the name on the marriage record is written as Mullale); the marriage to Bridget Mullally took place in 1838. If it is the same Patrick, he would've gotten married only a month after Ellen 1847 was born. Not likely. The death records for Gortahoe are very incomplete, and so I can not check the death records for the death of a Bridget Murphy. But, Ellen 1847 lived in Ballinastick at the time of her birth (according to the baptismal record), and Ellen 1850 lived in Ballinanty as did John 1848 (see below). Would Patrick have married a month after the baptism of his youngest and move to another town? And, where exactly are Ballinanty and Ballinastick? We will look at that in the next post.

Here are the baptismal records for each couple:

Patrick Maher and Bridget Mullally (there are several different spellings of Mullally in the records) had the following children

• Patrick 1839
• Bridget 1841
• William 1842
• James 1844
• Ellen (baptized 3 Jan 1847)

Patrick Maher and Bridget Mulhall had the following children

• John 1848
• Ellen (Baptized 19 May 1850)
• Johanna 1852
• Bridget 1853
• William 1856
• Michael 1858
• Alicia 1860
• James 1862
• Ellen 1864
• unnamed female 1866
• Patrick 1868
• MaryAnn 1870

Here is the dilemma: in no census record that I could confirm did the Ellen Maher I am researching,  ever give her birth year as less than 1850. According to her obituary, she married when she was 22, which would set her birth year as 1849 - 1850. And her birth month is always recorded as January.

Because 1847 seemed quite far off from all the other possible years of her birth, I assumed for several years that Ellen 1850 was my great-grandmother, but I could not make sense of the May baptism (vs January as she has always maintained to be her birth month), and I could not figure out how she was connected to Bridget Maher Dalton.  When I found the baptismal record for Ellen 1864, I knew she could not be Ellen 1850 for most likely Ellen 1850 would've had to have died in order for her parents to name her Ellen. I've searched all records for an Ellen born to a Patrick Maher and a Bridget Mul* and have found only the two I've discussed in this post.

Here is the record for Ellen 1864. She lived in Ballinanty. You can see this in the record.

According to Irish naming conventions, Ellen was probably Bridget Mulhall's mother's name.

Whether Patrick Maher or Ellen 1847 had another family or not, is yet to be determined. There were no children born to Bridget Mullally after Ellen 1847.