Visiting the Relatives

The Pretender

The most famous immigrant ancestor of the Lynches was Jeremiah, a great-granduncle. He was an actor with a dramatic life. As an 11-year-old, he was working in a textile mill in Pawcatuck, Connecticut – his poor family having just arrived in the US from County Kerry. Somehow, from that start, he grew up to become an actor on the Vaudeville stage.

Jeremiah took the stage name David Walters and through deep digging in old Playbill magazines, he can be tracked performing in theaters all over the western part of the US from 1909 until his untimely death in 1925. He was a regular in Scranton’s Summer Stock where many shows were developed before moving to New York venues. In advertisements, he’s described as “Scranton’s Favorite Actor”. Jeremiah was never a movie star but he received some nice reviews for his acting on stage. Embarrassingly, some of the shows he performed in, featured actors in blackface.

Jeremiah Patrick Lynch AKA David Walters

Home addresses for the actor are nearly impossible to find. He eluded almost every census and city directory. Only in 1910 is he listed as existing – living in Norwich with his mother. I don’t believe he was there. (The house is gone now.) Even his death certificate had no home address and listed only the office of the actors’ union in New York. Finding the photo of him was a result of exhaustive digging – practically a miracle. He certainly looked like my grandfather – who, I learned from his obituary, was a pallbearer at the actor’s funeral. It was there that he witnessed the revelation of a remarkable secret – that Jeremiah Lynch had two families at the same time and that they only learned of each other at his death.

Jeremiah Patrick Lynch was 51 when he died in New York’s Bellevue Hospital. He was buried alone in his parents’ plot. The show was over.

**The Devil and Tom Walker** with David Walters (right)

Abandoned

In 1784, Richard Colburn was granted 200 acres around here in North Wallace, Nova Scotia — compensation for his military service at Fort Cumberland, New Brunswick. Back then, this area was called Remsheg, and Richard, who was a 4th great-grandfather of mine, had served as a private for the Royal Fencible American Regiment. There were 32 soldiers in all who split the 6150 acres set aside for them by the British Crown. They were the soldiers who stayed on after the squashing of a local uprising in 1776 which pitted Nova Scotians who were aiming to extend the American revolution north, against those who defended British control. Land was given as rewards but also as a way of occupying the land taken from the French a generation earlier. The British were the new colonizers in town and the French, along with the Indigenous population, were driven to the margins. Another 4th great-grandfather, Joshua Winslow Wethered, also a private, was granted 100 acres.

Neither ancestor settled on the land they were given. Few, if any of the 32 soldiers did. They sold it off. Many had no intention of farming and others had better post-military destinations. Richard moved to River Philip, Nova Scotia, and Joshua returned to family in Westmoreland, New Brunswick. Living here now are farmers and summer campers along the Atlantic Shore. There’s a nice golf course nearby, which attracts a local summer resident, the Grammy-winning singer Anne Murray.

Welcome Home

Approaching the small neighborhood of Roads, where the Lynches had left, we passed through Kells Bay, a connected village overlooking Dingle Bay. My wife I were milling around before moving into our rented cottage for the week. By the water is a hidden ancient graveyard I had read about, reserved for babies and stillborns who passed away before baptism. It’s a somber place with small unmarked stones denoting places of burial. Certainly ancestors lay there. As we meandered in, a man with a large loud grass trimmer was cutting weeds, wearing a plastic shield over his face. We exchanged polite waves. Moments later, the sound stopped and the man approached asking, Fred? Karen? It took a second, but it occurred to me this must be Brian Lynch, a local cheesemaker whom I had corresponded with on social media. His family, too, had a long history in the area, but I’ve yet to prove the relation. That said, his ancestors lived in the field next to my ancestors.

He walked to us and extended his hand saying, “Welcome home.”

Lynches in the Adjoining Townlands (Neighborhoods) of Killinane, Kerry.

The O’Connors Who Stayed

In 1901, James O’Connor O’Brien and his family lived here on Ballyhooley Road. His late brother Michael’s family lived right down the street. They were the ones who stayed in Ireland when seven siblings had left, one by one, for Boston. James was at the end of a military career that had taken him around the world. Now he lived near the army barracks. Most of James’ children went to Lancashire, England, to start families. Michael’s family lived their entire lives on this street. Most died young and were single, so I wonder if any of the many O’Connors in Cork are connected to me. The celebrated short story writer Frank O’Connor lived right around the the corner from this house, but I’ve failed to connect our families. O’Connor was his mother’s maiden name, which he used as a pen name.

1901 Mary Anne O’Connor on Balleyhooley Road, Cork

Street Fighting Man

Digging up research on our ancestors unearths bad news with the good.

Michael O’Connor was arrested for street fighting on December 13, 1880 in Cork City. He was fined and spent four days in jail. Police described him as 23 years old, 5’8,” with brown hair, grey eyes, and a sallow complexion. Because the report states Michael lived at 42 Gilabbey Street, on the city’s south side, I can identify him as a great-grand uncle of mine.

1880 Michael O’Connor Arrest, Cork, Cork, Ireland

Michael’s brother, James, and sister, Ellen, could be found at this address too, around the same time. The records I found of them were for more happy occasions — marriages. Assuming this was the family home for the entire O’Connor family, it must have been a tight fit for nine children and two parents. At the time of the arrest, my great-grandfather Daniel O’Connor would have been nine years old.

Within twelve years, seven of the nine siblings had emigrated, one-by-one to the US, all landing in Boston and most settling nearby. Michael stayed in Cork and died of tuberculosis in 1900 at the age of 43, leaving his wife Mary Anne (Riordan) with six children. At least five of the children also eventually died of tuberculosis, the oldest living to the age of 54.

1884 Marriage of Ellen O’Connor and Patrick Murphy, Cork, Cork, Ireland

St. Finbarr’s

St. Finbarr’s South Church is the oldest in Cork City — open since 1766. Named for the legendary founder of the city, it sits on a side street near the River Lee. It’s thanks to their deep records that I know my maternal ancestors go back pretty far in this very old neighborhood called South Parish. I can trace the Hollands to 1800, the McMahons to 1810, the Connellys to 1816, and the Crowleys to 1817. My mother’s name was O’Connor and I can trace them back to at least the 1850s — probably further. Here is where so many of my relatives were baptized and married some four, five and six generations ago.

It was at this church on an earlier trip a number of years ago that I first felt the wonder of standing in my ancestors’ footsteps. I also learned then that the O’Connors were Connors back in the 1800s — at least on paper. “O’” before a surname was dropped at that time at the insistence of the British powers. Returning this year with a decade of deep research under my belt, I walked this entire neighborhood street by street with many new footsteps to follow, and destinations to draw.

1854 Marriage of John Connor and Mary Holland, St. Finbarr’s South Church, Cork, Cork, Ireland

Departure

It was from here in Cobh, on the southern coast of Ireland, that the last 123 passengers of the Titanic walked these planks on April 12, 1912, setting off on their fateful trip across the Atlantic. Bound for New York, most never arrived. But you know that story. Now decayed and known as “Heartbreak Pier,” this exact dock is also where five years earlier my great-grandparents Daniel and Ellen O’Keeffe took their last steps on the Emerald Isle — setting off for new lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

This ragged wooden structure is now awaiting an overdue restoration as a tourist destination and memorial. It is said that over three million emigrants left from this port, formerly known as Queenstown. Most of my emigrant ancestors passed by here, presumably heartbroken. For generations the most valuable export that poor Ireland offered to the world was its population .

Empty Mine

Kealogue Copper Mine, Allihies, Cork, Ireland

I found this metaphor for my research project sitting in an empty field on the far southwest coast of the Beara Peninsula, in County Cork, Ireland. This is the Kealogue Copper Mine in Allihies, a small village that sits between the mountains and the sea. The structure is an engine house which held a steam engine that pumped water from below, allowing miners to tunnel 18 shafts between the years 1842 and 1882. There were once four engine houses here, and many more mines. Now they’re all empty. All that’s left are these tall structures scattered about the treeless landscape. To me, this is a monument to all who search in the dark, who follow leads, dig deep, and eventually hit dead ends.

One of the tools I use in my ancestral research is DNA. It can be remarkably helpful in finding leads as to where a family is from. Unfortunately, women do not pass on the same number of DNA markers as men, so some mysteries remain in my mother’s family’s past. To look at my mother’s profile is to be deceived. Her father’s family, the O’Connors, are from Cork City. Her mother’s family, the O’Keeffes, are from East Cork. Believe me, I know. But her DNA doesn’t list those places. Instead, it points to here —the Western Beara Peninsula. She is also connected by blood to many of the families who left these empty mines long ago —having moved on to do the same dirty work in the States — starting in Butte, Montana. How I’m connected—and through whom—remains a mystery. This may be the end of the line, this empty mine.

Mysteries

Angela Lansbury lived nearby, of that I was certain. She had a nice house a short distance down the road, overlooking the Irish Sea, surrounded by fields of barley. What I was less certain of, is whose farm lay before me. My research led me to believe that it is a place of my family’s past, here in the rural townland of Ballywilliam in East Cork. I started this drawing in the form of a question: Was this a farm that my ancestors, the O’Keeffes, lived on?

I don’t make drawings for beauty, or for pleasure. Rather, I make them as pictures from a long story. I’m tracing my family back as far as I can and drawing where they lived. I’m trying to show my American immigrant story through places. That leads me to sitting across the street from a wide variety of locations that don’t attract artists — like busy city streets and quiet roads like this. These are are the places from whence my family came. Unless I’m at the wrong place.

1850s Griffith’s Valuation, Cork, Ireland

On this day, a nice woman named Kathleen came over from her farm across the way and we chatted about the place. She told me she had known Angela Lansbury and that she was lovely. She also told me that her mother and grandmother were O’Keeffes who lived here. My grandmother was Helen O’Keefe who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. (Somehow my relatives lost an “f” from their name on their trip to America. Perhaps it fell off the ship.) Ellen’s father, Daniel, was an emigrant from around here. What brought me to this farm was the belief that Daniel was born here. Now, later, I’m less certain. I’ve found a document that named his birthplace as Churchtown South, a short distance away. So, how these O’Keeffes connect to mine is uncertain. As far back as 1850, there was a John O’Keeffe here with his family. Up the road, by the cemetery was Thomas O’Keeffe. In Churchtown South, there were more O’Keeffes. These families were all very near each other and long ago. I’m sure it would have been more clear then how they were all related. No doubt Kathleen and I share a little blood. As for Angela Lansbury, that’s not a mystery at all — she’s from away.

Angela Landsbury’s house in East Cork (c/o Architectural Digest)

Distant Branches

In 1900 Kate McMahon switched one crowded Irish neighborhood filled with friends and relatives for another 6700 miles away. Born in this Cork City row house in the Lough neighborhood in 1877, she emigrated to Chelsea, Massachusetts (next to Boston), to live with her uncle Michael Connolly. He worked at the local rubber factory along with other Corconians, including Daniel O’Connor who married Kate within a year. They eventually moved to Providence and raised ten children, many of whom worked at the large US Rubber factory. Kate and Daniel O’Connor were my great-grandparents.

While I know Kate went to the US, it’s difficult to track others in her family, except for her younger brother. Dennis McMahon was three years younger than Kate and became a soldier with the Royal Munster Fusiliers. He ended up in Tralee and raised a large family with his Kerry-born wife, Mary O’Sullivan. Some of their children moved to England and it was through that branch of the family, and their DNA, that I connected with my third cousin Nicola McMahon Kenny, who discovered our relationship through Ancestry. Nicola, now living in Kerry, joined me for lunch on my recent trip to Ireland. To my delight, she had pictures to share of some American relatives of mine who were meeting Tralee relatives of hers decades ago. The people in the photos were curious to her, but I recognized them right away as aunts and uncles of my mother. On that day, far away, distant family branches touched.