Awareness of William Cairns (1815-1898, or so) started with John Kelly. William was Scotland-born and had emigrated to the US. The much younger Mr. Kelly, on the other hand, was born in the US around 1859, but left some few of his own particulars on a Lanarkshire census sheet in 1881. It counted him a … Continue reading Not My Ancestor, Maybe Yours? William Cairns of Lanarkshire, Kentucky and Illinois
Category: Book & Scots Past
The Adoption Witness: John Kelly – With Planted Bonar Evidence?
Great grandsire made himself rare: An American ploughman in Lanarkshire; John Kelly, born in 1859. That was the early 1880s and practically his claim to fame. Still, it told not a whit about the man. Nor was he about to be explained, what reporting as a farm servant, without a bone of family around to … Continue reading The Adoption Witness: John Kelly – With Planted Bonar Evidence?
Adoption Witness: John Kelly of Portland, Multnomah, OR: To Whom Do You Belong?
John Kelly was born in the US in 1860 and had a Scottish mother, or so he said in Portland OR, 1900.1 Antennas up; maybe he was our direct biological ancestor. Then he dimmed his chances in 1920 by alleging himself two years younger, of an Irish mother. We wanted him ours and would get … Continue reading Adoption Witness: John Kelly of Portland, Multnomah, OR: To Whom Do You Belong?
The Adoption Witness: The Poughkeepsie John and Mistresses Mary, Quite Contrary.
John and Mary Kelly kept home in Poughkeepsie, NY in 1900.1a He was native there, late 1850s, of Irish immigrants while she had arrived about 1888. They were married six years by then.1b It became apparent that she was Mary Devlin, born in the late 1860s, of Irish folks in Scotland. Mary Devlin 20 Oct … Continue reading The Adoption Witness: The Poughkeepsie John and Mistresses Mary, Quite Contrary.
The Adoption Witness: Ellen Berrigan; Perils and Pearls by Sea to Poughkeepsie
We sought Ellen, wife of Daniel Kelly of Poughkeepsie, NY, in connection to a possible link with our own genealogy.1 By best estimate, she was born in Ireland in 1825 and died about 1913.2a That she was born Berrigan is supported by newly released Roman Catholic Baptismal Records, which held listing for one of her … Continue reading The Adoption Witness: Ellen Berrigan; Perils and Pearls by Sea to Poughkeepsie
The Adoption Witness: Materializing Ghosts
Elizabeth Hanson appeared in the 1851 Census of Bothwell, Scotland for Bo’ness Road.1a Captured at ScotlandsPeople (SP), the record was posted in this order: herself and her Hanson children, a family of five Moore lodgers, and Eliza Kelly. The order suggested three family types. Of the Hanson children, Sarah was 11, Agnes 7, Richard 5 … Continue reading The Adoption Witness: Materializing Ghosts
The Adoption Witness: A Trip To The Dairy Farm.
We were trying to define US-born John Kelly, that 22-year old mystery man who plowed the fields of Woodhall Cottage Farm in Holytown, Lanarkshire. The year was 1881. Dairyman, Andrew Barrie, and his wife, Agnes Shearer, Scots both, worked that same farm.1a We wondered, if by chance, they could explain John's visit to the land … Continue reading The Adoption Witness: A Trip To The Dairy Farm.
The Adoption Witness: Escalating Those Carstairs.
Double Genealogy: The Adoption Witness Update 7 Addendum 11* We just got word that John Kelly's son, Robert, died in Wayne County, Michigan.1 We had ruled John out as an ancestor, but this news reopens the case. Recall: John, born 1834, in Carstairs, was coal mining out of Legbrannock in 1851.2 We hoped to prove … Continue reading The Adoption Witness: Escalating Those Carstairs.
Who’da Thunk? Canada Births Found In Scotland Old Parish Records
This blog has a section "Not My Ancestor; Maybe Yours". We post no story there, just data found from trips down rabbit holes. Information that would otherwise be deleted. Search engine evidence shows that others do access the information. So, this entry could easily have gone there, but for the surprise find, alluded to by … Continue reading Who’da Thunk? Canada Births Found In Scotland Old Parish Records
Writing Off Jane Carroll’s John Kelly
DOUBLE GENEALOGY: The ADOPTION WITNESS. Update 4, Addendum 8 Genealogical bereavement: the profound sense of loss on realizing that the long--departed soul under lengthy intensive scrutiny is not an ancestor. The state of grief and disbelief that must pass before another target can be tackled. Alas, we deem that Jane's John is not ours. Those … Continue reading Writing Off Jane Carroll’s John Kelly
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