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Can someone help me who was related to Thomas Andrew Fitzgerald born in 1831 at
Ireland. His parents Michael and Mary died about 1840, leaving Thomas and his sister
orphans, they were sent to New York, USA. I would like to know where in Ireland the
family was born. Thomas was on the 1850 Census at Easton, Washington, New York
at the age of 18 and a laborer, he then moved to Canada and settled in Ottawa.

I appreciate any help on this.

Thank-you!

Dianne

Hi Dianne, it's very very unlikely that anyone who was related to these people (or anyone else!) will happen by and see your thread

someone might find it some day by doing an internet search, so make sure your email address is always current in the account in case they try to contact you, and click 'watch this' on this thread so if someone posts here, you get a notice

have you searched trees at this site to see whether they are in anyone's tree?

sometimes Ontario marriage and death records will name the person's parents and give their place of birth ... his marriage was probably too early but have you see a death record for him?

can we assume you are descended from him and so you are looking for his ancestors?


(would you also check back please to the 'Winters' thread you posted in? just click 'my threads' on the left to find any thread you start or add to)

it is wise to give all the info you have

helpers here are hobbled in searching if we know less than you do


for our info

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F2K7-2BW

Name Thomas Fitzgerald
Birth Date 1832
Birthplace Ireland
Age 38
Spouse's Name Ellen Brown
Spouse's Birth Date 1844
Spouse's Birthplace Ottawa
Spouse's Age 26
Event Date 30 Aug 1870
Event Place St. Andrew, Ottawa, Carleton, Ontario
Father's Name Mich. Fitzgerald
Mother's Name Mary ...
Spouse's Father's Name Patrick Brown
Spouse's Mother's Name Ann Mclaughlin


the original record, if you can find it, would show his mother's surname

age seems to vary ...

1871 census?

Name: Thomas Fitzgerald
> Age: 29
> Birth Year: abt 1842
Birth Place: Ireland
Marital Status: Married
Religion: Catholic
Origin: Irish
Province: Ontario
District: Ottawa
Subdistrict: Wellington Ward
Thomas Fitzgerald 29
Ellen Fitzgerald 26
James Fitzgerald 8
Ellen Fitzgerald 4

1881 census?

Name: Ellen Fitzgerald
Marital Status: Married
Age: 37
Birth Year: 1844
Birthplace: Ontario
Religion: Catholic
Nationality: Irish
Province: Ontario
District: Ottawa City
Subdistrict: Wellington Ward
> Thomas Fitzgerald 39
Ellen Fitzgerald 37
Michael Fitzgerald 8
Thomas Fitzgerald 7
Mary A. Fitzgerald 6
Patrick Fitzgerald 5

1891 in Renfrew North district

Thomas Fitzgerald 48 lumber(something)
Ellen Fitzgerald 45
Michael Fitzgerald 18
Thomas Fitzgerald 17
Mary Ann Fitzgerald 16
Henry Fitzgerald 14
Henry Fitzgerald 14
Dora Fitzgerald 8
Frederick Fitzgerald 6

1901 in same place

Michael Fitzgerald 28 hotel keeper
Christina Fitzgerald 23
Frederick Fitzgerald 16
> Eleanor Fitzgerald 56 mother, widow, dob 23 Dec 1844
Dora Fitzgerald 17
(employees follow)


so Thomas died between 1891 and 1901



well, unless I've been following the wrong Thomas, which is why I should have waited for info ...

Name: Thomas Fitzgerald
Gender: Male
Birth Year: abt 1835
Birth Place: Limerlok, Ireland
Age at Death: 80
Death Date: 23 Apr 1915
Death Place: Carleton, Ontario, Canada

exept no, that Thomas's parents were Patrick Fitzgerald and Margaret Lynch

that info is likely accurate so rules him out ... informant of death was Rev Geo Fitzgerald


can't see a death record for the Thomas I was following

are you quite sure that the 1850 US census Thomas is yours?


https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MZM9-B93

Thomas Fitzgerald
United States Census, 1850
Name Thomas Fitzgerald
Event Type Census
Event Year 1850
Event Place Easton, Washington, New York, United States
Gender Male
Age 19
Race White
Birth Year (Estimated) 1831
Birthplace Ireland
House Number 421

familysearch.org has


Thos. Fitzgerald
Ireland Births and Baptisms, 1620-1881
christening: 8 January 1836
ROMAN CATHOLIC, ARDFERT, KERRY, IRELAND
father: Michael Fitzgerald
mother: Mary Hanifan

Thomas Fitzgerald
Ireland Births and Baptisms, 1620-1881
christening: 30 November 1838
ASKEATON, LIMERICK, IRELAND
father: Michl Fitzgerald
mother: Mary Grady

Thomas Fitzgerald
Ireland Births and Baptisms, 1620-1881
christening: 31 May 1841
ASKEATON, LIMERICK, IRELAND
father: Michl Fitzgerald
mother: Mary Mulqueen

Thos Fitzgerald
Ireland Births and Baptisms, 1620-1881
christening: 12 June 1842
ASKEATON, LIMERICK, IRELAND
father: Michl Fitzgerald
mother: Mary Connelly


do you suppose he is one of them? :-)

there is also an 1830 birth in 'Ireland' with no other details


if you tell us the name and dob of his sister we might be able to find a matching pair of baptisms with parents Michael and Mary and possibly other siblings ...

the original record can be seen at Ancestry in the Drouin collection

Name: Thomas Fitzgerald
Spouse: Ellen Brown
Event: Marriage
Religion: Catholique
Church Name: St Patrick
Marriage Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Marriage Year: 1858-1868

the image says that he is 38 and she is 26,

and his parents are Mich Fitzgerald and Mary .............. no surname

he must not have known his mother's family name


so trying to find his and his sister's baptisms with the same parents seems the most likely possibility for identifying his mother ... if that is what you are wanting to do



assuming I am following the right person ... his burial

Name: Thomas A Fitzgerald
Event: Burial
Religion: Catholique
Church Name: Cathédrale
Burial Location: Pembroke, Ontario
Burial Year: 1889-1899

On this fifth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, we the undersigned blessed the body of Thomas A Fitzgerald, aged fifty-five years, who died on the 2nd instant, husband of Ellen Brown. The remains were afterward taken to the Cemetery for burial in presence of Michael J. Fitzgerald and Michael Howe.
(signed) J.J. McInerney

that equates to a birth year of 1840 or 1841, but 55 could be a round number

I'll remind Dianne of how to find her replies :-)

Hi Dianne, please do reply in the thread and not by private message

(use the 'Add your reply' box at the bottom rather than clicking on my name)

Dianne says:

'Thanks for your message and advise, Thomas's marriage said his parents
were Michael and Mary, but doesn't say where in Ireland he was born.'


Can you verify at least that the Canadian census information I have posted is correct for your Thomas?

how do you know that the 1850 US census Thomas is your Thomas?

Hi! Cynthia,

Thanks for your help! I think since Thomas was older than Ellen he made himself look
younger, also I posted in the members tree and might get more replies on the week-end. That was the right Thomas in the 1850 Census, he was living with family
that took him in. I don't know the name of his sister, Thomas never saw her again after they got to New York. I did use the Irish History Foundation site and they didn't have Thomas Fitzgerald in 1831 with his parents and I've been looking at the Catholic Records online, online five counties so far. I looked into an orphanage in New York for records with no luck, they looked at a 30 age range from 1840.
I'm looking at ordering Immigrations Records from Ireland to New York on CD.

Does Ireland have an immigration site to New York?

Dianne

so just for us to be clear ... Thomas travelled to the US with the family that took him in, in Ireland? (no, see below)

it's just odd that Thomas put an accurate age on his marriage record, but then made himself a decade younger on census returns :-)


I am not terribly familiar with Irish records, myself (one Irish grx4 grandfather identified in English censuses as born in "Ireland" in the late 1700s, of whom I completely despair!)

what you should do is use the edit function on your first post and add "born in Ireland" to the heading

that will attract attention from people here who are more knowledgeable


meanwhile I wonder whether a pair of deaths for parents Michael and Mary might be identified in burial records, in the same place as each other, within the right date range ...


the 1850 household in New York was:

William Barber M 38 New York
Dorcus Barber F 36 New York
Kenyon Barber M 8 New York
Mary E Barber F 0 New York
Phillip Brophy M 30 Ireland
Patrick Meade M 35 Ireland
Thomas Fitzgerald M 19 Ireland
Louisa Bonndis F 16 New York
Mary Collis F 17 Ireland

so the Barbers are the couple who took him in - in Ireland?

no, apparently not, they were born in the US.

so I remain confused ... they took him in after he went to the US as a youth? :-S

possibly matching deaths, found at familysearch.org, from findagrave

Mary Fitzgerald
Find A Grave Index
death: 12 August 1837
burial: 1837
Ballynacorra, , County Cork, Ireland

Mary Fitzgerald
Find A Grave Index
death: 4 December 1839
burial: 1839
Ballynacorra, , County Cork, Ireland

Michael Fitzgerald
Find A Grave Index
death: 11 March 1840
burial: 1840
Ballynacorra, , County Cork, Ireland



all are in Garranekinnefeake Cemetery

unfortunately one couple is too old

Michael, aged 76, died 1840
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=131662486

Mary (Lynch), aged 60, died 1839
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=131662487

the other one, Mary (Olden), was 35 but wife of James
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=131468322

so those at least are ruled out


one might wonder, however, whether your Michael knew his father's name, or just assigned him the same name as himself (not uncommon for orphans or others who did not know their fathers)

Hi Dianne.......

It's Joonie who is doing all the work on your query..................I'm just Postman Pat. :-D

Hi! Joonie,

The story that has been handed down the family is Thomas and younger sister were left orphans when their parents died and were sent to New York about 1840. When Thomas was 19 he went to Canada. Was there a special ship for orphans, that went to New York? The Barber family would be paid by the Government to look after Thomas. I know all the Canadian family, but not Ireland.
Thomas Andrew Fitzgerald was born in 1901, his father was Michael Joseph in 1872, then Thomas Andrew in 1831. I've looked at www.castlegardens.org for ships with no Thomas, I don't know where else they could have gone from Ireland to New York.

Dianne

Dianne...Unfortunately it is going to be virtually impossible to find out anything about Thomas and his sister with the information you have. Anyone searching in the time frame you are looking at has less than a 10% chance of finding the "family" and that is with some sort of Primary Source information.
Stories handed down through the generations tend to gather momentum and often don't bear any resemblance to the actual truth which nobody can prove or disprove but lead anyone looking for that person down the wrong path.

In answer to your query re "Orphan Ships" per se the answer is no.

Have you located Thomas after 1850 in Canada or in the US....?

Eringobragh, I traced Thomas from marriage through censuses to death in Ontario! :-)

information that I am sure Dianne already had, but it's here in the thread now

the very unfortunate thing is that while Ontario marriages at the time recorded full names of both parents, Thomas apparently did not know his mother's surname when he married

my suggestion was to look for

. births of a son Thomas and a daughter to a Thomas and Mary Fitzgerald close in time, around when he seems to have been born in the early 1830s, to try to identify the sister and possibly the parents' marriage

. deaths of a Thomas and Mary Fitzgerald sometime between his apparent year of birth and 1840 or so when he and his sister went to the US

(I had misunderstood somewhere along the way and thought the sister had also died in Ireland but I'm back on track now)

given the spotty nature of the records, such records might not even exist now

Joonie Cloonie..I am not sure how Dianne has identified the Thomas Fitzgerald in Easton as "her Thomas" and given that the Fitzgerald surname is like looking for Smith in England..or Jones from Wales also with a Michael and Mary as Parents you can see the problem connecting the dots....
I have never heard of the situation where the US Government paid a family to look after immigrant children..???
As Diane stated her information has been passed down through the generations... Its only speculative but I would be more inclined to wonder if they came over as "Famine Orphans" the time frame would be later in the 1840s and they wouldn't necessarily be children but what is classed now as young adults...

that was my question too, Egb - how the one in Easton was known to be the right one

he seems to be certain from his Ontario marriage to his present-day descendants

but I took it to be that the family story included the name of the family he lived with in the US, and where, and the census record confirmed it

... Dianne when you say 'he was living with family that took him in'
does this mean that the information handed down the family included the name of the family that took him in?

because if not ... the chance of that being the right Thomas is pretty slim

it's always helpful if the people doing the asking do a bit more of the telling when it comes to the nature and source of the info they 'have' indeed!

it doesn't help us, to know *that* you know something ... we need to know *what* you know ... and how you know it

as far as the parents Thomas and Mary reported on his marriage, there are all sorts of possibilities when it comes to how accurate they are ... perhaps he knew his sister was Mary so he guessed his parents were Thomas and Mary ... etc ...

well here's a problem with the name of that family in NY

I looked at the 1850 census image, and it sure looked like BarKer not BarBer to me

so sure enough in the next census

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MX4D-QZ9

Name Dorcas K Barker
Event Type Census
Event Date 1860
Event Place Peoria City 3rd Ward, Peoria, Illinois, United States
Gender Female
Age 44
Race White
Birth Year (Estimated) 1816
Birthplace N York
Page 214
Wm Barker M 48 N York
Dorcas K Barker F 44 N York
Kenyon Barker M 18 N York
Mary E Barker F 10 N York

(Kenyon died later that year
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVKK-JYGP)


so unless the story passed down in the family included the mistranscription of the NY family's surname at familysearch.org 150 years later .............. !
or ... you had the name Barker and haven't mentioned that Barber in the transcription is incorrect ...


in any case, Thomas isn't in that household in 1860, which means he had to be somewhere else in the US or in Ontario/Canada, and I don't see him in Carleton County in Ontario, not as a single man anyway

and he could be one of dozens in the US


for our info again, he was not with the Barker family by 1855 in NY

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K639-T53

Name Kenyon Barker
Event Type Census
Event Date 1855
Event Place E.D. 2, Easton, Washington, New York, United States
Gender Male
Age 13
Relationship to Head of Household Child
Birth Year (Estimated) 1842
Page 143
William Barker Head M 42
Dorcas R Barker Wife F 38
Kenyon Barker Child M 13
Mary E Barker Child F 5
Sarah Barker Mother F 88
Ann Lyons Housemaid F 27
Christopher Wheeler Hired man M 25
John Horace Hired man M 24


no way to spot Thomas if he was in NY state in 1855 either

Thanks, Joonie for your help! Here in Canada the Government pays families to
look after foster children. Thomas moved to Canada in 1850 when he was 19
and I know the information on the family from 1870 onwards when he married Ellen
Brown in Ottawa in 1870, but don't know if Ellen was the mother to James and Ellen
when they were born in 1863 and 1867.

Thanks again for your help!

Dianne