Like many folks, I've got brick walls on different parts of my family tree: a great-great grandmother who died young with barely anything to go on, but her name and place-of-birth on her son's birth certificate (“London, England” doesn't exactly narrow things down much), a 4x grandfather whose parentage appears nowhere in otherwise heavily-written-about New Jersey Dutch records (beamed down by Scotty presumably), and a couple of other similarly challenging backgrounds. This week's story features a fellow whose “details” consist more of legend than fact; frustratingly, the last person who might've been able to shed at least some light on his situation passed away a generation ago.
Meet my father's mother's father's father, Michael Holihan – born c. 1835 in Ireland, d. after 1880 in New York City … presumably. Here's what I knew to start with from my father, via Michael's daughter-in-law Grace (sister of dentist Ural Traub):
1) He attended Trinity College in Dublin.
2) He had two sons in the 1860's (my great-grandfather George and his brother Alfred) with his wife Julia, who died young.
3) He later re-married “Mrs. Stewart”, the widow of his business partner, leaving George 1/3 of the family business, and the rest to the second wife and her son (of the deceased partner).
Initially, I was able to find him (35) in the 1870 census for Manhattan, along with George (7) and Alfred (5) … nothing for 1880 or beyond. At that point, I was quite new to genealogy, making a rookie mistake of Not Making a Note. Somehow, I stumbled across an Ancestry listing back then for an account at Emigrant Savings Bank in his name, on behalf of minors Alfred and George, showing a co-signator of Sarah A. Holihan “Widow of Matthew Holihan” - at least I strongly recall that to this day, since I failed to capture, copy or otherwise record the account information, including the account number. After that I set him aside, and moved on to other lines, before taking a break from genealogy altogether for a couple of years …
My return to the hunt was motivated by a re-acquaintance with a first cousin, who was working on our mutual ancestry on my mother's side, having nothing to do with the Holihans; however, one thing does lead to another. At one point, I contacted an individual whose posted tree contained some information about my mother's family that was new to me; Sharon was related by marriage, tenuously at that, but quite willing to add much of my information to her rapidly expanding posted tree, promising to let me know if anyone contacted her about those lines. Instead, she contacted me with news that she'd found Michael in Manhattan in 1880, but the data “made no sense” - did I have a possible explanation?
Holihand, Michael (49)
Holihand, Sahra (45) Wife
Holihand, Alexander (22) Son
Holihand, George (16) Son
Holihand, Alfred (14) Son
Holihand, Eugene (13) Son
Michael shows as born in Ireland, Sarah in New York, and each kid as New York
(father Ireland, mother New York).
So … now … Sarah is his wife … and there are four sons – one of whom was likely born before Michael married Julia, and another born to Sarah at roughly the same time as George and Alfred, both of whom later named Julia Hanrahan as “mother” on their marriage certs? Best I could come up with is a Brady Bunch-type family, with the boys being two sets of cousins, rather than step-brothers. I'm assuming that for the sake of Victorian standards Michael and Sarah were passing themselves off as a couple, although the enumerator could've been making liberal inferences as they all shared a surname. I admit to some prurient interest in the sleeping arrangements; moreover, that would've been quite a secret for those boys to keep!
Even allowing that they might’ve been (legally) married in 1880, I cannot find any evidence of any combination of Sarah, Matthew, Alexander and Eugene Holihan in the 1860 or 1870 censuses. Here's where that “widow of Matthew” comes into play, indicating that Sarah had not been the widow of someone else, so that she and the boys would have been enumerated under that name. Sarah Holihan died in Manhattan in 1895, leaving a single page will with Eugene as sole beneficiary, no notations of any details. Indeed, he's quite the phantom, except for signing as a witness on Alfred's 1890 marriage certificate. Sarah is buried with her family, the Clarkes, in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx - no husband, no kids; George and Alfred are there as well, each buried in his wife's family plot. Julia is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Queens with two infants, and an unknown (to me at least) 60 year old woman who died in 1880 – I wasn't certain I had the right death certificate for Julia until I obtained the burial records with Michael Holihan as lot owner – though he's not there himself. Her 1867 cert says she had been born in Ireland, arriving in the U. S. nine years earlier.
I cannot find any evidence of Michael's marriage between 1880 and 1900 in New York City, but without knowing Mrs. Stewart's maiden name that wouldn't mean much anyway. I’ve ruled out Sarah as a candidate for that slot as that lady would’ve surely been buried with one of her husbands. There is a Michael Holihan (variant spelling) who died in 1896 in Brooklyn, with subsequent probate listing, so fingers crossed that's the will that will clear up much of this confusion, or lead to evidence that clarifies things, rather than raising a host of issues. That will have to wait for another diary post.
One final note I nearly forgot, which my friends here should understand … I made contact with a descendent of Alfred at one point, who replied to say that he and his family knew less about the Holihans than I did. A while later, he wrote to enclose a copy of the photo above, with the words My Alfred’s Father on the back – I was so shocked at seeing that writing by someone I’d barely heard of, when I was absolutely certain my family's copy was the only one in existence, that great-great Aunt Emma may as well have materialized and handed me the photo herself!