Was This a Defining Moment for the Faunt Family?

Our Faunt family has connected on several levels in the past two years. Cousins from the siblings of my Patrick Faunt who share William and Ellen as progenitors are sharing pieces of what we know. Two weeks ago the 1885 New Jersey census index was online and I found our family in somewhat different configurations than I saw in the 1880 census.

My Patrick , married to Mary Dugan and listed as "Patsy" is listed in two separate places, although both are him. William and Ellen and younger children are joined by Louisa Faunt.Louisa I had previously found in the 1900 census with a baby named Helen ( another variation of Ellen).I did not know who she was but her place in the 1885 census as a child less than 5 must signify she is a child of the family.

I have never been able to find Ellen Faunt's death but after William dies in February 1889 she marries Charles Schneider a Prussian born baker. Her daughters Jennie and Nelly are married in that decade. Is Ellen deceased by 1900? I think she may be and surely in 1911 when her son Michael passes away as his obituary so states.

Now I go on to look at the events posted here and wonder if the commitment of William Faunt to the state hospital signified in 1887 the end of the family living together? Did the deaths of the two children above cause a crisis in the family? They lost at least 4 children, one a first William in Belfast before they immigrated.Does the peace bond against Ellen Faunt predict or tell us anything?

Patrick Faunt married Mary Dugan in 1883.They lost at least one child also and Mary Dugan passes away in 1902. Edward Faunt my grandfather was less than 4 and Jesse was 2. Patrick as a single parent leaves something to be desired or maybe the times were just very tough. Grandpop told me nothing of those years except that evictions were constant and that the children often needed to run home from school to save their possessions which were at the curb.

He never said he was motherless but that surely played into his inability to cope with his own 4 children when Grandmother Retta dies at 25.

Was this a family in trouble between 1885 and William's death in 1889. What did "dementia " mean in this case? Did he have a stroke or was he a very heavy drinker? He was only 47 years old. Did his children take sides? Children of his younger brother William, who was affluent, know nothing about our family. William Faunt's children visited with Jennie and Nelly's families over the years.

Was my "Patsy " a drinker or a gambler? He marries again possibly twice and has two children Helen born in 1915 and George Patrick 1918. George Patrick Faunt is killed in WWII.

I don't know, maybe he just remained tied to Old Country ways because the Dugans, his in laws visited in Beverly and were know to us.. Surely poor Patsy was not successful. His wife Mary and his mother worked as Green Grocers both in Beverly and Philadelphia until their deaths, that part we do know.

Taking a breather and Sullivans!

It surely has been awhile since I posted.I have been managing 5 genetic genealogy DNA accounts which is very very time consuming.This will be a brief return and I will try to do better.

Two of the biggest mysteries I wanted to solve with autosomal DNA was first to ascertain my Grandfather's identity and that has been done. This week 23andme introduced an "Ancestry Finder" program that is both exciting and informative. It shows the 23 chromosomes and our matches, even those who decline to contact. l It is a bit like a crystal ball and shows my ethnic background in a nutshell as # 1 Ireland and #2 Norway. (well it varies a bit but I said a nutshell)
Very wonderful experience for me.

The number two mystery I wanted to unravel was the family of my mitoDNA ancestor Margaret Lynch of Cork who is born in 1841 and marries Charles Rementer most likely in 1860 in Rhode Island. I have known of her existence for almost 30 years and have gotten no further than that.

Enter DNA and I have a very close match with a full sequence Mitochondrial test which shows 2 of us as being almost 2 peas in a pod with J2b1a1 mutations. Our ancestors both hailed from Cork around 1840. We have hung in THAT spot for almost 2 years..

My buddy and I have tested first our own autosomal DNA and then a host of cousins and siblings ( I have but one).My sister Carol, bless her, spit for the family cause and with that we miraculously got two matches on her DNA.My DNA apparently did not take this excursion.

Having been recently told by a cousin that our Lynch family was said to be cousins with the noted John L.Sullivan, I pounced on both a Lynch and a Sullivan cousin match when they "came in". Apparently my Margaret was born to a Jeremiah Lynch and a Mary or Margaret Sullivan from the Beara peninsula near Bantry Bay.

I definitely have a general location and also know that THIS generation at least came to Newport Rhode Island and stayed in New England for keeps. Later generations of Sullivans may not have done so.

I am content.

Mother's Day for Elizabeth Faunt Carrow

Your mother is always with you... She's the whisper of the leaves as you walk down the street. Your mother lives inside your laughter. She's the place you came from, your first home...She's the map you follow with every step that you take and nothing on earth can separate you. Not time, Not space...Not even death will ever separate you from your mother... love going out to my Mom who I now understand so much better..

Thanks of course to my genealogy efforts and the genetic genealogy which has lately been consuming my time, I do now know so much more about Mom's childhood and her own mother.

I know more most probably than she ever did about Swansons, Faunts and Dugans those folks whose lives made us all what we are.

Madness Monday - How many Duggans?

Tory Island

Close to St.Patrick's Day it makes sense that the number of Dugan families living in Falcarragh Donegal in 1850 is at least a sense of puzzlement, if not actual madness.

A clue came a year or so ago when my male cousin of this line matched no others in his Y line DNA not even the 'other' Paddy Dugan from that area.

A larger clue came last week when I got a "cousin match" at 23andMe's Relative Finder, another woman and I share a segment on a chromosome. She and I both descend from a Patrick Dugan from Falcarragh Donegal.

So why is this maddening in any way?Well remember the Y DNA? We don't match these Dugans.

New cousin has a Duggan/Doogan marriage, so surely that is where we come in?No, those names and locations do not identity our family either.They are called the 'Bartley' Duggans from the Rosses, still not us!!

Pictured above is Bernard 'Barney' Dugan, my Great Grandma's brother. We have lots of Bernards (aka Bryan) and Denises in our family.Ours are farmers and not the owners of 'The Rosses" a historical pub.

New cousin and I suspect a McFadden or a McClafferty is in fact our common ancestor who passed down our segment of chromosome #12. We are on it and each have another cousin testing.

How about those Dugans? Well my cousins and I are looking into the possibility that we are in fact, 'Tory Island Doohans'. This family was known to marry into the somewhat unrelated Duggan and Doogan families from Falcarragh also. Many records spell it Doohan I have found and we are surely working on it.

Éirinn go Brách

Wordless Wednesday (sort of) - Autosomal DNA,cousins and me

In addition to testing my autosomal DNA at 23andme in their 'Relative Finder' and finding out my unknown paternal ethnic background I have had two REMARKABLE cousin matches.We each share a segment of a chromosome, part of a larger segment passed on by our Carrow ancestors all three of whom were siblings born between 1814 and 1830 in Duck Creek Delaware.

Family Tree DNA will also begin a similar testing program called 'Family Finder'. I have been a surname group administrator there for a few years.Instead of words today I will include links to what I am talking about. Carrows please join the Ancestry.com group! Also there is a Faunt, Rementer, Swanson and Norwegian group.

http://groups.ancestry.com/signup/respond.aspx?invid=AHgfBfwdUVd484DebDOSiQ

https://www.familytreedna.com/landing/family-finder.aspx

https://www.23andme.com/

A Treasure from Troms Norway

Bleak and bare in this woodcut, this view of Bjarkoy Troms Norway is from about 1000 AD. It represents a "Peasant Revolution" against the King of Norway King Olaf by the citizenry and in particular one Tore Hund.

Olaf ( also called St.Olaf ) was killed by Hund a native of Bjarkoy on July 29, 1030.I have not yet found Tore in my ancestor file, thank goodness, he looks a bit grumpy.

I am struck by the stark scenery although of course it is stylized.

Tombstone Tuesday - Sadie Kirwan Carrow

My father, mother and I spent hours one Saturday afternoon carrying a pot of geraniums looking for his Grandmother's grave at Old St.Joseph's in Swedesboro NJ.


Sadie adopted and raised my father her grandson and only grandchild after my Grandmother Elizabeth sent him back to Penns Grove from Baltimore MD when he was about 3.

She died during WWII and all Dad knew is that she was buried next to her mother and 'near the fence'. We were told the graves had 'sunk'. Dad always wanted to get her a headstone.

I was able to find Sadie's grave as well as her mother Lizzie Sweeney Kirwan who died when Sadie was about 3. I purchased her a headstone, poor dear soul. A Boy Scouts Eagle project had righted the graves leaving Lizzie's stone after 100 + years.She died in 1890.

Requiescat in pace et lux perpetua luceat, Sadie, Lizzie and baby Maggie