THE BAPTISM OF AGNES MCFARLAND

 The Americanancestors.org website has been adding the Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 for awhile now and I had had no luck finding any of my family in them. But I wouald check back periodically, and finally, a few weeks ago, my luck changed. I found the image of Page 100 from Blessed Sacrament (Jamaica Plain) Baptisms, 1892-1903,and at the very bottom of the page was the entry for my maternal grandmother, Agnes McFarland.

 

Massachusetta:Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2019 (From records supplied by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston).
Page     100


My grandmother was baptized on 10/16/1898. The names of her parents and witnesses are given in a mix of English and Latin:

Father Joannes, John McFarland
!
Mother Ann Kelly

Witness1 Hugh Clark

Witness2 Maria, Mary Flynn

I also found the record for her younger sister Margaret. It was a big family so there are more that I can look for!

FRANK MCFARLAND'S "LIVING BURIAL"

((In honor of St Patrick's Day and my Mom's Irish family, I'm reprinting this transcription of
the  newspaper account of the death of Frank McFarland, who I believe to be my great
granduncle. Like many Irish immigrants to Boston in the 1800's, he worked at construction jobs ))



Here is my transcription of the story in the Boston Daily Globe on Saturday, August 14th,1886
with the details of the terrible accident that took my great granduncle Frank McFarland's life
on the day before which, I just now realized, was Friday the 13th!  One of his two brothers mentioned
in the report was probably my great grandfather John McFarland . For some reason, the reporter
spells the family name as McFarlane:   

"Dead Under Tons of Land
Frank McFarlane's Living Burial
The Caving Ditch at Brighton And The Struggle for Life
The Successful Search For The Body
Cunningham's Escape"

The body of Frank McFarlane, who yesterday morning at 10.30 was buried by
the accidental caving in of the sides of a ditch in which he was working, was
discovered last evening at 5.26. He was sent about nine days ago to brace the
sewer ditch on Waverley street, Brighton. On account of the treacherous
character of the soil, which is of a sandy, gravelly nature, a skilful man was
required. Yesterday morning Mr. Grace, who is superintending the construction
of the sewer, spoke to McFarlane about polling braces at the bottom of the
ditch, which was about fifteen feet deep. At first McFarlane thought such
precaution  unnecessary, but finally decided to act upon the suggestion,
and, taking Thomas Cunningham, had begun strengthening the bottom of
the ditch when one of the men above cried:

"Come out, both of you, as quick as you can; the ditch is caving!"

Cunningham immediately ran towards the nearest exit, which was at the
westerly end, and McFarlane, after a moment, started for the opening in the
opposite direction. Cunningham succeeded in making his escape while, as
the result showed, McFarlane was overtaken about half way between the
point from which he started and the exit, and was buried alive beneath
tons of sand and gravel.

All the afternoon a gang of about sixty men, many of them without dinner,
labored hard and earnestly with the faint hope that the braces might have fallen
from both sides and prevented him from being crushed. As the afternoon
wore on and the loose soil continued caving and preventing rapid headway
this hope began to vanish, and at about 5.26, when John Coughlin cried,
"Here he is!" scarcely one of the immense crowd that had gathered expected
to see anything but a lifeless corpse.

At the moment the body was found two men rushed in from the crowd which
had been roped off by the officers, and, in spite of the detaining cries of those
in charge, made straight for the edge of the ditch, crying: "Is his name Mcfarlane?
Is he dead?" They were the two brothers of the victim, and had spent the
afternoon in a wild search among the hospitals and police stations of the city
for their brother, whom they had heard was killed.The grief of these two
strong men, both of whom sat around on the ground and wept like children,
was heartrending.
 
It was almost an hour after the body was discovered that it could be extricated
from the earth and timbers. When this was at length accomplished, and the
body of the unfortunate man was borne in the rough and brawny arms of his
comrades carefully and gently to the ambulance which was in waiting, sobs
and exclamations of pity arose from all sides. The hands were found to be
open with the fingers close together, like those of a man swimming, while
upon the face was a calm look, as if the victim, after a brief struggle with his
hands, had desisted and become resigned to his fate.

The body was conveyed to Station 14, whence it will be removed to 13 Coventry
street, where the unfortunate man lived, Although McFarlane was unmarried
and had no family of his own, he leaves an aged father and mother, to whose
support he was the principal contributor. "


My great grandfather John McFarland  had already lost two infant children and now with
the death of his brother must have decided to purchase a family plot at St. Benedict's Cemetery.
The burial didn't take place until a week later after the children were exhumed and all three were
buried on the same day,

Of the twelve McFarland family members on the list, only the last four are on the headstone:
my great grandparents John and Ann, my grandaunt Winifred, and my grandmother Agnes.

THE WRONG JOHN MCFARLAND

I'd been waiting for two weeks now for a piece of mail from the NARA with
the Naturalization Papers for my 2x great grandfather John McFarland. It
finally came on Friday and it proved to be disappointing. I had thought I had
the right John McFarland because the birthdate was close to the information
I had which was 28Nov 1852; the person whose record I obtained was born
29Nov 1853. But some of the information about grandfather McFarland had
changed from census to census, so I was hoping this might still be him.

But several items on the petition seem to indicate that this is indeed a different
person, the first being that this John McFarland states he'd arrived in this
country as a minor 28Apr 1868 and  and another being that he'd been a
resident of Massachusetts for a year. Now I know my McFarland had married
Annie Kelley in Edinburgh, Scotland on 16May1879 so that would mean
this couldn't be him.

Now there is a long shot possibility that it really is my great grandfather. This
was the era in which the Irish immigrants were starting to build their political
machines and it isn't outside the realm of possibility that my John McFarland
gave false information in order to get his citizenship. Family tradition says
he was one of the laborers that helped build the Boston Elevated Railway and
later censuses show him holding jobs with the City. Having citizenship might
have made it easier to get hired,

But for now I'm filing this paperwork under "not related". Ah well, back to
the drawing board!     

AND THE VERDICT IS...

Alright, there's been some developments regarding a possible connection
with relatives descended from my maternal great great grandparents
Anne Byrne and Patrick Kelley who were Irish but living in Edinburgh
Scotland.


First, there's what little I already knew. In the 1979 phone conversation
with my cousin Nancy she gave me some information from the marriage
certificate of their daughter Anne Kelley and John McFarland. It lists her
father as Patrick Kelley who lived at 51 Blackfriar Rd. in Edinburgh.
The marriage took place on 16May 1879 at St Patrick's Church.

From another cousin, John(who was named after his grandfather John
McFarland) I had a reference to someplace called the Iron Cathedral,
and that Ann had been born in Roscommon, Ireland.

Now, after my last post, Dee Blakeley sent me the information she'd found  
from the hints on the Ancestry.com World membership site from the
1871 and 1881 Scotland Census. First, the 1871 entry:

Name: Ann Kelly
Age: 12
Estimated birth year: abt 1859
Relationship: Daughter
Father's name: Patrick Kelly
Mother's name: Ann Kelly
Gender: Female
Where born: Ireland
Registration Number: 685/3
Registration district: Canongate
Civil Parish: Edinburgh Iron Church
County: Midlothian
Address: 18 Blackfriars St
ED: 12
Household schedule number: 33
Line: 7
Roll: CSSCT1871_161
Household Members: Name Age
Patrick Kelly 42 b 1829 in IRE
Ann Kelly 40 b 1831 in IRE
Mary Kelly 14 b 1857 in IRE
Ann Kelly 12
John Kelly 10 b 1861 in IRE
Sarah Kelly 3 b 1868 in Edinburgh
Robert Kelly 6 M b 1870 in Edinburgh

There's Blackfriars St. although the wrong street number. I found the
names of the siblings interesting because many of Ann Kelly McFarland's
children now appear to me to have been named after her brothers and sisters.


Next, the entry for 1881, two years after Ann had married John McFarland
and left for America.


1881 Scotland Census
Name: Patrick Kelley
Age: 52
Estimated birth year: abt 1829
Relationship: Head
Spouse's name : Ann Kelley
Gender: Male
Where born: Co Rosscommon, Ireland
Registration Number: 685/3
Registration district: Canongate
Civil Parish: Edinburgh Iron Church
County: Midlothian
Address: 54 Blackfriars Street
Occupation: General Labourer
ED: 8
Household schedule number: 42
Line: 8
Roll: cssct1881_287
Household Members: Name Age
Patrick Kelley 52
Ann Kelley 49 b 1832 in Co Rosscommon, Ireland
Sarah Kelley 13 b 1868 in Torn Church, Edinburgh


Thanks again Dee for sending these along to me!




As I mentioned in the previous post, there were two family trees on Ancestry
that also had this information. I messaged them both, and heard back from the
owner of one who is a very nice lady who is living not in Scotland but in New
Zealand. She and I are inclined to believe we are indeed cousins, her descent 
being from another child of Patrick Kelly and Anne Byrne. I haven't heard yet
from the other person but I have also left a message for them on their Facebook
account.

Finally, last night I sent off to the NARA for the naturalization record of John
McFarland. I'm hoping there'll be more information on it to further confirm my
belief that these are indeed my mom's grandparents.

So what do my readers think?

Am I right in believing this?

IS THIS YOU, GREAT GRANDPA JOHN MCFARLAND?

Ancestry.com recently announced they'd added 1.8 million new
immigrant naturalization records to their databases. It's been awhile
since I did a search on my mother's immigrant ancestors for those
records, so I decided to try them again. I didn't have any luck with
her German Luick and Offinger great grandparents. I'd started with
them because the names aren't as common as her Irish grandfather,
John McFarland. After all, this is Massachusetts, a prime destination
for Irish immigrants for the past 150 years, and I've found a multitudes
of John McFarlands in previous searches, none of whom matched the
information I already had.

However, this time was different. I got a hit on the U.S. Naturalization 
Record Indexes, 1791-1992 (Indexed in World Archives Project).
I'm not sure I can show the image here since Ancestry is a paid site
and I don't want to violate their copyright. What it shows is an index
card with "M 216" in ink on the upper left hand corner. The rest of 
the information on the card is entered by typewriter:

Family Name: McFarland  
Given Name or Names: John
Address: Boston
Certificate No.(or vol. and page): 128-113
Title and Location of Court: USCC BOSTON, MASS.

Country of birth or allegiance: Ireland
When born(or age): Nov.29, 1853
Date and port of arrival in U.S.:
Date of naturalization: Oct.4, 1880
Names and addresses of witnesses:

Two entries were left blank and the caps are as typed on the card.

The information I have on John gives his DOB as 28Nov 1852
but that came from a letter written by my cousin (also named John
McFarland) so it's possible that he was off by a year, or that the
information on the form is incorrect. It would have been nice if
there was an actual street address listed and the port of entry,
but this record is close enough to give me hope that it is indeed
my greatgrandfather John McFarland.

Now I need to go about the business of finding out how to get a
copy of the actual record.

By the way, Ancestry has made access to their immigration records
free until Sept 6th in celebration of our immigrant ancestors. 






 

National Archives and Records Administration

NOTHING VENTURED.....THE ANSWER

Last week I wrote a blogpost concerning my contacting the City of
Boston Archives to find out if they had any records on my two maternal
great grandfathers who had been city employees early in the last century.

I received a reply this morning from a member of that department:

"We do not have individual personnel files for former city employees.
We do have "Lists of City Employees", circa 1888-1960. The lists
include name, address, position, compensation, date appointed and
date first employed by the city. The City of Boston Archives is open
to the public Monday to Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. by appointment.
The charge for photocopying is $0.50 per copy."

So now I know there is a list I can search, how much a copy will cost,
and where in Boston the City Archives are located, which is at:

City of Boston Archives
201 Rivermoor Street
West Roxbury, MA 02132

And I know more than I did before!

MY KEYS TO IRELAND

As frequent readers of this blog know, I've been very fortunate in
researching my father's side of the family. Even though I have a
brickwall in my 3x great-grandfather John Cutter West, I've found
a great deal of information on the families of the women who've
married into the West line. It's in my mother's Irish-American line
that I have found very little about the family. Family tradition
says her mother's family came from Roscommon but beyond that
I know very little.


I know the key here has to be my Mom's grandfathers, Edward J.
White and John McFarland. I have copies of the Federal Census
pages they appear on from 1900 through 1930 which lists their
occupations and both had worked for the City of Boston at different
times. Edward's Irish nationality is in question for me at the moment
since his father's place of birth is listed as Boston on one census but
Ireland on the others. My hope is that there are city employment
records for that period and that if Edward and John are on them, there
might be information on their place of birth and their parents names. I
need to find out where such records might be archived.


A second possible source of information might be the records of the
entity that constructed the Boston elevated railway in the late 1900's.
Family tradition says John McFarland was one of the laborers. Does
the present day Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority have
any records on those first employees?


I hope to get into Boston to the main branch public library to search
for both John and Edward's obituaries. And now that the Archdiocese
of Boston's Archives have reopened, I need to go about calling for an
appointment to search for any church records on John and Edward's
family that they might have.

So there are my keys. Hopefully I'll be able to find them and open the
door to my Irish families.

Written for the 11th Edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture.

PRIDE

We got a new book in at Borders last week for my "All
Things Local" section and the minute I saw it I knew I'd be
buying a copy. It's Peter F. Stevens' "Hidden History of the
Boston Irish" (trade paperback, $19.99 from History Press)
and a quick scan of the back made me grin. There was a
reference to Barney McGinniskin, who in 1851 became the
first Irishman on the Boston Police force. Barney announced
his arrival with: "Barney McGinniskin from the bogs of
Ireland!"

I could picture him roaring that out, an "in your face"
declaration of his presence despite the opposition to his hiring
that Stevens details. Many of the objections against him were
all too familiar to the Irish immigrants of the early 19th
century: he was taking work away from native born
Americans, American culture was threatened by the influx
of low born, poorly educated foreigners, and worst of all,
they were Catholic!


Barney lost his place on the force three years later during the
era of the aptly named "Know Nothing" Party's reign of anti-
Catholic terrorism, but the Irish kept coming, carving out
lives for themselves and their families in New England.


"No Irish Need Apply?' Fine, some of them started their own
businesses while others took on menial jobs that put roofs
over their heads and money in the bank. If they had to work
as maids or ditch diggers, they did; their children would have
the chance for better jobs as clerks or teachers. Bit by bit
they worked their way to their dreams. Among them were
my Mom's grandparents.


One of her grandfathers, John McFarland, started out as a
laborer in 1880 and was working for the Boston City Street
department by the 1910 census and as a gardener for the
City in 1920. At the time of his death he owned two houses.
By 1940, his sons were employed by shoe factories, a bottler,
and a diamond cutting company and each of them owned
their own homes. His grandchildren include three Boston
firemen. It's an American success story that's repeated in
many other families whose ancestors arrived here with very
little and achieved so very much through hard work and
perseverance.

I recently heard a conservative declare we make too much
of being "hyphenated" Americans, of being Irish-American,
or Italian-American or Polish-American. If he had his way,
there'd be no celebration of Columbus Day or St. Patrick's
Day or any other ethnic group festivities.

I was astonished as a historian, as a genealogist, as well as,
yes, an Irish-American. We should be proud of being
Americans but we should also be proud of where our
families came from and the contributions their cultures have
made to American culture as a whole. When I hear the debate
raging over immigration today I hear some of the same
arguments used against the immigrants of other times,
including my Irish ancestors. If those arguments had
prevailed then, what a much poorer country America would
be today!

And as a historian I am proud of the contribution Ireland itself
has made to music and literature, and in its role the Irish
monasteries played in preserving much of the Greek and
Roman literature duringthe Middle Ages.

So that's what I feel about being Irish and Irish-American:
pride in my ancestors for what they overcame, and grateful
to them for what they have given back to America in return!

Written for the 6th edition of The Carnival of Irish Heritage
and Culture at the Small-Leaved Shamrock.

THE STREETS WHERE THEY LIVED

Dick Eastman mentioned a new website from Tufts University,
Boston Streets and I checked it out. It has historical maps and
city directories from a number of years and I searched the
directories for my Mom’s family.

The McFarland’s didn’t arrive in Boston until sometime around
1880 so I began with a look at the Sampson and Murdock
Boston Directory of 1885. I had no success with McFarlands or
with the Whites or Offingers from Mom’s paternal grandparents
but they were born in 1873 and would still have been children in
1885.


I had a bit more luck with the 1905 edition. Great Grandfather
John McFarland and his eldest son Mike are listed:

McFarland John laborer h 950 Parker Rox

McFarland Michael E plumber bds 950 Parker Rox

I found only two Offingers listed:


Offinger Albert C upholsterer 338 Boylston bds 23 Metropolitan
av Ros

Offinger Joanna C widow h 23 Metropolitan av Ros


And I found my great grandfather White:


White Edward J teamster h 33 Ridge Ros

The 1925 edition had more. John McFarland had died the
year before and the death is noted by two entries:


McFarland Annie widow John h 950 Parker Rox

McFarland John (950 Parker Rox) died Aug 3 1924

There are entries for three of their sons:


McFarland Michael E shoe cutter h 946 Parker Rox

McFarland Robert J shoeworker h 946 Parker Rox

McFarland Thomas diamond cutter h 7 Dunlap Dor


This might be Uncle Leo who married Peggy McFarland:


McCue Leo motorman h 28 Worcester sq

One of the Offingers remained. Perhaps Albert was a brother
to Great Grandmother Pauline?

Offinger Albert mgr of work room 30 Winter h 23 Metropolitan av Ros

And finally Great Grandfather White and two of his other

sons other than my grandfather:

White Edward J electrician h 41 Philbrick Ros

White Charles W clerk 395 South sta h 31 Philbrick Ros

White Fred E checker res 41 Philbrick Ros

An interesting site that I definitely will spend more time exploring.