The Carolines of Granby 2

My 2nd great grandfather Hugh and his brother Michael, or Mick, farmed together in their early Granby years. Mick lived with Hugh and Mary until he married Julia Ann Ryan (abt 1821-1869) in 1842. Mick and Julia Ann had ten children:

• Mary Jane (1843-1921)
• Edward (1845-1889)
• Elizabeth (1847-1906) 
• Thomas (1849-1867) never married, died in a Vermont railway construction accident with his cousin, Edward
• Margaret (1852-?) 
• Rose (abt 1856-1926)
• John (1857-?) 
• Isabella (1859-?) 
• Julia Anne (1862-?)
• William (1866-1888) 

New records are always being added to various databases, so I often go back to people of my tree a few years after first adding them, to see if I can learn more about their stories. Gathering up information about these 1st cousins 3x removed has been slow. Only a spurt of several new finds earlier this year opened the doors to more of their stories. This added lots of new information to my own genealogy software (Legacy for inquiring minds) and to my tree on Ancestry. In doing so on the latter, I'm hoping that more DNA links will be discovered. But so far....nothing. Hope springs.

Below is the 1871 census of Mick's household--two years after his wife Julia died. This is on the page before the listing for his brother Hugh's family.

1871 census, Granby

His son Edward married in Granby, but had no children. William died unmarried in Granby,

Three daughters, Mary Jane, Elizabeth and Rose (Rosie), settled in Chicago. Mary Jane and Elizabeth married in Granby, while Rose met her husband in Chicago. All had families.

1900 US Census, Chicago

Mary Jane married Michael Healy in 1861 in Granby, and by 1871 they had four living children to report in that year's census. According to the 1900 Chicago census, the family arrived there in 1880. Six children are reported, only one of whom was in the 1871 census. Three others had died. In subsequent years, the Healys adopted Haley as the spelling of the family name. Was this because the 'sort of Irish' way Healy was pronounced, it sounded like Haley?

Of their nine children in total, only one son seems to have married and had children. I'm still tracing them.

Elizabeth married Thomas Hale in 1871 in Granby. They and their son arrived in Chicago by 1885. Their son died as a young man, and left no children.

Rosie evidently followed her sisters to Chicago, or perhaps travelled with one of them. In 1886, she married Elmer Holden, and they had two sons, who both died as young men, and only one of them had one child, a daughter.

Margaret's and John's trails are both cold after they appear on the 1871 census. For now. Images for Notre Dame de Granby church records aren't always legible for years at a time because of water or other damage. Did they stay in Granby or did they join their siblings in the U.S.? I found Isabella in the 1880 census in Vermont, working as a servant in what looks to be the home of a cousin of her brother-in-law, Thomas Hale. I'm still looking for more about Isabella. And it looks like Julia may have lived in and around Boston, with a son, Francis P. born out of wedlock. But with a name like Francis Caroline in Massachusetts, so far it's been a challenge to sort out all of the records.

Did his children write often to Mick with their news after they left Granby? Mick died in 1898, appearing in the 1891 census living as a lodger with his son Edward's widow with a Francophone family in Granby, which tells me that neither Margaret or John stayed in the area.  He was still on his farm in the 1881 census, with only his children William and Julia still living at home. When did Mick give up his farm?

The never ending story continues...