Surname Saturday - Coakley family of County Cork, Ireland

According to Irish Names and Surnames by Patrick Woulfe, Coakley is an old West Cork name that means son of the blind hero or possibly son of the blind poet. There are many variations on the spellings and origins of the name, but the only one I've seen for my family is Coakley or Cokley.

 

My 3x great-grandparents were Patrick Creedan and Mary Coakley of Clondrohid, County Cork, Ireland. Patrick and Mary had three children shown below. I haven't been able to find a marriage record for Patrick and Mary or a baptism record for Mary, so I don't have a date of birth for her.

Julia Creedan was born in 1842 and baptized in Clondrohid. Her baptism sponsors were Daniel Cokley and Hanora Creeden and the townland was Carrigapooca. Timothy Creedan was born in March 1846. I've never been able to find a baptism record for Timothy, but his birth year is confirmed on census records, his tombstone and his obituary. Hanora Creedan was born in August 1848. Baptism sponsors were John Keeffee and Johanna Toomy and the location was Carrigapooca.

Timothy is my 2x great-grandfather and the only child of Patrick and Mary to have children. From Timothy's obituary written in 1899, Patrick came to Clinton County, Ohio in 1849 to make a home for the family. Shortly after he arrived, he got word that Mary had died. He sent for Timothy and Julia and they came to New Orleans and up the river to Ohio. Patrick remarried in 1851 and had several more children with Hannah Hoover in Clinton County. Julia entered the Sisters of Charity convent in Ohio around 1870 and took the name Sister Mary Felix. Her death certificate in 1918 named her parents as Patrick Creedon and Mary Coakley. I haven't found any further mention of Hanora, so most likely she died in Ireland.

So far, Mary's Coakley family is a brick wall. The Daniel Coakley named as a sponsor on Julia's baptism was probably a relative and possibly a sibling. I've turned up a couple of families that had both a Mary and Daniel in that time period, but haven't found any other info on them yet. 

On the same page as Patrick Creedan's baptism record in 1814, there is a Daniel Coakley born to Timothy Coakley and Honora Crowly in the Rahallusk township of Clondrohid. Daniel's birth is marked as illegitimate and the sponsors are Michael Buckley and Catharine Coakley. I couldn't find a daughter named Mary with a father named Timothy in this location though. 

 

A Daniel Coakley and July Leary had four children baptized in Inchigeelagh, shown below. July's name is given as Julian in some of the baptism records. I haven't been able to find any other records for this Mary. Baptism sponsors are as follows:
Daniel - ? Leary and Julian Coakley
Mary -   ? Leary and Cath P?
Denis -  ? Leary and Narry Henissey?
Narry -  Joh or Jer Leary and Mary Leary  

  

There was a Coakley family in Clinton County, Ohio that had close ties to my Creeden family, but that hasn't turned up any leads on Mary's family either. There are a lot of descendants of this Coakley family, but I haven't identified any DNA matches to my family or any connections in the records in Ohio or Ireland. 

I also have several DNA matches to a Coakley family in Ireland, but haven't found a possibility for my Mary in that family. Other possible Coakley DNA matches are through my direct line from Mary's son Timothy, but most of those seem to be on the Creeden side so far.

I'd love to hear from anyone else researching the Coakleys!

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 1 - Start at the Beginning

The prompt for this week is Start at the Beginning. According to The Sound of Music, "the beginning is a very good place to start." Who was the first person you wanted to find when you began your genealogy journey? Was there a family member who sparked your interest, perhaps by giving you a treasure trove of genealogy "stuff"?

It's been a while since I've posted about my initial genealogy quest. The first person I wanted to find out about was my Irish great-great-grandfather Timothy Creeden. My dad was the one that sparked my interest with stories passed down from his grandfather. He had a treasure trove of family pictures, but none of Timothy. He had done some research in the 70s and 80s, but we didn't make much progress until more things became available online in the 90s and early 2000s. He put together a tentative family tree with the names he remembered and that was enough to get me started.

 

Eventually I was able to find that Timothy was born in 1846 in Clondrohid, County Cork to Patrick Creedan and Mary Coakley. He had two sisters and several half siblings from Patrick's family in Ohio. In addition to the children my dad knew of, Timothy had Patrick, James, Mary Elizabeth, Dennis and Edward.

At about the same time, one of my uncles was researching my mom's families and put together a set of family trees for us. They were a great starting point for my research on that side of the family. His trees contain living people, so I'll just post this intriguing snippet from a letter he sent along with the trees.

 

So far, I haven't been able to verify the Wales origins of my Godwin family or that my Sparks ancestors came over on a ship called the Dove. This is probably referring to the pair of ships called the Ark and the Dove that sailed from the Isle of Wight off of the coast of Hampshire, England to Maryland in 1633. I think my Sparks may have come over a few years after that, but it's possible some of their relatives were on the Dove. From DNA testing, I know that my mom and I do have some Welsh ancestry, so that's a possibility to keep in mind for my Godwin ancestors.

While I've learned a tremendous amount about my ancestors since my initial quest, there are still a lot of mysteries to solve. I'll address some of those in future posts this year.

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.

Sunday's Obituary - Charles Niehaus

This obituary was published in The Celina Advocate in Ohio on July 28, 1906.

OLD RESIDENT

Passed Away Last Tuesday Night at His Home in This City

   Charles Niehaus, aged 75 years, died at his home on the corner of Sugar and Wayne streets, last Tuesday evening after an illness with stomach trouble. Deceased was born in Alderburg, Germany, and for forty years, twenty-five of which were spent in Celina, he has been a resident of Mercer county.  He was greatly respected by a large acquaintance, was a kind neighbor, a devoted husband and indulgent father, and his death is mourned by a large number outside of the family circle.
   He leaves a wife and five children-- Henry and Barney, of this place, Mrs. Joe Schratz, of Pocahontas, Arkansas; Mrs. John Brock, of Coldwater, and Mrs. Ed Fetters, of Dayton.
   Funeral took place from the Catholic church on last Friday morning and interment was in the Catholic cemetery.

Charles was my 3x great-grandfather and his son Henry was my 2x great-grandfather. Charles was married to Catharina Margaretha Panschard in Germany. She died in 1874 in Mercer County. From the obituary, the family settled in Mercer County, Ohio around 1866.

I found the obituary on the Coldwater History Archive site. It's a great resource for Mercer County newspapers.

Sunday's Obituary - Susan A. Godwin Sparks

Susan A. Godwin gravestone

This obituary was published in the Centreville Record on November 15, 1902 and was originally transcribed by Trish Surles in her book Obituaries from Maryland Newspapers Queen's Anne County for 1902-1903:

Mrs. Sanuel A. Sparks, wife of the late Samuel A. Sparks, died at the home of her son in law, Mr. J. W. Councill, November 2nd, after a long and lingering illness in the 72nd year of her age. She leaves four children, Charles G. Sparks, of Kent Island, Daniel Sparks, of Ravensdale, Washington, and two daughters, Mrs. R H. Councill, and Mrs. J.W. Councill, of near town.

Susan And Samuel A. Sparks were my 2x great-grandparents. Their daughter Ariana Sparks and son-in-law John Wesley Councill were my great-grandparents. Susan is buried in the Chesterfield Cemetery in Centreville, Queen Anne's County, Maryland next to her husband Samuel A. Sparks. 

Thanks to Corey and Douglas Marshall-Steele for taking the gravestone photo and posting it on Find A Grave.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Origins

The theme for this week is "Origins". Genealogists often get the question, "Where is your family from?". 

I do get asked that question, so I'm using this post to document what I know about my family's origins and what is still a mystery. Most of my maternal ancestors eventually settled in Queen Anne's County, Maryland or nearby counties. The chart below shows some of my maternal immigrant ancestors and my best guess at where they're from. Italics indicate data where I haven't found any supporting records. While some of these lines can be traced down to my ancestors, some of them get a bit murky in the middle and it's presumed that my lines are related to the immigrant ancestors.

The origins of my Chilcutt, Covey, Godwin and Meredith ancestors are unknown and I haven't traced my Councill line back further than Henry Councill. There was a Dennis Councill/Councell in the estate records of a Jacobus Seth in Talbot County, Maryland as early as 1698. It's possible that he is Henry Councill's father or other relation, but I haven't seen any proof of that so far.

Maternal Immigrant Ancestors

The next chart shows the main lines for my paternal immigrant ancestors. Most of them arrived in the US in the 1800s so the relationships are easier to prove than with my maternal side. The exceptions are my Matson and Clevenger lines. John Matson still remains mostly a mystery. He is the ancestor of my great-great-grandmother Mary Ann Matson Creeden. He was married to Nancy Ann Clevenger and they moved from Virginia to Clinton County, Ohio in the early 1800s. Mary is also related to the Clevengers through her mother Dortha Clevenger.

Paternal Immigrant Ancestors

A final note is that these origins match up pretty well with the ethnicity estimates from Ancestry DNA tests for me, my sister and my mother. My estimates show roughly 1/3 England/NW Europe, 1/3 Germanic Europe and 1/3 a  mix from Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Sweden/Denmark. The English and Welsh are from my maternal side, while the Germanic Europe and Sweden/Denmark are paternal. I have Irish and Scottish ancestry on both sides. The Meredith surname originated in Wales, so that's a possibility for the Welsh ancestry.

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.