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.