WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR FAMILY FROM 1851?
GENERATION FOUR
JAMES DONOGHUE
CATHERINE DONOGHUE AND JAMES MADDEN
The generations
One: Patrick? Donoghue (b.c.1745) & an unknown
wife – gggggrandparents
Two: James Donoghue (b.c.1775) & Julia Boyle –
ggggrandparentsThree: Thomas Donoghue (b.1806) & Ellen Connor - gggrandparents
Four: Julia Donoghue (b.1834) & John Carrington (b.1830)
James
Donoghue (b.1836)
Catherine
Donoghue (b.1839) & James Madden (b.1848?)
John Donoghue (b.1841)
Thomas O’Donoghue (b.1844) &
Mary Sullivan (b.1845) ggrandparents
Ellen Donoghue (b.1847)
Mary Ann Donoghue (b.1852) &
William Rochester (b.c.1850)
What happened to
James?
This James was baptised in Ballyduff on 22 December 1836.
There is another James (bapt.1832)
in our extended family. He was the son
of Bartholomew Donoghue (b.c.1800) and Bridget Ferris. There is also a later James (bapt.1843) to
John Donoghue (b.c.1810) and Joanna Boyle.
It is a common first name, in Irish Séamus. This adds confusion to any search for one
specific person of this name.
Our James does not appear with
the family in London. When they left in
1850/1 he would have been about 15. His
elder sister, Julia, left with her parents as did his younger one, Catherine.
When the famine struck in 1845 he
was 9, perhaps he didn’t survive?
Did he marry locally? An individual was regarded as having reached
marriageable age at 14 years, if a male, and 12 years, if a female. Parental permission was required up to 21. There are some potential couples which might
be our James, but none convince me.
I have looked for him in the UK
and the USA.
It is my belief the rest of the
family came to England via Liverpool and there is a James Donohoe age 30 (so
not born in 1836; but people lied about their age) with his wife Julia living in
Liverpool with Conors and Boyles in 1861 – two children: Mary Ann (our James’s
parents’ last child also was given this name) and Catherine (his younger
sister’s name). But they are not there
in 1871.
One possibility is that he joined
the British Army. While there must have
been some age limitations I doubt it was much of a bar to enlistment. In 1871 a James Donohue (b.1837) was a soldier
in the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment of Foot stationed at the New Military
Barracks, Alverstoke, Hants.
As far as the USA is concerned James Donahue, a shoemaker,
arrived in 25/10/1854 aged 18 on the ship New World from Liverpool. Also on the vessel were an Ellen, 20, John,
21, Catherine Donoghue, 19, and Patrick, 32, & Mary Boyle, 30, plus
Connors.
I have searched the 1860 and 1870 USA censuses but
there are not enough clues to pinpoint anyone precisely enough. Many folk from North Kerry went to Hampden
County, Massachusetts. In the 1855
Massachusetts State Census in Holyoke, Hampden County there is a James Donahue
b1836 with a Catherine. There are lots
of other Donoghues and Connors, Sullivans, Harringtons and Fitzgeralds, all
good North Kerry names. But no Boyles. I
know an O’Connor with Donoghue in his heritage whose ancestor came from
Drommartin just down the road from Ballyduff and settled in Holyoke. We think our two families must have a
connection at some point too early to verify.
So the reality is that I have, as yet, no firm
evidence of what happened to James…to be continued.
Catherine
Donoghue and James Madden
Catherine was baptised in Ballyduff on 21 June 1839. She would have been known in Irish as
Caiterína or Caitrióna. There was one
other of the same name in the extended family baptised in 1844.
She presumably left Ireland in 1850/1 with her
parents and siblings as they journeyed to London, but she does not appear in
the records until 1867 when she was godmother to her niece Catherine, who we
know as Aunt Kate; the latter lived on the top floor of 60 Cotton Street for
many years.
In 1871, Catherine, her mother and brother, John,
are living with her older sister, Julia Carrington, at 3A Market Street,
Poplar. She consistently understates her
age: 26 in 1871 when she was in fact 32. She is described as a servant which
may explain why I have been unable to find her in earlier records as she may
have been living in her employer’s house (but should still have been covered in
the census) or perhaps came to England later.
She was unable to write her name in English.
James Madden gave his age as 25 and was a
labourer. Perhaps Catherine felt that
she had to be one year younger?
He was living at 21 Charles Street, just along from
Thomas Donoghue, Catherine’s brother and my great grandfather at No.2. This must have a temporary address just for
the wedding because he was not there in 1871.
His father was named Michael and is described as a farmer, but then
everyone was a farmer of some sort in Ireland.
Interestingly both witnesses are from Catherine’s family, her brother
Thomas and his wife Mary. This suggests
that James did not have family in London or that he was distanced from them.
In 1881 they were living in 29 Rook Street, a house
with three families and 15 occupants. I
have shown how this street was described by Charles Booth, a philanthropist, in
1898/9 before, but repetition may help
When our family first came to
London they were living in Sophia Street.
By 1881 the rest of the family had moved north of the East India Dock Road
and were living in what Booth described as ‘Mixed. Some comfortable others poor’. Rook Street was classified as ‘Lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal’. So life for Catherine, a charwoman, and James,
a labourer, must have been very difficult.
James and Catherine had four
children: Michael (b.1873), Richard (b.1875), Catherine (b.1876) and Mary Ann
(b.1879). Michael was baptised at St
Mary & St Joseph’s, his godparents were my great grandparents, Thomas and
Mary. Mary Ann’s godmother was Christina
Carrington, the daughter of Julia and John Carrington who I wrote about in the
last blog. My Uncle Len told me that the
family used to talk about the Carringtons and the Maddens a lot. So it appears that the families remained very
close.
There is, however, no record of
the Maddens in the 1891 census or later ones.
They seem to have left Poplar, and I would go as far as to say that they
had left the country. I have found no
evidence after 1881 of James and Catherine’s deaths or of their children’s
marriages in this country. Catherine’s
younger brother, John, also does not appear in the 1891 census and I was told
that he had emigrated to the USA. I have
checked censuses for America, Canada and Australia, and even the Irish one for
1901, with no success.
So the family has vanished…to be
continued
