Irish Like Me: The Fitzgeralds

It is the day before Thanksgiving, and I have FINALLY finished another book. The target audience is people like me with ancestors having the surname of Fitzgerald. My dad's mother was a Fitzgerald.

It is available with a hard cover, printed in color. At more than half the price, you can order the paperback version in black & white. 

Irish Like Me: The Fitzgeralds paperback, black & white

Irish Like Me: The Fitzgeralds hard cover, in color

I hope you will give it a try.

Grammy Merrill's Album

Don and Grete (Downing) Goodwin, Cape Neddick, Maine, 24 October 2002.

About twenty years ago, knowing my love of family history, my cousin Grete's husband sent me an album that he found in a box in his garage. I determined that the album had belonged to my great-grandmother Maggie (Carroll) Merrill (1861–1945). Most of the photographs had been taken in the late 1800s in Franklin, New Hampshire.

If you have an ancestor with the surname of  Carroll, Cunningham, Cushing, Dwyer, Hanley, Killigrew, Lynch, Meneghin, Merrill, Morrison, Munson, Rand, Roberts, Wall, or Wheeler, you may find a picture of them in Grammy Merrill's Album.

© 2023, Cathy H Paris

Goodbye Joyce

I started this post twelve years ago, and unintentionally, I did not click the button to publish it. Never too late?

In 2004, we visited our Canadian cousin, Olive Joyce Hudson, aka Joyce Burnell (1920-2011). Joyce regaled us with family stories, especially with tales of her personal adventures.

Kilquade in County Wicklow c. 1953

Kilquade, Joyce's childhood home in Ireland, came to life as she told us about its history and how her family came to live there.

Joyce Burnell, Nick and Cathy Paris, and Irene and Dave Stradtman

Filled with non-stop energy, Joyce put us to work picking plums and preparing them for canning.  

Although she had been to Niagara Falls a gazillion times, Joyce personally guided us throughout the area.

Thank you, Joyce.

© 2012, Cathy H Paris

Meet Frank C. Bals (1891-1954)

When I think of Grandpa, I remember Limburger cheese, beer, the Brooklyn Dodgers, playing cards, and fun and laughter—memories of a young child visiting him in Brooklyn and later in Florida. 

Also, I remember hushed conversations and the closing of the kitchen door to mask the words being spoken—memories from when Grandpa stayed at our home in Valley Stream, New York, during the Kefauver hearings on organized crime (1950-1951). Grandpa was a key witness.

And I remember Mom and Dad being away soon after Christmas 1953 because Grandpa was sick in Florida. A week or two after they left, Aunt Helen, who was looking after my brother and me while  Mom and Dad were gone, climbed the stairs to my bedroom, and then she sat beside me on the edge of the bed. She told me that Grandpa had died. I knew I was supposed to cry, but the tears didn’t come. I was only 8 years old and unable to process the news of Grandpa’s death.

Throughout the rest of my life, I would always wonder about Grandpa. For years, I asked myself: “Is Grandpa truly dead, or is Grandpa just hiding?” My brother and I had been shielded from his funeral and wake, and his death never became a reality for me. Grandpa was quite the tease and a practical jokester, and he had taught me how to mislead my opponents while playing cards. Was he misleading the bad guys by pretending to be dead?

As the years passed, my thirst for knowledge about my grandfather grew. Grandpa was one of the most well-known detectives of his generation. I wanted to know more about who he was, both professionally and as a human being.

His reputation had been besmirched by the accidental death or murder of a prisoner/witness under the protection of Grandpa’s men, and a cloud hung over him and his family forever after. 

© 2023, Cathy H Paris

Irish Like Me: Seasoned in New Hampshire

In the next few days or weeks, I am hoping to publish my book Irish Like Me: A Brooklyn Tree. Thinking that I should do a blog about this, my latest book, I went to my blog, Is Meets Was, only to discover that I had never published anything about my last book. Irish Like Me: Seasoned in New Hampshire. 

I published Irish Like Me: Seasoned in New Hampshire at the end of last year using a self-publishing company, Lulu.com. The hardcover version, which is printed on premium paper, is available on Lulu.com's website. A paper back version is available from Amazon and other distributers of book.

This book tells the stories of Dot, Lib, Gilly, and Freddy’s early years and shines a light on the lives of their grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Part of the Greatest Generation, Dot, Lib, Gilly, and Freddy were born in New Hampshire. Both of their grandmothers were Irish Catholic immigrants. One grandfather was born in New Hampshire, the son of Irish Catholic immigrants. The other grandfather was born in Maine, and his roots extend to the first wave of European immigrants, primarily English Protestants, who arrived in New England during the 1600s. 

This book is non-fiction and filled with colorized images of the way it was. You will get a glimpse into the lives of people who once lived in the counties of Clare, Cork, and Kerry, Ireland. You will travel with them to the New Hampshire towns of Andover, Concord, Franklin, Manchester, Nashua, New Castle, New London, Penacook, Portsmouth, and Wilmot. If you have Irish blood which was seasoned in New Hampshire, this book will provide insight into your family’s history. If you have a Carroll, Cunningham, Cushing, Fitzgerald, Graney, Liddy, Lorden, McCormick, Merrill, or Sullivan on your family tree, you may find his or her story between the covers.

© 2022, Cathy H Paris

Oh, my gosh! That's Uncle Joe!

"Oh, my gosh! Is that Uncle Joe?" And yes, it was. There he was, front and center on my television set. I was watching Netflix and in particular, the two-part documentary, Sinatra, All or Nothing at All. 

The dialogue of the film indicates that Joe Bals, the cop in the forefront with his hand spread wide, was protecting Frank Sinatra as he exited the Paramount Theater. According to the dialogue in the film, most nights at 8:45 p.m. in early 1943, Frank Sinatra left the Paramount, and he was swarmed by fans as he tried to get into the vehicle that would take him ten blocks away to the site of his nightly radio broadcast. 

Great-uncle Joseph Bals (1897-1968) was a New York City policeman. He joined the force in 1923 and retired as a lieutenant in 1960. Most of that time he worked in the heart of Manhattan, giving him a unique opportunity to observe the rich, famous, and powerful people of his era. 

Joseph Bals, 1923

Joseph Bals, date unknown

September 23, 1950, Lt. Joseph Bals escorting the Russian Foreign Minister, Andrei Vishinsky, after Vishinsky took insult to the words of the Governor of New York, Mr. Thomas Dewey, and abruptly left a United Nations dinner.

© 2020, Cathy H Paris

Greaney, Greany, Graney ... from the Dingle Peninsula

Called Betsy by those who knew her, her formal given name was Elizabeth. She passed into the mysterious beyond one hundred twenty-four years ago on 29 October—my great-great-grandmother Betsy Fitzgerald nee Graney. 

No picture of her, tintype or otherwise, has been discovered. Was she an itsy-bitsy Betsy or a strong, big-boned farmer's wife? Was she brusque and self-absorbed or gentle and kind? In their later years, after they sold their farm to their son, why was she living in Concord, New Hampshire when her husband was living in Manchester? Did she leave her husband, or did he leave her? So many unanswered questions...

Betsy's children: Lizzy Spead c. 1870, James E. Fitzgerald c. 1880. 

Perhaps her visage is reflected in the faces of her children. She bore ten of them, five in Ireland during the Great Hunger and five in Andover, New Hampshire in the decade before the Civil War. Even though I never met Betsy, and despite the fact that we never co-existed on this planet, Betsy bequeathed to me bits and pieces of herself that can be measured and described in my DNA. How those bits and pieces have shaped me, I shall never know, but their presence is indisputable.

Those centimorgans of DNA from Betsy have disclosed that she and her cousin Michael Graney, who owned a neighboring farm in New Hampshire, were not the only members of the Graney family who left the Dingle Peninsula or thereabouts for refuge in America. 

About 1847, when he was a young man in his twenties, cousin Jerry, officially known as Jeremiah Greaney, left Ireland. Jerry settled in Northfield, Vermont, where he and his wife, Margaret Duggan, raised their seven children. 

Betsy left Ireland in 1850 or 1851 and joined her husband, James Fitzgerald, in New Hampshire. In the same period, two men by the name of John Graney immigrated to Upstate New York. One was a few years older than Betsy, and the other was a few years younger than Betsy. One was perhaps her older brother or her uncle. His son Martin settled in Geneva, New York. The other was perhaps her younger brother or nephew. He lived in Aurelius, New York, eventually moving to Auburn, New York. 

Rather than being a brother, uncle, or nephew, the older John, the younger John, or both Johns could be Betsy's cousins. To date, I have insufficient data on which to make a strong hypothesis. All I know is that I share about 30 cMs of DNA with a great-great-grandchild of the older John and about 27cMs of DNA with each of two great-great-grandchildren of the younger John. Now you know what I know.

© 2020, Cathy H Paris

Missing Tithe Applotment records for Kilgobban, Kerry, Ireland

The National Archives of Ireland is a wonderful resource for exploring your Irish family history, and it is an invaluable place to explore the Tithe Applotment Books*. Unfortunately, if your ancestors lived in the civil parish of Kilgobban [sometimes spelled Kilgobbin] in the county of Kerry, Ireland, you will NOT find them in the Tithe Applotment Books at the National Archives of Ireland.  Fortunately for me, at least seven years ago, I downloaded a copy of the now-missing pages. Since then, I have been unable to find the website from which I downloaded these pages. Therefore, for the benefit of others seeking to find traces of their ancestors in Kerry, I am writing this post to provide a link to images of the twenty missing pages.

The pages for Kilgobban from the Tithe Applotment Books include the townlands of Killelton, Knockglass Beg, West Knockglass Beg, Knockglass More, Bonnaw, Curraduff, Glandine, Curracullenagh, Beheenagh, Upper Kilteenbane, Lower Kilteenbane, Cool, Camp, Ballinknockane, Ballygarret, Cunnigeroe, Knuckanavacuish, Cappaclogh East, Cappaclogh West, Scrallaghbeg, Foilatrisnig, Doonore North, Doonore South, Glannagalt, Glanmore, West Cappaclough Mountain, East Cappaclough Mountain, and part of Doonore South.

* Tithe Applotment Books. From 1823 until 1828, regardless of your religious beliefs or affiliation, if you owned or leased more than an acre of farmland, you were required by law to pay a tithe to the Church of Ireland, the prevailing Protestant religious organization. The Tithe Applotment Books were compiled during this period to record the head of households who owed monies, describing their land holdings and the payments due.

Who Is That Man With Great-Grandpa?

My family is very fortunate that we have two tintypes of one of my four great-grandfathers. My guess is that one of the pictures was taken about 1870 and the other about 1875. Although Great-grandpa Gilbert Samuel Merrill lived for about forty years after the tintypes were made, I have yet to find any other pictures of him. This is perplexing, but what is more puzzling is the identity of the man with him in the tintype from about 1870? 

If you have any suggestions as to the identity of the man standing next to my great-grandfather, please send me a message at IsMeetsWas@gmail.com.

Gilbert Samuel Merrill was born to an older couple on 24 June 1846 in the town of Cumberland, Maine. His parents, Samuel Merrill and Hannah True Warren, were fifty years and thirty-eight years old when they married in nearby Pownal, Hannah's hometown. Twenty-five months after the wedding, Gilbert was born. Hannah became pregnant again in 1849, and tragically Samuel died of sunstroke before the birth of their daughter, Almyra. A few years later, Hannah remarried, this time to James B. Merrill, a widower and distant cousin of her late husband. James was from the town of Gray, but the couple decided to live in Cumberland. James's only child headed west to the gold fields of California, never returning home. James and Hanna raised Gilbert and Almyra. In childhood, Almyra suffered an injury that left her crippled. Family lore is that Gilbert was sent to North Yarmouth Academy, a private school which is still operational.

Hoping to find a clue to the identity of the man with Great-grandpa, I googled "Cumberland, Maine Black History." I found an article written by Sally A. Merrill, a distant cousin and one of the most memorable woman whom I have met. Her article published in 2017, Cumberland and the Slavery Issue, clearly exposes the conflicting views held by the people surrounding Gilbert when he was a boy. As in our world today, perceived economic self-interest and humanitarian concerns were driving people to vote for diametrically opposite candidates. And then too, some of the people in the pulpit were influenced by power and greed.

© 2020, Cathy H Paris

Seeing Grandma with New Eyes

Helen Elizabeth Nimmo, c.1908

I got caught in a time warp when I enhanced and colorized photographs of my grandmother taken when she was a child. Seeing the pain revealed on Grandma's face makes my heart reach for her in a way that it never did when she was alive. We spent a great deal of time together when I was young, mostly playing card games. Despite her physical proximity, there was always an emotional distance. Now I can feel her pain. If I only had understood then...

College graduation, Spring 1967

Above is the last photograph taken of Grandma and me.

© 2020, Cathy H Paris