Allen Blog- Hugh's brother, Edward Allen (immigrated 1880)

Aunt Helen's and Marjorie's notebooks tell us something about the family members who stayed in Ireland:

"When distributing the estate of Richard Allen (1843-1872) in Illinois, John, Catherine, and Edward were listed as living at Summer Hill, County Meath, Ireland. Edward later came to U.S. in 1880."

Edward Allen, younger brother of Hugh Allen 

The 1880 census shows Edward living with his older brother Hugh and family. Edward, age 30, was helping on the family farm in Jerseyville. An article in the Allen notebook states:

" Edward Allen, a citizen of English Township, is a native of Ireland, and was born in 1849, his parents being Richard and Margaret (Sweeney) Allen, both of whom were also natives of the Emerald Isle. His parents both died in their native country. Edward immigrated to this country in 1880. He  took passage at Liverpool, England, and sailed to Castle Garden, New York.,thence he came to Jerseyville and located in English Township. Here he made his home for about two years, then went to Gage and Johnson counties, and for a time there followed farming. He then returned to his homestead in this county, which has since been his home. He was married May 12, 1885 to Mary Ryan. They are both members of the catholic church in Jerseyville. He cultivates about 30 acres of land."


I was able to connect with Mary Dillard, a descendant of Edward Allen, who shared his story with me. After coming to the U.S. in 1880, Edward lived for a time in Jerseyville and married Mary Bryan there on May 12, 1885.
You can see that the name spellings got mixed about some. The marriage license below is for Edward Allen and Mary Bryan. The information on the right shows her as Mary Bryne, and her parents as James Brien and Catherine Riley.

Edward would have known Mary in Ireland; her parents, James Brien and Catherine Reilly had a farm in nearby Ballinrig. James Allen and Rose Allen, likely relatives of Edward Allen, were their neighbors. The Brien family attended the Summerhill Parish church in Dangan. James and Catherine were married there on June 19, 1845, and  Mary was baptized there on September 30, 1853. Edward Allen, born in 1844, was likely friends with Mary's older brothers. Mary's parents remained in Ireland and show on the 1901 census in Ballinrig; James was 84 and Catherine 75.

Sources:

Year: 1880; Census Place: English, Jersey, Illinois; Roll: 216; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 093

Ancestry.com. Illinois, County Marriage Records, 1800-1940 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: 

Ancestry.com. Ireland, Select Catholic Birth and Baptism Registers, 1763-1917 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

 General Valuation of Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: Irish Microforms Ltd., 1978. National Archives, Dublin and Public Record Office, Belfast.

Census of Ireland 1901/1911. The National Archives of Ireland. http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/: accessed 31 May 2013.

Children of Richard Allen and Margaret Sweeney County Meath- Catharine Allen Byrnes 1847 Summerhill- 1916 Clonmahon

The name "Catherine" has stayed with Allen descendants through the generations. This post is dedicated to you!

It appears that the family of Richard Allen and Margaret Sweeney had only two daughters- the eldest child, Mary, born in 1826, and the youngest child, Catharine, born twenty years later. Eight brothers were born between the two girls! Hugh would have been about 12 years old when Catherine was born on May 21, 1847- at the height of the famine. Catharine's closest sibling would have been her brother Edward, who was just 3 years old when she was born.

Catherine Allen's baptismal record at Dangan Church in Summerhill Parish

As a child, Catharine would have watched her elder siblings emigrate to America in the 1850's. She grew up in the little cottage on the farm and then remained home with her brothers John and Edward to care for her aging parents. We don't know when her mother died, but her father, Richard Allen, died in 1866. 

Courting was difficult for a young girl after the famine; many of those young men who survived had no land to offer a family, or had emigrated abroad to seek their fortune. But when Catharine was 23 she married- albeit to a man twice her age. Her husband was Owen Byrne, a 45 year old grocer. Owen's first wife, Julia McNamee, had died in 1868, two days after giving birth to her son, Eugene. Owen was left a widower with five young children.

 In the spring of 1872, Owen and Catharine were married. (Note that even at age 24, she is listed on her marriage record as a spinster!) Their witnesses were Patrick Young and Mary Reilly.

Catharine Allen's marriage to Owen Byrne

After her marriage to Owen, Catharine lived in Clonmahon townland, just north of the village of Summerhill, and only a few miles from her Allen family in Great Umberstown. Her first son, Thomas Byrne, was born on May 4, 1873. A daughter, Margaret, followed on April 18, 1875. Catharine and Owen would have 5 children together.

The 1901 census shows Owen, age 78, Catherine, age 50, Thomas Byrne 26, and Edward Byrne 13, living in Clonmahon. They lived in a nice stone house with 5 rooms inside. Owen also had a farm, and Thomas was working the farm. Edward was still in school. This was an educated family- everyone could read and write.

The 1911 census, Catherine was 69 years old, and her husband, Owen was 90!
Their son, Edward, was a young man now, 23 years old. Patrick Byrne, age 50, and his wife and family live nearby.

 Catherine's son,Thomas Byrne, was no longer living with them. In the 1911 census he is shown living with his uncle, John Allen (now 76 years old) helping with the farming on the Allen family farm in Umberstown. 

Catherine died on January 11, 1912. She was 60 years old, and suffering from heart disease and "dropsy"- what we would call congestive heart failure. She died at her home in Clonmahon, with her son Thomas Byrne, of Umberstown, signing that he was present at her death. Owen lived to be 94 years old, dying in Clonmahon in 1916. Thomas was also present at his death.

Civil Death Registration for Catherine Allen Byrne age 60

What happened to Catherine's other four children? (next post)

Sources:

Ancestry.com. Ireland, Selections of Catholic Parish Baptisms, 1742-1881 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Ancestry.com. Ireland, Select Catholic Marriage Registers, 1775-1942 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ancestry.com. Ireland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1620-1911 [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Original data: Census of Ireland 1901/1911. The National Archives of Ireland. http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/: accessed 31 May 2013.

Catharine Allen Byrne's civil death record- you will have to sign in but it will then take you to the record. If you click on "image at the bottom, you can see the original entry and download this if you wish.

Allen Blog- Making a Map of the Allen Farms in County Meath

Thank goodness for hedgerows and stone fences! These classic land markers have stood the test of time...

Hedgerows and an old stone wall near Richard Allen's farm in Ireland

If you take a look at Google Satellite Maps, and type in Summerhill, County Meath, Ireland, you will come to the area in Ireland where our Allen ancestors lived. If you zoom in a bit, you will see that the many fields of green are subdivided by clear lines of trees and hedgerows. In some areas, I recognize hawthorns, which grown on my land here in West Virginia. I am fairly certain that it is impossible to kill these thorny bushes, which soon grow into small trees. Cut them down, they sprout from the stump. So maybe it is no surprise that briary hawthorns, multi-floral rose, and old stone walls still divide fields in Ireland. In any case, this time they were a great help to me.

 Griffith's Valuation of 1855 lists each tiny townsland, the inhabitants, their acreage and whom they leased from. It gives a number key which corresponds to the 1855 Griffith's Map. I had found Richard Allen's farm, where Hugh Allen and his sibling grew up in Great Umberstown, (Laracor Civil Parish) not far from the town of Summerhill.

 Now I wanted to find the other Allens in the area who were likely his kin, as well as the Sweeny's, who were likely the kin of Richard Allen's wife (Hugh's mother) Margaret Sweeny. Here is a list of all of the Allens in Laracor Civil Parish in 1855.

Allens in Laracor Civil Parish


If you click on the largest "Original Page" symbol next to the name, it will go to the page which shows the person under their townland, along with information on their farms- who their landlord was, how many acres they leased, and how much tax they paid. Here is Richard and John Allen, Patrick Sweeny and their neighbors in the townland of Great Umberstown .

Great Umberstown townland- neighbors

On the left of this list is a key which shows the number of their farm on the Griffith's Map. Going Back to the Allen's in Laracor Parish list, after the "original page" symbol is a "Map Views" symbol. The one on the right will take you to the Griffith's Map. Here is what you find if you click on the map view for Richard Allen.

Griffith's Map View for Richard Allen in Great Umberstown

As you can see, you  have to zoom in and hunt a lot to find Great Umberstown, then zoom in until you find the number for Richard Allen's farm (4a.) It takes a while! And all of those tiny townslands are confusing! Where in the world is "Ballinrigg??

I wanted to get a better idea of where the Allen and Sweeny families lived in the area, so I decided to make a map of the farms from Griffiths- labeling them so I would have a better picture of where they lived and how far apart their farms were. I used Google Maps to create a map on "My Maps" and clicked on the Satellite View.

There they were- those tenacious hedgerows. They still matched up nearly exactly to the land plots in the 1855 Griffith's Valuation Map. I was able to follow the hedgerows on the Google Map to draw lines and map the properties. So- long story short, here is the map. Most of the Allen farms were within a half hour walk to the church in Dangan, and less than that to each other's farm. We have no proof at this time that they were related, but it is certainly highly likely. (Someday with more DNA evidence...)

 Here is a link so you can see the Allen farms marked on the map. You can click on each shape and it will tell you who lived there.  If you go back to You can also zoom in to explore how the farms look today. If you want to explore further, you can go back to regular Google Maps and find the farms (just follow the roads.) Street view appears to work well in this area so you can drag the little person onto the road to take a walk though our ancestor's neighborhood. Hope you enjoy!

My Google Map of Allens near Summerhill

Allen Blog- Hugh's Story- Part 14- The emigration of Mary and Franklin Allen to Jersey County

The Emigration of Mary and Franklin Allen to Jersey County

We know that both Mary Allen Burns and Franklin Allen were in Jersey County by 1861.



Franklin Allen had married Rachel Reece on January 15, 1859, and their child, Delia Ellen Allen, was born in Jersey County in 1861. The family history notes that Franklin and his family
 lived on the "Birkenmeyer Farm" one mile north of Jerseyville. On the map below, the Birkenmeyer farm is shown on the lower quarter of the map- #27. (Township 8 North, Range 10 West) (a)

The 1870 Census shows that Franklin's first child, Adelia E. Allen, was born in Illinois about 1861. (b) By 1870, Franklin's first wife, Rachel (Adelia's mother,) had died, as had his second wife, Margaret. His third wife was Mary Durney, and in 1870 he and Mary had a child named Margaret.

My Aunt Helen Allen, our first family genealogist wrote me this about Frank in a letter:

"Frank came to U.S. but I have not been able to find anything on any of them in the ship's logs....He, Frank, raised race horses northeast of Jerseyville. However, each wife died young and he remarried a year or two afterwards. The last one, Mary Durney, may have been a sister to Margaret Durney, the wife of my grandfather Hugh. He (Frank) had one daughter by Rachel Reese- who I knew well before she died at 90 or something. Then there  was a daughter of the third marriage, but she died at age 19 or thereabouts."

Mary Allen Byrnes/Burns and her husband Patrick Byrnes/Burns were likely in Jerseyville by 1861. The 1870 census for Jerseyville shows that Franklin Burns, age 11, was born in Illinois (about 1859.)  This census also shows Mary and Patrick Burns living in Township 8 North, Range 11. (c) We can see that their first two children were born in New Jersey- their first child born in abt.1855, and the second in abt.1857- so Mary and Patrick burns came to Jersey County between 1857 and 1859.

Sources
1- Family History Notebook

Illustrations
a-
b-Year: 1870; Census Place: Township 8 Range 11, Jersey, Illinois; Roll: M593_233; Page: 706A; Image: 629; Family History Library Film: 545732.Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009.
c- Year: 1870; Census Place: Township 8 Range 11, Jersey, Illinois; Roll: M593_233; Page: 702B; Image: 622; Family History Library Film: 545732

Allen Blog-Hugh's Story- Part 13-The American Dream

Land Ownership- The American Dream

 This was the American dream of our Irish forefathers, who had toiled for years as tenant farmers for British landlords, with no hope of land ownership. America was the land of opportunity- opportunity for at last becoming landowners and homeowners. Here they could become U.S. citizens with the rights and privileges afforded all citizens. Here with hard work they could prosper and raise families who would have a better life than they had any hope for in Ireland. Nearly the whole family had crossed the sea to pursue this dream. Only the eldest- John Allen- and the youngest- Catherine Allen Byrnes- remained in Ireland. All of the others came to America with dreams of farming, and of owning their own farms, a legacy which they could leave to their children, and their children’s children.

 The Farm

Family records show that Hugh bought his first piece of land on April 21, 1863. He paid $3400 (today at least $9000) for 120 acres in Jersey County- Township 8, Range 12 (TBNR12W). He bought the land from Hugh and Antoinette Cross. The land included a log cabin. This was the start of Hugh Allen’s family farm.  Hugh had achieved the American Dream. (1)




An 1872 map shows Hugh’s land on the upper right corner- in Township 8, range 12.
 

The note says that “This township was originally about one-fifth prairie, and the balance timber. The surface is moderately rolling, with a rich fertile soil, well adapted to the growing of grain and fruit. It contains many well improved farms, with an energetic and intelligent population.”

It was here that Hugh began his legacy.

Hugh Allen's Land- English Township- Township 8 Range 12 (a)

Information
1-Family History Notebook 

Illustrations


a-Jersey County ILGenWeb, copyright Judy Griffin 2004. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data and images may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or for other presentation without express permission by the contributor(s). http://jersey.illinoisgenweb.org/Map/Maps.htm