Shackford Family History Blog is Mentioned in New England Historic Genealogical Society’s American Ancestors Magazine! (Blog 462)

NEHGS’s American Ancestor’s Winter 2018 Cover

We were pleasantly surprised to receive our copy of American Ancestors and discover an article describing how we used the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s Historic Catholic Records Online Project to help discover Catherine (Mullet) Shackford’s parents.

We’d written multiple blogs that described our research about Catherine (Mullet) Shackford describing steps which first took us in the wrong direction.  We wrote a blog wondering why Catherine, my second great grandmother was buried in a plot belonging to Edward W Rowland,  finding the will of Edward’s wife Anna which mentions Catherine and assuming the names of her mother, then rereading Anna’s  will and finding documents in the Historic Catholic Records which helped us realize that Anna was not Catherine’s sister but her step-sister-in-law and helped us find Catherine’s mother’s parents names which are Daniel and Mary Dulley.

This article titled Discoveries from Historic Catholic Records Online which was written by Jean Maguire can be found on page 31 of the Winter edition of American Ancestors by New England Historic Genealogical Society.  We wish to thank all the members of the team of individuals who helped create images of these important records, transcribe them, and fund the project to help ensure that many folks can see them online!  Also a large thanks to Jean who publishes many interesting articles for the New England Historic Genealogical Society!

All posts on this website are a work in progress.  We’d love to learn of any corrections or additions to the information shared.  Also we’d love it if  you’d like the post here or at http://www.facebook.com/shackfordgenealogy) as that helps share the post with others. Thanks!

SOURCES:

Maguire Jean, “Discoveries from Historic Catholic Records Online,” American Ancestors by New England Historic Genealogical Society (Winter 2018, Vol 18, No 4), page 31.

Copyright 2018 Joanne Shackford Parkes  (sharing a link to this post is appreciated but please do not copy this material and paste it elsewhere)

Tuesday’s Tip – ReRead Documents – Rereading the Will that lists Catherine (Mullet) Shackford as a “sister” Helps Us Go Back a Generation!! (Blog 406)

In June 2016 we visited Catherine (Mullet) Shackford’s gravestone at the Forest Hills Cemetery and discovered that she was buried in a plot belonging to Edward W Rowland.  We then discovered that Edward had a wife named Anna and her will mentioned Catherine.

Here’s a transcription of that portion of the will:

“Ninth The rest, residue and remainder of my estate I give, devise and bequeath to Mary A. Leman, Catherine Shackford and Frank H Rowland, the first being sisters and the last names a brother of my late husband said rest residue and remainder to go to them share and share alike.”

We originally had read these words to mean that Catherine was Anna’s sister, found Anna’s death record listed her parents as Patrick McCawley and Catherine Quinn.  Then we made the assumption (later found to be incorrect) that Catherine and Mary’s mother was also Catherine Quinn who had first married a Mr Mullett, then married Patrick McCawley.  We searched for such marriages but found nothing and were also puzzled by the differences in ages and birth locations —   Mary Ann born about 1808 in Boston, Catherine born in 1812 in Boston and Anna born about 1830 in St Johns.

Then we discovered the newly shared Historic Catholic Records which were recently shared by NEHGS and the Boston Archdiocese, seached through these rcords and  found Catherine’s baptismal record which listed her parents as William & Eleanor Mullett. Thus we realized that we’d made a major error in one of our assumptions.

We then reread Anna’s will and realized that it was stating that Mary A Lehman and Catherine (both children of William Mullett) were sisters of Anna’s late husband, Edward W Rowland. We hadn’t considered this because Edward’s death record lists his parents as Thomas W Rowland and Elizabeth Rowland. We realized that we were looking at the indexed record, not the source.  When we looked at the actual source, we realized that it was so wrinkled that one can’t really identify the name of Edward’s mother.

We then  reread Anna’s will and noted that it mentioned two other siblings of Edward –  David Rowland, deceased and Frank H Rowland, living. David’s death record listed a father Thomas and mother Eleanor. We found the 1850 census listing all three sons (and two others) with mother Eleanor living next door to William B Shackford & wife Catherine.

This led to our hypothesis that Catherine and Mary Ann’s parents were William and Eleanor Mullett.  William died and Eleanor married Thomas Rowland who then died leaving Eleanor a widow raising two daughters and five sons.

We went back to the Historic Catholic Records and found a marriage record for Thomas Rowlands to Eleanor Mullett dated Sept 8, 1818 with a Daniel Dulley listed as the witness.

We then found William Mullet’s marriage to Eleanor Dulley on Oct 6, 1806.

We then broadened our hypothesis to state that William Mullet married Eleanor Dulley on Oct 6, 1806, and had two daughters Mary Ann (1808) & Catherine (1812).  He died sometime before Sept 1818 and Eleanor Dulley Mullet then married Thomas Rowland on Sept 8, 1818 and they had five sons.

To check this hypothesis we took a look at the parents listed for each of these seven children:

Mary Ann Mullett Leman (1808-1900) – death record not yet found but her baptismal records written in latin mentions parents Gulielmia Mullet it Eleanorae (Gulielmia translates to William)

Catherine Mullett Shackford (1812-1902) William and Eleanor Mullett

William B Rowland (1821-1855) Thomas and Ellen [could be shortening of Eleanor]

James S Rowland (1823-1872) Thomas b. Wales, Eleanor, b. England

Edward W Rowland (1824-1873) Thomas W Rowland, b. Wales, mother unclear

Frances H Rowland (1827-1898) William Mary E Dully [Catherine or her children most likely reported this death and used the names of her parents]

David F Rowland (1827-1876) Thomas b. Wales, Eleanor b England

We then found the death record for Eleanor (Dulley) (Mullet) Rowland on May 18, 1876 and discovered that it stated Eleanor Rowland m n Dully.  This record connects the dots of the original hypothesis and also lists her parents as Daniel and Mary which takes back this family lineage back another generation!

As far as we can tell, we’re the first to piece together the connection of these families in FamilySearch or Ancestry – these individual were not yet in Family Search and there are no Member Connections to this family line in Ancestry.  In the future we will try to put our conclusions together in a proof standard format and also go back to our original post on this family and correct our first incorrect conclusions we made from the will.  We’ll also summarize the family lineage adding the names of the spouses of these Rowlands.  Our next step will be to see if we can learn more about the Dully’s mentioned in the Catholic Church records.

All posts on this website are a work in progress.  We’d love to learn of any corrections or additions to the information shared.  Also we’d love it if  you’d like the post here or at http://www.facebook.com/shackfordgenealogy) as that helps share the post with others. Thanks!

SOURCES:

Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Death Records, 1841-1915, , Anna McCawley Rowland, 21 August 1893; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 August 2016); Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts..

Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Death Records, 1841-1915, , David F Rowland, ; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 January 2017); Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts..

Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Death Records, 1841-1915, , Eleanor Dully Rowland, 18 May 1876; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accesed 27 January 2017); Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts..

“Massachusetts: (Image only) Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1900,” digital images, American Ancestors (https://www.americanancestors.org : accessed 25 January 2017), Catherine Mullet.

“Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1900,” digital images, NEHGS (https://www.americanancestors.org : accessed 6 July 2017), Mary Ann Mullett.

“Massachusetts: (Image only) Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1900,” digital images, American Ancestors (https://www.americanancestors.org : accessed 27 January 2017), Thomas Rowlands m Eleanor Mullet; Holy Cross (Boston) Various v.2 1810-1823, Image 223 of 354.

Copyright 2017 Joanne Shackford Parkes  (sharing a link to this post is appreciated but please do not copy this material and paste it elsewhere)

Updated 12/23/2017 to add Mary Ann Mullet’s baptismal record

Tombstone Tuesday – Searching for my great great grandfather William Brown Shackford and his wife Catherine Mullet Shackford’s Gravestones (Blog 345)

We finally made it to Boston!  Well – we’re actually staying at an RV park in Mansfield, Massachusetts which placed us away from city traffic but close enough to drive into Boston.  Today we drove into Boston to search for  the gravestones of my great great grandparents – William Brown Shackford and his wife Catherine (Mullett) Shackford.

William Brown Shackford’s death records stated that he had died of cancer of the stomach November 21, 1866 and was interred at St Augustine’s Cemetery[i] so we reached out to our friend Mr Google and discovered that the St Augustine’s Church and Cemetery was located at 181 Dorchester Street.  We found their phone number and called to learn about accessibility.  Javier wonderfully directed us to two folks, the archivist, Thomas Lester and the chapel who oversaw the church.

We called Thomas and got an answering machine that asked us to place a research request on their WEB page which we did.  We then contacted the oversight church and were told that St Augustine’s was locked except for Saturday services at 4 pm  but a volunteer who works there Tuesday might be able to open up the church for us on Tuesday, the day we would be visiting!!!!  Unfortunately we received a follow-up call later that night stating that the volunteer had become unavailable so there would be no access.  We drove to the church anyway and took these pictures of the hapel and the gravestones.

We’re considering coming back on a Saturday from Exeter, NH but will call ahead to see if we can learn more about William’s burial.

Catherine (Mullet) Shackford’s death was reported in the Syracuse Journal on February 3, 1902[ii].  The article stated that her remains were taken to Boston for burial.  The Boston Herald reported that she died at Syracuse and her remains were coming to Boston on Feb 5^th for internment in Forest Hills Cemetery[iii].   Before traveling we called and learned that she was buried here.   We arrived at this cemetery  which is beautiful and learned that Catherine and her daughter May Kate Loughrin  who died in 1885 were buried in Lot 932 on the Iris Path and that the plot belonged to Edward W. Rowland — we haven’t yet figured out the connection.  We went to the plot and found a gravestone for May in the right location according to the plot diagram.  We did not find one that could be clearly identified as Catherine’s   Perhaps she didn’t have a gravestone or it went missing.

Even though we didn’t find gravestones for William and Catherine we did find May’s gravestone and we had a wonderful day looking.

We also met up with a cousin, Karen Deborah Shackford Tedeman, my seventh cousin once removed – our common ancestor goes back to William Shackford & Deborah Trickey.  We had a wonderful time discussing our common search for the Shackfords and I learned that her father who was very interested in genealogy named her after Deborah Trickey who is our common ancestor!!!  We visited the grave of her ancestors – George Alonzo Shackford and had a wonderful lunch together!  Hopefully I’ll get to see her again when I go to the New England Genealogical and Historical Society tomorrow.

All posts on this website are a work in progress.  We’d love to learn of any corrections or additions to the information shared.  Also we’d love it if  you’d like the post here or at http://www.facebook.com/shackfordgenealogy) as that helps share the post with others. Thanks!

SOURCES:

[i]  Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, , William Shackford, death record, 21 November 1886; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 13 May 2013); Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records

[ii] “Obituary. Mrs. Katherine Shackford.,” The Syracuse Journal, 3 February 1902; Fulton History (http://www.fultonhistory.com : accessed 12 July 2013).

[iii] “SHACKFORD,” Boston (Massachusetts) Herald, ; digital images, Genealogy Bank (http://www.genealogybank.com/ : accessed 16 April 1916).

Copyright 2017 Joanne Shackford Parkes  (sharing a link to this post is appreciated but please do not just copy this material and paste it elsewhere)