Eleanor Dulley

Cover American Ancestors Winter 2018 — 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.

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.

death-record-edward-rowland

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!

death-record-eleanor-dully-mullet-rowland

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.

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.

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

SHACKFORD Family History

Sharing Our Discoveries of the Descendants of William Shackford (abt 1640-1720)

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

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