Searching for Howard or Cusack families in Athenry Parish in 1820s or later.

William:

Welcome Back to Ireland Reaching Out!

Hopefully, someone local to Athenry will see your message and help out  with cemetery markers etc.

You are correct that Catholic parish registers are scheduled to be online next summer. However, records for Athenry RC parish do not begin until 1858 which is too late for your interests.

I also checked Google Maps and Ballydavid North and Castle Ellen are about 3.7 kilometers apart.

I checked the 1901 census and there were no Howards in Athenry parish but there were two Cusack families.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Galway/Aughrim/Carnaun…

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Galway/Aughrim/Pollagh…

Roger mcDonnell

Thank you so much for that Roger.  I didn't know the RC Parish records started so late in that Parish (hadn't really looked into that yet as I JUST recently made this possible connection to Athenry.  

I am well aware that we're searching on the outer edges of existing documentation when we're looking into the origins of the Famine Era immigrants to the US.  In the case of Matt Breen, who wed this Elizabeth Howard in Maryland, he was born in 1832 in Kilofin, and the local Kimmurray-Clonderlaw RC Parish Records don't begin, and then only in a fragmentary way, until the 1840's.

The only way we know of Elizabeth's surname is through her Maryland RC Parish wedding record in 1857, which cites a Martin Howard and Elizabeth Cusic as her parents.  We have NO other information about her parents, or her origin in Ireland except that her family put "Born 1838, County Galway, Ireland" on her St. Paul, Minnesota gravestone.  

So with those slender facts, I've been culling through Howards in Galway, looking for Martins.  Just by chance, the Tithe Book index for Athenry (which was a few pages long), sorted one time so that a Michel Cusack came up very close to Martin Howard in Castle Ellen.  Fortunately, there's an 1821 Census for Athenry (appears to be the original rather than the reconstruct!) In the Census of 1821 Michel Cusack appears on 16 acres right before the extensive listing for the Lambert Family and their various household sustainers, and Martin Howard on 1 acre (clealy a "cottager") right after the Lamberts.  Both Cusacks and Howards have young children, but are young enough themselves that they MIGHT have been parents of Elizabeth in 1838 (and her birthdate is a bit uncertain).  

One interesting aspect is that this Martin Howard is a family man but only on 1 acre and possibly close to the Lambert Family in their Estate House of Castle Ellen.  He's listed as a "labourer" in the Tithe book, which makes me wonder if he wasn't in the employ of the Estate rather than a farmer.  

A further thing of interest, though one that has to be take with a degree of skepticism due all such "family fables" is that Elizabeth Howard Breen frequently told the story in the US (passed on by 3 of her grandchildren in 3 separate families) that she was descended from Sir Thomas Howard (2nd Duke of Norfolk), a persistent Roman Catholic in the Elizabethan era.  I see from looking at the Estate Database that the Lamberts of Galway trace their descendence from (among many others), Sir Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk.  That makes we wonder if there was perhaps some distant family relationship between this Martin Howard and the Lambert family.  Perhaps that was the basis of his position as a retainer on their estate, if in fact that was what he did for a living?

The 1854 Griffiths finds Martin Howard living in a tiny (fraction of an acre) cottage at Ballydavid North...perhaps his retirement place as he would have been about 66 yrs. of age by then.

I just thought I would add these few additional pieces of information, much of it speculative, to help anyone in the area who might be interested in looking over the graveyards, or Lambert Estate records for traces of Martin Howard, or his wife who MIGHT have been related to Michel Cusack. 

Thank you.

Bill Prendergast, Oregon, USA

Bill:

I enjoyed reading your family history findings. You may want to consider DNA testing. More specifically,the autosomal test which tracks potential distant relations on both your paternal and maternal lines. DNA testing is not a genealogy panacea but you may be able to get further info to breakdown a genealogy brick wall. I used FamilyTree DNA but there are a couple other companies that also do the testing.

Roger

Hi Bill

I read your last message with great interest as my Howard ancestors originate from castle ellen in Galway and what was really interesting is that my family also have a family fable about being relayed to Queen Catherine Howard who was the granddaughter of Sir Thomas Howard, the 2nd Duke of Norfolk.  You may well have hit on the origin of our family fable and it raises some interesting questions about whether we are related in some way.

Dawn

Dawn:  

Thank you so much that that exciting reply.  Obviously, you've read my posts above about this Howard-Cusack family.  I have just reviewed them and that is ALL we know about my great-grandmother, Elisabeth Howard Breen.  There are a FEW other clues that I have not definitely associated with her.  The main one being that I MAY have located her in the Washington, DC City Directory, apparently living alone before she married my gr. grandfather, Mathias in Cumbrerland, Maryland in 1857 (he was there working as a stone mason on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad which was building a line over the "gap" between Maryland and Pennsylvania, we are almost certain).  

The story of association of her "Howards" with a line of Catholic royalty was passed down in at least 2, probably 3 lines of the descendants of she & Mathias.  The most complete, but very fragmented and hard to follow story comes from my father's sister, Elizabeth Prendergast McQueen, told to her son, who wrote a very brief memo about it, on her death-bed.  I have synthesized what seems a somewhat coherent story from those notes and it is related in the posts above.  

There's no question that SOME of the Tudor Court were granted a degree of grace for their persistent adherence to the Catholic Church, but mostly it seems the relief was the chance to emigrate rather than lose their head!  It certainly is POSSIBLE that some of the Howards took flight to the relative Catholic refuge of Western Ireland, from what I've read.  It certainly is possible that there's more known of the story of these Howards but I have not found any detailed history.  So it is somewhat specualtive for sure.  In my posts above, I have outlined the POSSIBLE, and interesting if true, association with the Lamberts of Athenry parish.  It would be very interesting to review what is known of the history of that part of Galway with an historian well informed about that part of Irish history (the Cromwellian displacement of Catholics and the creation of the large estates for loyalist English families from the formerly Irish lands).  

IF my theory is true, then the fact that Elisabeth, apparently as a single woman, chose to emigrate to Maryland (which contains Washington, DC) is also very interesting.  Certainly, single women DID emigrate, but I am of the opinion that very often it was with the knowledge of some previously emigrated family that would be there to take them in.  Maryland, as you may know. was originally chartered to be the colony with "freedom of religion" and it was created by the efforts of Lord Calvert (a Catholic but Elizabethan loyalist I've read) to provide a place of relative refuge from the anti-Catholic, loyalist sentiments of Virginia, whose settlers were very much under the sway of the Anglican church.  

Some people named Howard were amongst the earliest settlers of Maryland and played a role in forming some of the early estates there as well as in the founding of Baltimore city.  I'd like to think that PERHAPS Elisabeth Howard emigrated to Maryland (settling in Washington, DC) because she had family connections there.  But that is PURELY SPECULATION at this point, given that I have not found her in any ship list, immigrant list or associated with any local family before her marriage to Mathis. The witnesses to their wedding were Mathias's sister (Margaret Breen who emigrated from Clare with him in 1851 when she was only 14) and a James Mulligan (who emigrated, probably from Clare, with the name Madigan but changed his name after arrival, along with his brother.  Margaret went on to marry this James Mulligan, by the way).  The fact that apparently no family of Elisabeth Howard was listed as a witness to their sacrament of marriage suggests the possiblity that she had no local family member available, but again that's speculation.  

So, now you know all the facts, thoughts and theories I have about the origins of Elisabeth Howard Breen, b. Co. Galway in 1838 (from her gravestone in St. Paul, MN).

Since you have a similar Howard Catholic royalty story in your family, it would indeed be VERY interesting to explore the possibility of our realtionship.  Have you done DNA testing?  I have tested with BOTH Ancestry and Family Tree DNA.  I have uploaded my DNA results from both to the website GEDMatch.  If you have tested autosomal DNA with almost ANY testing company, you can probably upload your results to GEDMatch and we can compare to see if we have any matching DNA.  On Ancestry DNA my DNA entry is labelled WPrendergast and I am William Prendergast on FTDNA.  My GEDMatch Kit Numbers are T902809 for my FTDNA autosomal test and A046400 for my AncestryDNA test.  Even if you have NOT yet done any DNA testing, I would be VERY interested in corresponding with you.  My personal email address is:  nesika42@earthlink.net

Bill Prendergast

Portland, OR USA

Dawn:  I am very much hoping that I can connect with you for some more discussion of our possible relationship throught the Howards of Athenry.   I gave my personal email address above if you care to use that.  If you prefer using this message system on this forum, that is also fine with me.  But PLEASE do get back in touch!  I very much want to hear what you know about YOUR Howards so we can compare notes!   My great-grandmother, Elisabeth Howard Breen has a number of living descendants in this country who are also very interested in any clues to her origins in Ireland!

Here is Elisa's entry in "Find-A-Grave", along with her husband Mathias who was from Co. Clare.:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29189361/elizabeth-breen#source

Bill Prendergast

Portland, OR, USA