Just in.... more on Kathleen Corr & her family

The last post I said I would be investigating Kathleen's brother a little more.  Patrick Clinton was the brother listed on the ship record.  Kathleen listed that she would be staying with him in Newark.  Patrick's address is listed as 144 Hudson Street, Newark, NJ.  Doing a street name search in the 1920 census I found Patrick living at the address Kathleen listed.

Here is “Patrick” well it is actually Joseph P. Clinton living at 144 Hudson Street he is 20 years old and his occupation is a Conductor on the Street Railway. The time he arrived to America is listed as unknown.  We will have to find him somewhere else pin down a date of immigration.

You will see he is living with an Uncle and Aunt Frank and Margaret Smith.  Frank was born here in America but Margaret is listed as being born in Ireland and became a citizen in 1890.  So I guess we will have to look closer at Margaret to see if she was related to your Great-grandmother Alice Hannaty, Great-grandfather Owen Marron or Mr. Clinton.  

I bet if we look we will find Joseph / Patrick in the 1911 Ireland census.   Another wonderful thing is that on Friday (I have been checking every day since I saw they were working on getting records up) the National Archives of Ireland web site just listed the 1901 census online so I will also look there.   Maybe we can figure out when Owen Marron passed away from both years of Ireland's census records.

Well I found the Clinton/Marron family in the 1901 census of Ireland kind of quickly.  I had the birth county of Meath listed for Kathleen and started there.  No luck, so I searched a County Monaghan which was the last address listed on Kathleen’s ship passenger records.  No luck. 


Now where do I look I wondered?  Looking at a map of Ireland there is a small county between Meath and Monaghan called County Louth so I checked there.  


There Kathleen was with her family. Thomas Clinton, Alice Clinton, Patrick J Clinton, Kathleen Marron and a boarder James Ferguson.

Looking at this page you can see Thomas Clinton, Kathleen’s step-dad worked at the railway works.  I guess this where Patrick found his calling in the 1920 census working on the Street Railway.  We also see that Patrick is 3 years younger than Kathleen so there is a good chance that it is her ½ brother.  I will know more when I find death record for her father Owen Marron.  I am hoping there will be a record of it – at least a cemetery record.

Searching the 1911 census I can’t find the family using Kathleen Marron’s name.  No luck.  Ok, maybe Patrick Clinton.  Found them.  Alice is again remarried this time to a man named John Mc Carney who is a tailor and they are all living on Dublin Street in Monaghan. Looking back at Kathleen’s passenger list record we know this was the address listed as her mother’s address.  We also see more ½ siblings under the name Clinton; Bernard and John Thomas.  (I guess this is around when she stopped using her birth father’s name.)

I am taking a guess here but perhaps Kathleen learned her dressmaking skills from this step-father.  That is the occupation she has listed on her ship passenger record.

With all these wonderful puzzle pieces about Kathleen's life before she arrived to America we find new family members to search for, clues as to why maybe she left Ireland.  I think if I was having a new step-dad every couple of years I would want to leave also.  What happened to her father is my big question to find out the answer to was he sick? Did he die during the fighting going on over there?  What happened to Mr. Clinton?  When did her younger brother come over to America?  (We know it was between 1911-1920 because we found him in the census records) Who was the Aunt he was living with in 1920?  I wonder if her other brother Bernard also made the voyage over to America or did he stay in Ireland?

Lots more to come........

Thomas Corr's Better Half -- Kathleen Corr

I like to think us wives are always the better half :-)  Anyway.

Tom's wife was a bit of a hunt - could not find her in the ship records.  I know she came over here as Kathleen Marron - what else.  So I figured where else to look???? Naturalization records, of course.

She applied in the U.S. District court of the Southern District in New York, NY.  Her name is listed as Kathleen Corr formerly Kathleen Clinton and Kathleen Marron.  (Clinton where did that come from I wonder? The family had no knowledge of that name.)

It lists her age, address and occupation which is being a housewife.  She has a scar on the left side of her forehead. Her complexion is light and she has Brown hair and gray eyes.  She lists her nationality as Irish/British.  She was married to Thomas Corr on June 9, 1926.  Tom was born in Monaghan, Ireland on July 4, 1904 and he entered the US on Nov 5, 1922 and he was Naturalized on June 8, 1928 at Bronx, NY.


Having the date of Tom's naturalization listed is wonderful.  It would shock you how many Tom Corr's there were that got naturalized it is like finding a needle in a haystack.  Now I have a date to look into.  It even gives his application # even better.


Next we see her children's names and their dates of birth.  I knew her oldest son's birth date but that was it.  Here they all are:

James born April 22, 1927
Thomas born June 16, 1929
Alice Nov 14, 1932
Kathleen April 6, 1938  all born in and now reside in NY.

Kathleen's last place of foreign residence was Monaghan, Ireland and she entered the US under the name Kathleen Clinton (There is that name again).  She arrived May 9, 1921 aboard the ship SS Cedric.

With this wonderful new information in hand I have some more searching to do.


It is like I told the family I am hunting for... It is like sitting down in front of a 5000 piece puzzle with no box lid picture to use as a reference.  Genealogy can be a great challenge but you have so much fun piecing it together.

Corr Family from Ireland

Here they are the couple that started this quest for family history knowledge by their boys.

Well, after a few weeks again of not hearing anything and just about giving up on the Corr family I was contacted once again. Debbie Corr, Matt's wife ran over to my home with an old family bible in hand. She turned it over trusting me to take great care of it since it is falling apart. She tried to photocopy it - but it just didn't work. I took the Bible and promised to be careful.

The first thing I did after was sit it down on the table and take digital pictures of the opening pages that let us know when and where it was made. I then turned to the family info pages and took pictures of each page. Then the family treasure was closed up and placed it inside an archival storage box I had. I figure it should be safe in there till I get it back to the family. I plan to give them the box to help keep it safe.

I am posting the pictures of some of the family pages just incase someone reads this and can find a link to help share history with me and other members of the family.

After entering all the names and information into my FTM program, I started a quick search on Thomas Leo Corr who was the Corr family known to have immigrated to good old USA. It didn't take very long for a ship passenger manifest to come up. There he was the first name on the list Thomas Leo Corr, last residence was Managhan, Ireland and his father is James Corr just like the family bible said. I quick saved that to a file and shot a quick email to both Matt and Joe Corr telling them about what I did with their bible and the attached first bit of information I was able to find on their Corr family.



I will update more on my searches in the morning. Have a wonderful genealogy dream filled night.