Detective work

 I was actually using quite a few sources in my Irish digging. Yes, Ancestry and FamilySearch, and also Findmypast, the British genealogy product (which I'm not terribly impressed with; access to great sources, yes, but also crappy interface and search capabilities, especially the newspaper searches), but also several Irish products. Irishgenealogy.ie is run by the Irish government (the folks in the southern part of the island, rather than Northern Ireland), and isn't bad, as it did have some baptism information on some of the Grace family, and rootsireland.ie, a paid site that had quite a good bit of information.

 Not the holy grail, though. No birth certificate for Richard, no marriage certificate for Ellen Dreelan and Richard, either. There were some baptism records for a couple of Ellen Dreelans, but I have no way of knowing if any of them are for her ... my great-great-grandmother.

But as I was looking through the record of pretty much every Grace in Wexford in the era that I knew that my family lived there, I came across an odd record; a death record for a woman named Ellen Grace, who lived in Ballyanne, and passed away there. The last few births in the Grace family had been in Ballyanne (a little hamlet outside of New Ross), so I know my family lived there. Could this Ellen Grace be my great-grandmother? It seemed possible. 

For one, the death occurred right after the birth of the last child, James Grace. He was born in May 1, 1879. She died May 11, 1879 Another factor was that present at the birth was the name of a woman named Catherine Hayes, who was probably a friend or a midwife (or possibly both). Present at the death of Ellen Grace? Catherine Hayes. Ellen was listed as 40 years old, a "Labourers Wife" and her cause of death was "weakness from childbirth 2 days no medical attendant." 

Though looking at the entire page of deaths registered, everyone listed on that page also had "no medical attendant" listed with their cause of death.  

Ellen's death wasn't even registered for several weeks after her death (though some of the people on that register didn't ahve their deaths registered until a month or more AFTER their deaths! On one hand, I don't want to know how she died in detail, but on the other hand, I do sort of want to do know. Was she just weak after giving birth to 8 kids over 15 years? Was she weak and malnourished before she even gave birth? There's so many things that could have gone wrong, especially with no doctors nearby (and likely the family didn't have much ability to even pay a doctor, if one were available). Did Richard and the children have to watch her slowly decline and die over the few days she lived after James' birth?

I had no doubt at the time that this was Ellen Dreelan Grace. Later research proved me completely right. 

Then of course, there's the mixed feelings ... a feeling of satisfaction in that I uncovered something that no one else uncovered, judging from other online trees, including ones from cousins, and thinking that my detective skills were pretty darn good. But then ... sadness. I had never met Ellen, I had no knowledge of her until I started researching, but as a parent, I could really feel the sadness of her passing. Here was this young woman, only 40 years old, according to her death registry (and since I can't find her birth certificate, that's pretty likely), and the mother of 8 children. And then ... gone. at the time of her death, her oldest child, Michael, was 14 years old. Her youngest, just days old. My great-grandfather was 2 years old. Did he even have memories of his mother? And poor Richard, then having to deal with her death and also having to raise the children and still working, that must have been a struggle, though hopefully the oldest children helped out. 

But then I made another discovery. In the midst of seeing what else I could find on the family, I stumbled across a civil marriage record for a Richard Grace, a labourer from Ballyanne and also a widower. The marriage date was September 1880, so a bit more than a year after Ellen Dreelan Grace, which meets the traditional 12-month period to mourn in Ireland. So I was pretty sure this was my Richard. But what was interesting were two things; one, his new wife was a widow named Ellen Leahy (nee Murphy), a widow whose husband had drowned. 

A-ha! That meant that the information I had (and other relatives in their trees had) that Richard and Ellen Grace came over to America with their children was actually correct ... there WAS an Ellen Grace who came over. It just wasn't Ellen Dreelan Grace! It was Ellen Murphy Grace!  I don't think anyone else in the family knew this (and when I showed my findings to a few cousins interested in the family history, they were shocked because they never knew this). The other interesting thing about the marriage record was that it also listed Richard's father ... Michael Grace. This was also a big unknown, and as no one could find a birth or baptism record for Richard, many other people had found various people named "Richard Grace"and assumed he was the one. More than a few people online had his father listed as John Grace and his mother as Mary Malone (though I looked into this, and it was highly implausible). Based on the evidence I found in the documents, I am sure that this was the right marriage record for my great-great-grandfather, and it also listed the name of my great-great-great grandfather. 

And it also made sense, because Richard's first oldest child and first son was named Michael Grace. And in the Irish naming traditions (which apparently were often followed into the 20th century, though it may have waned by the middle of the century), the first son was named after his father's father. So if Richard's first son was named Michael (which he was), then he was likely named after Richard's father ... which according to Richard's 2nd marriage record, was named Michael. The tradition also indicates that the 2nd son was named after the mother's father. so Richard Jr. wasn't technically Richard Jr. (again, I've not seen anything indicating that is how he was named, I just refer to him that way to keep him separate from his dad), but he was likely named after Ellen's father. Though they didn't quite adhere completely to the tradition, as the third son was name after the father, and in this case, their third son was Patrick ... but then again, they weren't going to name two sons Richard, so that likely makes sense to have him named differently (and Ellen apparently had a sibling or relative named Patrick, though I'm sure Richard did too, because Patrick was such a damned common name back then in Ireland). The fourth son would be named after his father's eldest brother; Ellen and Richard's fourth son was named Thomas. The fifth son was to be named after the mother's eldest brother or father's second oldest brother, so John, my great-grandfather, could have been named after Ellen's oldest brother, or Richard's second oldest brother. Of course, since I can't find any documents about Richard or Ellen's families, who knows if this is true?

A similar pattern existed for daughters, though a number of sources indicate this wasn't always adhered to; the first daughter would be named after the mother's mother; so in my family, the first Grace daughter was named Bridget, so by that pattern, Ellen's mother would be named Bridget. The next daughter would be named after the father's mother, and in the Graces, the only other daughter was Margaret. So perhaps Michael Grace's spouse was named Margaret. I still don't know, but it could be plausible that Richard Grace's parents were Michael and Margaret Grace ... and Ellen's parents could have been Richard and Bridget Dreelan. I actually did find a birth record for an Ellen Dreelan, born in County Carlow to Richard Dreelan and Bridget "Biddy" Kavanagh in December 1846. It could be her, but if I could just find her and Richard's wedding registry (which usually lists the fathers), I'd have more chances of finding out.

But at least now I knew that when the family came over, there was an Ellen with them, only it wasn't the Ellen who gave birth to all the children. But to the youngest children, Ellen Murphy Grace was essentially their mother from that point on, as John may not have had memories of Ellen Dreelan Grace, and James never would.