Meghan’s grandparents and the ancestors the records confirm so far. On her father’s side, Frank McCauley of Bay Ridge and Diane Byrnes, with a mail-carrier McCauley whose family had been New Yorkers since before the Civil War, a Herbert–Boyle line in Brooklyn and an elevator-operator Byrnes father with a Rooney mother from County Monaghan. On her mother’s side, Michael F. Kelly, Sr., a Westbury horse groom whose father came from near Tulsk in County Roscommon and whose mother, Mary Froehlich, came from a German family in Queens and Elmont, and Agnes M. Kelly of Northport, very likely a daughter of Joseph Healy and Louise Boehm of Hicksville. Behind them are German immigrants from Prussia, Württemberg, the Palatinate and Hanover, Irish farmers from Roscommon, Monaghan and Fermanagh, and an Irish-born Healy who came over in 1850. Most records now open a copy of the original page. Only facts found in records are shown, and each card says how firm the link is. Living family members are kept private.
Switch between Meghan’s father’s and mother’s sides above the chart. Select anyone to see their dates, places, family and the records behind them.
Frank’s place in the Frank L. and Helen McCauley household rests on a close fit: name, age, Brooklyn, and two family memories (the postal-worker father and the Boyle name). Three documents would settle it. His full 1956 New York City marriage certificate names both sets of parents; the City Clerk’s office issues genealogy copies of marriages more than 50 years old. His Social Security application (form SS-5) also names his parents; the Social Security Administration releases it to anyone for a deceased person. His military file, from the National Personnel Records Center, would also work. Any of these also confirms his birth date.
The family remembers Frank serving in California in something like codebreaking, without seeing combat. Born in 1930, he’d have served in the early 1950s, around the Korean War. Army signals intelligence of that era was the Army Security Agency. No service record is online yet. As next of kin, his children can request his personnel file and DD-214 from the National Personnel Records Center at archives.gov. Frank Sr.’s World War I file (corporal, U.S. Army) is public now and can be ordered from the same place.
The 1873 birth return for their daughter settles the basics: Patrick, 30, a painter, was born in New York City; Alice, 28, was born in Ireland; they lived at 62 Mulberry Street and already had five older children. So the family’s immigrants are Alice herself and Patrick’s parents, who were in New York by about 1843. Scotland can’t be ruled out for the McCauleys further back, but every record so far points to Ireland: Patrick’s probable 1876 death record gives both his parents as Irish-born. No county has turned up yet. The records most likely to name one: (1) the Catholic registers of the Archdiocese of New York, now indexed on Findmypast, for Patrick and Alice’s marriage (about 1862–63, probably at Transfiguration, St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral or another parish near Mulberry and Mott Streets), their children’s baptisms (whose godparents are often aunts and uncles), and Patrick’s own baptism about 1843, which would name his parents; (2) the Emigrant Savings Bank registers (Ancestry and Findmypast), which for Irish depositors in lower Manhattan record the county and parish of birth, parents’ names and the ship they came on; (3) Patrick’s 1876 death certificate (Manhattan no. 229880), not yet digitized by the city, and his Calvary Cemetery interment record, which would show who else is in the grave; and (4) Alice’s own death certificate, which would name her parents, possibly under a second married name. The family hasn’t been found in the 1870 or 1880 census indexes under any spelling tried. Martin McHugh is probably the 68-year-old Irish-born porter living in New York City in 1880 with a daughter Margaret.
Elizabeth came over in 1926, not 1923: she sailed from Londonderry on 27 February 1926 on the Cameronia and was going to her aunt, Mrs Susan Buckley, 54 Sealey Avenue, Hempstead. Susan was probably a sister of John Rooney or Teresa Murray; the 1930 census for Hempstead, or her marriage record, would say which. Two girls from Scotstown sailed with Elizabeth, Mary Elizabeth and Margaret Rooney, daughters of Hugh Rooney. In Ireland, Patrick Rooney and Elizabeth Flynn married at Rosslea in 1869 and named their fathers, Hugh Rooney and Francis Flynn. Patrick Murray and Catherine Doherty of Derryard (a townland in Rosslea electoral division, Clones parish, Co. Fermanagh) don’t appear in the civil marriage registers, which begin in 1864, so they probably married earlier. The Rosslea (Clogher diocese) Catholic registers at registers.nli.ie, and Griffith’s Valuation for Derrygannon and Derryard, are the next places to look.
A Daniel and Margaret Byrnes household in New York City (1915) and Brooklyn (1920 and 1930) includes a son James, born about 1907 in New Jersey, which fits James Edward exactly; in 1930 he is “E. James,” 23, a shipping clerk. Daniel and Margaret were both born in what became Northern Ireland and came over in 1900–01 and 1903. Daniel was a paper handler in 1930, and so was the Daniel Byrnes of Brooklyn who died in 1939, husband of Margaret, whose death record names his parents as James Byrnes and Elizabeth Whalen. That record gives his age as 57, younger than the censuses do, so the certificate (Manhattan, 1939, no. 2888) is worth seeing. A James McPhillips, listed as Daniel’s brother-in-law in 1915, points to Margaret’s maiden name. James’s own Social Security application, his 1907 Jersey City birth record, or Daniel and Margaret’s marriage (about 1905, probably in New Jersey or New York) would confirm the family and name Margaret’s parents.
Frank Leo McCauley’s World War I service (corporal, U.S. Army) and James Byrnes’s 1940 draft card are on the site. No Civil War pension was indexed for Patrick McCauley with a widow named Alice. On Helen Herbert’s side, two pension index entries could fit but aren’t confirmed: William H. Boyle with a Mary J. Boyle (filed in New York, 1891) and John C. Herbert with a Margaret Herbert (filed in New York, 1895). The pension files themselves, at the National Archives, would show whether either is the family. Frank McCauley’s own Korean-era file can be requested by his children from the National Personnel Records Center.
The family names Agnes’s parents as Joseph Healy and Louise Boehm. The records fit: an Agnes Healy of the right age lived with them in 1930, 1940 and 1950. Her sisters Augusta and Florence are buried at St. Philip Neri, the same cemetery as Agnes, and Augusta lived in Northport. What’s missing is one document that uses both names. The best is Michael and Agnes’s marriage record. They married after April 1950, probably in Nassau or Suffolk County; the town clerk where the license was issued can supply a copy, and the New York State marriage index (free through Reclaim the Records, and on Ancestry) gives the town and certificate number. Agnes’s Social Security application (form SS-5, available for a deceased person from the Social Security Administration) would also name her parents. So would the obituary of her sister Marion (1925–2010) or Doris Martens (1913–2004), if it lists a sister Agnes Kelly.
Mary (Haller) Boehm’s Find a Grave memorial gives her birthplace as Frittlingen, Württemberg, and the Frittlingen Catholic register has a Maria Haller born 4 January 1829, the same date, daughter of Johannes Haller and Magdalena Zepf. They are shown as 4th great-grandparents with a strong match. The Frittlingen registers on FamilySearch would show the Hallers’ marriage and Maria’s brothers and sisters, and possibly a note of her emigration about 1853. Robert Boehm was born in Prussia in February 1818; his town hasn’t been found, and the 1850s passenger lists and his naturalization record are the places most likely to name it. Augusta’s parents were Gottlieb Menz and Dorothea, whose maiden name is written “Elles” on the marriage certificate. The Menz family’s German church in Manhattan, where Augusta would have been baptized in 1857, is the best place to find their home town.
Thomas Healy, born in Ireland in January 1826, came over in 1850 and was farming in Oyster Bay by 1870 with his wife Ann and their sons Joseph and John. Ann’s maiden name and the family’s county aren’t known yet. Thomas’s naturalization record, or the baptism of Joseph (born April 1856) in a Catholic parish near Oyster Bay, would give one or both. Mary Cashman was born in New York in March 1857 to Irish parents. In 1870 a Mary Cashman of her age was a 14-year-old living in another family’s house in Oyster Bay, so her parents may have died young. Her marriage to Joseph, about 1875, is the record most likely to name them.
Joseph Rudolph Healy’s 1917 World War I draft card is on the site; he registered at Oyster Bay with a wife and five children and no service so far. He is buried at Long Island National Cemetery, which is for veterans, so a later enlistment is worth looking for in his National Personnel Records Center file. No Civil War pensions were indexed for Robert Boehm, Adolph Pasker, Franz Froehlich or Gottlieb Menz with their wives as widows, and the Thomas Healy pension filed in New York in 1897 names a different wife. Michael Francis Kelly (1923–2018) was of age for World War II; his enlistment record or discharge would be the next search.
A family note lists these names together, apparently from Michael Joseph Kelly and Mary Froehlich’s 1922 marriage: Mary Froehlich of Elmont; Michael’s parents Thomas and Eliza Kelly; Mary’s parents Jacob Froehlich and Christina Pasker; and Patrick Kelly, Caroline Froehlich and John J. Moran. Every one of them fits the records. Mary had a sister Caroline, born 1899, and Michael had a brother Patrick, born 1885, who also emigrated, so they were probably the witnesses. John J. Moran may be the priest. The record itself isn’t in the FamilySearch indexes yet. A copy, or its certificate number and town from the New York State marriage index, would make it the main source for this marriage and both sets of parents.
Michael’s civil birth entry (28 February 1882, Carrigeen, son of Thomas Kelly and Eliza Beirne) settles his parents. The most likely crossing is the SS Cedric, which landed at Ellis Island on 17 May 1903. Its list includes a Michael Kelly, 20, from Strokestown, going to his sister Winifred at 324 Lexington Avenue in New York. His naturalization papers would confirm it, and would say whether “Joseph” was a confirmation name.
The 1872 civil marriage at Breedogue names Thomas’s father as James Kelly and Elizabeth’s as Luke Beirne, both farmers and both already dead. Civil registration only began in 1864, so the way further back is the Catholic parish registers: Kilnamanagh and Estersnow (which includes Breedogue and Ballinameen) and Ogulla (Tulsk), free at registers.nli.ie. Thomas was born about 1845 and Elizabeth about 1848; their baptisms would name their mothers. Griffith’s Valuation (about 1858) would show which James Kelly held land at Carrigeen.
Franz and Magdalena Fröhlich share a German-inscribed gravestone at St. Boniface, Elmont. The 1880 census says both their families came from Bavaria, and Find a Grave gives Magdalena’s birthplace as Rheinland-Pfalz, the old Bavarian Palatinate. Jacob’s baptism (about July 1866, probably at a German Catholic church in Jamaica, Queens) would confirm her maiden name, Breiner, and might name their village. Adolph Pasker came over in 1842, aged about 11, with Heinrich and Elisabeth Pasker, who lived with him in Hempstead in 1860. They are shown as his parents with a strong match. An Adolf Pasker, born in Prussia, was naturalized in New York in 1853; those papers, or the Lutheran church books of Hanover, would confirm it. Jacob and Christina’s marriage, about 1889, would name both sets of parents.
In 1950 Michael was still grooming horses in Westbury; his Grumman years came later. His 2018 obituary hasn’t turned up online. Newsday’s death notices for February 2018, or the funeral home that buried him at St. Philip Neri, would have it, and would likely mention Grumman and any military service.