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.
John McCauley and Margaret McHugh married in Manhattan on 6 August 1892, and the record names their parents: Patrick J. McCauley and Alice Cavanagh, and Martin McHugh and Mary Moran. John’s 1913 death record names the same parents and says Patrick was born in New York, so the McCauley immigrant is a generation further back still. The next records are Patrick and Alice’s household in the 1860 and 1870 censuses (John was born on 18 November 1864), and the 1892 certificate image, which gives addresses and birthplaces. Martin McHugh is probably the 68-year-old Irish-born porter living in New York City in 1880 with a daughter Margaret. On the Herbert side, John E. Herbert and Catherine Boyle’s own marriage, about 1890–91, hasn’t turned up in the New York City indexes yet. It would name their parents. Thomas Boyle (born about 1882) and Francis Herbert (born about 1872), the “uncles” in the 1940 and 1950 households, are the other way back.
Elizabeth’s civil birth entry (26 August 1904, Lennaght) proves her parents, John Rooney and Teresa Murray, and their 1903 marriage at Rosslea names their fathers, Patrick Rooney and Patrick Murray, both farmers. The next step back is John’s and Teresa’s own births, about 1875 and 1882, in the Fermanagh registers around Rosslea (Clones and Lisnaskea districts on irishgenealogy.ie); those entries would name Patrick Rooney’s and Patrick Murray’s wives. Elizabeth’s ship still hasn’t been found. Four Elizabeth Rooneys who landed at New York in 1926–1930 were checked and ruled out. Searching passenger lists for a birth year of 1904, not 1907, may find her.
A Daniel and Margaret Byrnes household in New York City (1915) and Brooklyn (1920) includes a son James, born about 1907 in New Jersey, which fits James Edward exactly. Margaret was born in Ireland and came over in 1903; a James McPhillips, listed as Daniel’s brother-in-law, points to her maiden name. James’s own Social Security application, or his 1907 Jersey City birth record, would confirm it. A Daniel Byrnes of Brooklyn who died in Manhattan in 1939, husband of a Margaret and son of James Byrnes and Elizabeth Whalen, may be the same man, but his age (born about 1882) doesn’t fit, so his parents haven’t been added.
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.
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.