Connecting with Kealy in Texas

Just taking a peek at your Kealy Website. You're doing a fantastic job. I may publish a new Kealy Newsletter tabloid St. Patty's day this year, but don't have as many current mailing addresses as years ago when I published those five editions. I had assembled a list of something like 700 Kealys back then, and you were on it! - email is so much easier for me today- I moderate a half dozen email groups and websites, but no genealogical ones - I send folks to you and Dana who do so well!

Getting things ready for a much delayed family genealogical spurt to check our great family history in Connecticut and Upper State New York where our first ancestor to the New World ... Edward/Edmund ... lived (after Brooklyn and Manhattan) with his wife Susan Sturges (neighbors to some of her inlaws) before moving on to Michigan, then on to Lewisville, Texas.

I'd like to contact Jacquelin Kealy Whitener who wrote to you, as we do have much good information and some generational corrections she can fix that we found the hard way. [Paul's email was forwarded to Jacquelyn - ben]

Yes, she is related (same great-grandfather), and we have been in touch with her family - we had corresponded with her at one point, so would appreciate your passing this along to her with our email address.

We have some WONDERFUL infomation for her about our great-grandmother's great-grandfather who came from Great Britain as a soldier in the Battle at Cowpens depicted in Mel Gibson's movie the PATRIOT, and became won over to the American cause ... there is a memorial marker honoring him as the First White Settler by the site of the cabin he built in Corydon, Indiana, a town named by his daughter, Jennie, for General/Governor/President Harrison, and a statue of Jennie singing as she played her lute for him.

We're always looking for more Texas Kealy information.

Although Kealys had an impressive presence in Texas following the Civil War as proprieter of the local general store and feed mill, Justice of the Peace, Postmasters, and members of the legislature and all ... there is even a Kealy Street there ... No Kealys are there today.

We went to see the Kealy family Bible in the Lewisville library, but discovered they had thrown it away. :-( We had a time of great reward in the cemetery.

We have traveled some 30,000 miles chasing our family leads ... whew.

We have some great photos and a PowerPoint show of our tours to Texas, Michigan, New York, Indiana and other states, if any are interested. Definitely will update it after our next family tour in NY and CT.

We share research with several wonderful cousins on the Internet, seeking our ties to our first Immigrant Edward/Edmund Kealy who arrived from Ireland prior to the War of 1812. We have held his documents in New York and New Jersey. BUT HAVE NO INFORMATION of previous connection to Ireland, other than his passport information and census listing his birthplace as Ireland.

We have corrected a generational error in local word-of-mouth and Bible accounts, and documented some amazing Kealy information.

As we stood in Council Bluffs and other areas where our family lived, bearing children in the Midwest for several decades, we felt closer to some of you who contribute to this Kealy website, awaiting the day we can claim a closer relationship.

In May we'll travel from CA to CT and NY seeking answers to some of the conundrums (conundrae?) for a trip twice rescheduled due to my wife's unexpected four cancer surgeries this past year (33 days total in hospital) hoping to smash some of the brick walls that have impeded our search.

Right now I'm on pins and needles awaiting results, having submitted samples of the very "essence of my being" to an organization that is dedicated to connecting people with ancestors in Ireland through DNA sampling.

Anyhow, thanx again for your good work. Please pass this along to Jacqueline so she may contact us if she is interested.

And as soon as I update my video/PowerPoint presentation, I'd be willing to duplicate it for others privileged to bear the Kealy Moniker.

Success in New York, 1st Kealys to America?

A friendly note from Paul and Lorene Kealy. We're getting ready for a couple of trips from California to New York this fall, to study Kealy roots. Edward Kealy, born in 1877 in Ireland came to America in 1801, where he married Susan Sturges, daughter of Joseph and Eunice Sturges Christmas Eve in Bergen, NJ of 1808.

Susan's sister was married about the same time, and we have records of them as neighbors of our Kealys in census reports for subsequent moves.

These first Kealys to America lived in Brooklyn and Manhattan, then moving to upper NY state, then on to Michigan, finally Texas to California.

We got some valuable research back a few years in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and will return in a month for more.

The following month we'll visit Finger Lakes area.

Although we have traveled extensively for specific Kealy information in Texas, Michigan, Indiana and New York, we seem to find more information from museums and genealogical societies than from Kealy members.

But we keep pushing ever onward, finding wonderful tidbits within the stacks of assembled information.

We still don't have information that pre-dates our American Kealys ... Where in Ireland was this Edmund / Edward Kealy born? We have documents of his registration at the time of the War of 1812 and his marriage.

His children included my great-grandfather John Nicholas Kealy, born in New York in 1837 in Brooklyn.

Evidence seems to indicate these Kealys were landowners in upper NY, then moving to Michigan via Erie Canal, where they established a mill, and on to Texas where they established a mill.

With all the Kealys abounding, we really appreciate the great work Ben Kealy is doing, and hope to forge a link joining us some day.

'Til then, we continue on our quest, hoping something we find through yhou good folks, on other Internet sources, and in the myriad trips to museums, historical societies and family centers will provide elusive answers that try to hide from us.

Chasing down for our family history in New York is not easy.

For one, we're talking about days of long ago. More than a century and a half ago, in fact. Did these Kealys wait for the great potato famine to leave the Emerald Isle, like so many of the other emigrants to America did? Nooooo... That would have given us sufficient ship manifests to verify passage with such entries as "whom" and "when."

Did they wait for Ellis Island to be built in 1892, with all its corridors of documented family records stuffed into file cabinets, like more recent Kealys from Ireland have done? Nooooo ... That would have given us easy paper trails with more specific lineage to follow.

We're speaking of people such as Edward Kealy who arrived in time to be listed in the 1830 Kings County, NY census. Edmund Kealy, included in city directories in 1824 and 1825 at Mulberry and Prince. Thomas Kealy who was listed as a laborer living at #8 Hague in the 1824 and 1825 city directory. But we continue to percolate and sift through any possible resources we can find.

In our most recent studies at Brooklyn and Manhattan libraries, Lorene and I did manage to find a few new details. Fortunately, the Kealys seem to have always been literate and intelligent people, civic leaders who earned community respect. We have traced them from New York to Michigan, and from there to Texas, in community records. Unfortunately, they left few "bread crumbs" along their pathway.

We seek whatever information we can find, such as details you and other family members share with us and on the Internet. Seemingly insignificant facts breathe new meaning into some of our threadbare theories and give us hope to pursue the Kealy research further. So we pursued documents and perused historical facts in New York libraries seeking a thread of yet undiscovered truth. Knowing of Kealy civic leadership tendencies, we made searches of city records. Sure enough, in sifting through endless "Minutes of the Common Council of New York," we found a few morsels: Kealy, Edward: grocer, fireman, residence. resigns. Petitions for office. Also, in 1 Feb, 1808: petitions from the administrator of Joseph Kealy, trying to get the city to pay his heirs the $495.57 that had not been paid to him.

In our research of the history of the town, we learned much. How Brook land grew from Dutch to English rule, and eventually became more connected with New York when local resident Fulton developed steam power for barges and ferries to help connect the city of Manhattan and surrounding islands to become part of the greater New York.

After awhile, Brooklyn became part of New York. New York kept better records. Still, our questions far outnumber our answers. We'll assemble more of our facts, merging them with what we already know, and hopefully find some kind of pattern to share with you in the near future.

Id imperfectum manet dum confectum erit. (As baseball fans know, It ain't over til it's over).