Waking the Tree
If my people are your people too, welcome!
This is a collection of translations, transcriptions and histories that I’ve generated over many years of research. The people I write about are little people, working people, often women – the ones you wouldn’t read about in school.
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Rooneys of Chorley
Elizabeth Rooney, my great-grandmother, was born in Chorley, Lancashire on the 7th of October, 1883 to John Rooney – an Irish immigrant to England who worked all his life as a farm labourer.
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Pat O’Mullan’s Cottage
In the 1980s, my parents were directed by locals to the O’Mullan homestead. They didn’t realize it at the time but they photographed a cottage that was occupied by my great-grandfather’s siblings – Pat, Elizabeth and Mary Anne. My direct ancestors never lived there.
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A Farm at ‘Lake’ Hamilton
The O’Mullan family, including my 3rd great-grandfather William O’Mullan, leased a fair bit of acreage in Mount Hamilton – but it looks as though they had to drain a lake to get it. They rented portions of what was a lake in 1832, drained it, and brought it entirely under plough by 1837.
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Margaret Teresa Costello
My grandmother, Margaret Teresa Costello, was born to John J. Costello, a blacksmith, and Honora Brown in Newark, NJ on the 3rd of August 1903. Her father would died of kidney failure when she was not yet 3 years old, and she grew up in her mother’s boarding house on Plum St. in Newark.
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Wiggans of Lancashire
This story tracks the Wiggans family in Lancashire, England back to 1730, although the name is much older. It is derived from the personal name “Wuicon” or Wigand – meaning high or noble – and it was first recorded in the Domesday Book as “Wighen” in 1086, in Cambridge.
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The Browns of Newark
My great-grandmother, Honora Brown, was baptized ‘Honora’ in Newark, NJ in 1872. She was called ‘Lenora’, then ‘Eleanora’, and finally ‘Eleanor’. Her granddaughter and 2nd great-granddaughter are both named Eleanor.