Little White Lies
Everyone who has researched their family through a census knows the lies about age. For example, Grandma ages less than ten years every ten years.
Sometimes these untruths are trivial or relatively unimportant.
On the other hand, they can intentionally disguise some critical facts.
For example, Thomas Featherson arrived in America in 1775 as a convict. Eventually, he became a wealthy miller and traveling minister. It is important to realize that his grandchildren had no idea he was a convict. But Harvard posted the criminal court records of London’s Old Bailey, and the documents uncovered his secret.
This article describes how my carelessness and Marie’s big lies caused a brick wall in my family tree.
Carelessness
My great-grandparents were interviewed in a research project on the pioneers of North Dakota. I remembered one question about whether they had relatives who had immigrated. My great-grandmother, Margaret Callaghan McGee, listed her sister Kate and her brother Bernard. Kate lived in Williston, North Dakota. Bernard lived in Fargo, North Dakota. Before the interview, Margaret and her husband, John, moved to Omaha, Nebraska.
I had believed the rest of their siblings stayed in Ireland. Despite that, I should have read the interview more closely.
Ancestry and 23andMe started showing close DNA matches that led me to Marie Callaghan. But this Marie couldn’t be related to my Margaret. For one thing, she had different parents. In addition, she was the wrong age. Lastly, she wasn’t listed in the pioneer interview.
I finally re-read the pioneer interview, and it asked if they had any relatives living in North Dakota! Although Marie did stay with my grandparents for a short time in 1900 or 1901, she did not stay in North Dakota very long. She moved almost immediately to Montana. Similarly, I also found two of Margaret’s brothers living in Pennsylvania.
Marie’s Big Lies
Marie’s Parents
Marie’s parents were Michael Callaghan and Bridget McGeough of Derryisland, County Monaghan, Ireland. She was the 6th child of nine children.
Her father was diagnosed with cancer at the start of 1900. He died in February 1901. Marie’s mother was diagnosed with “general debility” in 1899. She died two years later, in December 1901.
The description for general debility includes fatigue, mental fog, and physical weakness. In other words, this cause of death was frequently used for undiagnosed cancers or mysterious degenerative neurological disorders.
At her parents’ deaths, Marie was 18, and her youngest sibling was 9. Her older sisters, Kate and Margaret, were settled in North Dakota. Marie, Bernard, Patrick, and Peter all immigrated to America close to their parents’ death.
But on her marriage license, Marie named other parents!
Marie’s Birth Lies
Marie married Raymond Van Buskirk on December 21, 1912, in Havre, Montana. She was going by Mary instead of Marie by then. She stated on the license that she was born in North Dakota, not Ireland. She gave her age as 19 years, 11 months, and 23 days. This indicates that she was born on December 29, 1892.
But Marie was not 19 on her marriage date. She was 30! She was born December 1, 1882, in Derryisland, County Monahan, Ireland. That is a massive gap for a lie about age.
It is important to realize that Marie’s baptismal certificate and her smallpox vaccination in Derryisland support her real birth date.
On Marie’s Montana marriage license, she listed her parents as Francis M. Callaghan and Theresa McEgan. So why did Marie make up these names for her parents? Most likely to support the lie about her birthdate and place.
Francis Callaghan and Theresa McEgan are not listed in any documents in North Dakota around 1892 or later. Even if they existed, it seems unlikely they had a child in North Dakota in the correct time frame.
Would Raymond have married Marie if he knew she was 30? Unfortunately, that is a question I will never have an answer to.
Patrick and Peter in Pennsylvania
Peter’s obituary provided the final family connection to Marie. All the siblings who immigrated to America are listed in the obituary.
There are many typical errors in the obituary. Patrick is Peter’s older brother, not his father. Kate’s, Margaret’s, and Marie’s last names are misspelled. And Peter was born on March 11, 1880, not May 11, 1884. Surprisingly, Peter must have kept in touch with his siblings for his family to have known names and places.
