“I Can Identify” February
16, 2023
For my side of the family I identified the following:
- · Andrea Titone arrived 1899 – Santa Margarita, Sicily, Italy
- · Carlo Beccherini arrived 1903 – Borghetto, Lodigiano, Italy
- · Angelina Maria Bianchi arrived 1904 – Treviglio, Italy
- · Philip Vampatella arrived 1913 – Vittoria, Sicily, Italy
- · Sebastiano Rapuano arrived 1889 – Benevento, Italy
- · Mariella Fazio arrived 1897 – San Valentino, Italy
For Mark’s side of the family I still struggle. So far I have identified the following:
- · Charles Francis Gallagher arrived 1908 – Ballyshannon, Donegal, Ireland
- · Edward Duffy arrived about 1890 – somewhere in Ireland
- · Katherine McMahon arrived about 1895 – somewhere in Ireland
- · George Huneke unknown arrival but likely from Germany
- · George Huneke’s wife???
- · Anthony Rush arrived 1853 – ROSCOMMON, Ireland
- · Ellen McLaughlin arrived about 1860 – somewhere in Ireland
- · Leo Mendus arrived 1878 – probably from Lipiniak, Galicia, Poland
- · Pauline Kreher arrived 1897 – possibly from Austria or Poland Przemysl (pronounced Shemmish) in Galicia Poland
When doing any kind of genealogical research it is very
important to find the country, the county and then the town the ancestor came
from. At this moment, Anthony Rush won
the prize for being the first of our ancestors to arrive in the United States!!
Yay, Anthony!! But Anthony does not say where he came from in Ireland. I know,
you see Roscommon next to his name---read on.
an Gorta Mór – The Great Hunger
Anthony was born 16 November 1835 or that’s what he always
claimed. Birth dates were not always
accurate. Nonetheless, he was probably a
happy little boy playing on the farm with his parents and siblings (I do not
know of any siblings at this time). The fields were lush, lots of rocks, and
the sun shone through from time to time.
In 1845 a fungus caused the potatoes, a main staple of the Irish farmer,
to turn black and inedible. They could not eat them nor sell them causing a
great deal of starvation and homelessness.
This blight ended about 1852. What did he endure during those years? Did
he lose his parents? Siblings? Did he have to stay in a workhouse? What we do know
is that he came to the US in 1853. Did he go to England then to the US? Or just
come to the US directly?
Civil War
Details about where Anthony was and what he was doing in the
United States after he arrived is unclear, but we do know he entered the Civil
war 31 March 1862. He volunteered for
the 78th NY Infantry company C.
He was in the war until the end, mustering out on 21 July 1865. Usually, military documents are a wealth of
information, but Anthony was less than forthcoming regarding where he came from
in Ireland.
I decided to obtain his complete pension files and Compiled
Military Records from National Archives and Record Administration (NARA). Hundreds
of pages to read through and I found out where and when he was married and the
name of the priest who married them, where he was living, who his wife and
children were, how tall he was and how much money he was receiving from his pension, but still no location in Ireland, Listing only the country and not the
county, as the Irish normally would.
Anthony was requesting an increase in pension for the gun
shot wound he got to his left index finger during the Battle of
Chancellorsville in 1863. (Mark and I visited the battle site and were able to
track his unit’s moves on preserved and marked maps.) He was deposed many times, but on the 3rd
of March 1905 in the state of Tennessee at the Mountain Branch National Home for
Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, he finally says he was born in Roscommon,
Ireland!!
After many years of searching, I finally was able to Identify
the county in Ireland from which he came! Now to identify a town in Roscommon!! Sigh……
I think Anthony, or maybe they called him Tony-o, must have had a hard life. Beginning his life amongst such famine in about the worst struck parts of the country; then to leave his homeland for foreign shores, still a lad; next to spend almost the entirety of the US Civil War in battlefield after battlefield. It is true, he was wounded in battle, but really it was just a bullet through his finger. Of course, later in life the water of life perhaps was a salve to his soul.
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