John Foley : Short Biography

John Foley 1817

IrelandXO

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Place of migration

Migrated to/Born in USA

Unfortunately, we know little of John Foley's early life, other than that he was born in Ireland. His year of birth is estimated at 1817 on the 1860 census, 1815 on the 1880 census, and is 1819 on his gravestone.

He married Bridget Martin, presumably before the birth of their first child, but it's unknown if they married in Ireland or the US.

They had seven children:

Edward, b.abt.1852, Pennsylvania, d.probably before 1883
Ellen, b.1853, Pennsylvania, d.probably before 1860 (twin)
Margaret, b.1853, Pennsylvania, d.1940 (twin)
Henry James, b.1856, Pennsylvania, d.1930
William, b.1858, Pennsylvania, d.1893
Francis, b.1860, New York, d.probably before 1870
Lucy, b.1861, New York, d.1929

John was a stone mason, so we suspect the lack of records before the 1860 US census was because the family moved around following jobs. The children have at least four different birth locations.

He died in Kane, McKean County, Pennsylvania, 17 Mar 1879, His death notice was simply:

John Foley, an old and much esteemed resident of this place, died on Monday morning last. The remains were taken to Warren on Wednesday morning for burial.

Despite the notice, John was buried in St. Callistus Cemetery, Kane, McKean County, Pennsylvania, USA.

Additional Information
Date of Birth	1st Jan 1817 (circa)
Date of Death	17th Mar 1879	VIEW SOURCE

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Comments

Another John Foley and Edward. Names tend to run in families.

I don't know where my John(father) and Edward(son) were born in Ireland but John was probably born 1790-1810 and Edward, 1822-1830. Edward was listed as 28 in the 1850 census in Schuylkill, PA and 30 in the 1860 census in LaSalle, IL. We believe he died in 1863 in LaSalle because the register at St Pat's where he was married in 1857 has "I buried Edward Foley, aged about 40 years" in the death registry.

Your John could be a brother or cousin to my Edward.

Have you narrowed your search area any? Have you considered a DNA test? I have done both an Ancestry DNA and yDNA from FamilyTree.

Pat Foley

Pjkfoley

Thursday 13th July 2023 12:25AM

Pjkfoley: Johns and Edwards run in a lot of families -- my husband's a Flanagan and they have a lot of the same names. :-)

Still don't know anything more than the above about John :-(. I did my DNA at Ancestry and have uploaded it to MyHeritage, FTDNA, GEDMatch, and Living DNA -- fish in all the ponds, as they say! My brother Y tested, but it was with National Geographic years ago. My sister uploaded his DNA to FTDNA, though: Axel Foley, haplogroup R-Z255.

I have one interesting DNA match who traces back to David Foley who was b.abt.1791 in County Waterford, married Ann Crowdis in 1825 Nova Scotia, Canada, and they both died in Wabasha County, Minnesota in the 1860s. The match is on Ancestry so no chromosome information. With a 26-year age gap, David and John probably aren't in the same generation.