John Sullivan 1844, son of Timothy Sullivan & Ellen Hartnett

Judy:

Hello again!

Hard to say if John died young or emigrated. The 1852 Griffiths Valuation head of household listing for Kilworth shows a Timothy Sullivan in Graigue townland likely your great-great-grandfather.

http://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths/cork/kilworth.htm

I checked the 1901 census for Graigue and there was no Sullivan household.

http://census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Cork/Kilworth/Graigue/

There is no other source to point to until the updates to the Griffiths are placed online which may be three years out. Those records would show changes in property ownership or who took over the lease.

Roger McDonnell

Thanks for checking Roger. Timothy, Ellen and daughters all were in Massachusetts between 1866-1870. Since the women had no naturalization records it's hard to pinpoint their arrival. Timothy was never naturalized. I think my distant Sullivan connection has Polynesian roots as well. I may never figure it out but I think John may have left first and wandered the world!

The death record for Timothy Sullivan (1810-1895) states his parents were Patrick Sullivan and Bridget. One of my great aunts had recorded on her family tree that Timothy's wife, Ellen Hartnett (1826-1885), was the daughter of Charles Hartnett and Clara Nalley. I know they married in Kilworth in 1843. They immigrated to Great Barrington, Massachusetts about 1865. I have the Griffith's Valuation record which shows them living in Graigue.

While researching on an unrelated family I came across another Hartnett family, a Patrick Hartnett married to an Elizabeth Sullivan, from Bantry. This Hartnett was born in the late 1860s. I figured it was coincidence, the distance between Graigue and Bantry is a problem. However, on two of Timothy & Ellen's children's baptismal records the sponsors are Sheas. The Hartnetts from Bantry had a son Patrick who married a Mary Bridget Shea. Are these family names just so common in Cork that it is entirely possible that none of these people are related to each other? I am ready to tear out my hair over all these names that everybody seems to share withing their family trees! How do you ever disentangle them?