May-Russell

I’m delighted to have found this site. I’m planning to visit Athboy from Canada next October. As you can see below I have researched a fair amount about my great-great grandmother Catherine (Kate) May(e).

I’m looking forward to getting a closer look at the house where she was born, and perhaps finding gravesites of ancestors and other relatives (who was Cousin Liz?). The best would be locating possible living cousins in the area. I also have barely begun going back further to her parents and finding the roots of her husband, John Russell (1828-1883). Which Russell family was his?

What I have gathered: The attached undated postcard sent from “Cousin Liz” to my great aunt Johanna indicating that Catherine May was born in the house with the arched doorway on Connaught Street. (I’ve sent a scanned copy to the folks running the Athboy 100 website.)

Catherine gave the date of her birth as 23 November 1845 and said her father’s name was Patrick, but both can’t be true.

In Griffiths Valuation, James May and Patrick May live next to one another on Connaught Street (Town Parks Townland) in Athboy. I’ve combed the microfilmed parish records online at NLI. In the Athboy RC records, the only Catherine baptized on 23 Nov or shortly thereafter in 1845 was born to Thomas Tully. There is a Mariam May baptized on what looks like the 10th of December that year, but her father was Jacobi (James) May, not Patrick.

I found a Catharine May born to Patrick May and Margaret Conlin baptized on 23 August 1842. So I’m guessing this is my 2x great grandmother. ( Athboy Baptisms Aug 1842 to Jan 1843 p. 58)

Other children born to Patrick May and Margaret Conlin (or Conlan) I have found are

John           Oct 1840

Margaret  19 March 1846

Patrick       20 July 1848 (a cross is next to his name, so he may have died soon after)

James         15 August 1853

Catherine May married John Russell, September 5, 1863, in Athboy, Co. Meath.

Their first child (the only one born before they emigrated in 1866) was baptized Patrick Russell on April 2, 1865 in Bohermeen, Co. Meath.

Catherine’s father Patrick was a blacksmith, and her son Patrick became an ironworker who helped build skyscrapers in Chicago.

I’m still working on tracing down which John Russell was Catherine’s husband, tracing the ancestry of Margaret Conlin/Conlan, as well as determining which Patrick May is her father. (There was a Patrick May born in Athboy in 1811, and 2 in Summerhill in 1815.) So the research is ongoing. Hopefully I’ll make headway on those items over the next year.