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My heritage
is a mixture of Irish, Scottish, English and Swiss, with some possible French Huguenots
and Vikings further back.
My mother's family is almost completely Irish, originating from several Irish men
and women that immigrated to America around the time of the potato famine of the
mid-1800s. According to oral tradition, all these families emigrated from the famine-devastated
counties of Northern and Western Ireland (Mayo, Donegal, Monaghan, Armagh), probably
by way of Liverpool and an eight week voyage to America. During the 1850s and 1860s
they settled in various Midwestern states (Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota) and farmed
the land. Their sons and daughters migrated to Washington and California after 1900,
where many of them now reside.
My father's family immigrated to the U.S. in 1920 from Switzerland. My grandfather,
a Swiss businessman, had met my English grandmother in Egypt shortly after the turn
of the century, while she was working as a governess for a well-to-do Egyptian family.
They lived in Switzerland until after the end of World War I when they moved to California.
The main branches of the Miller tree are presented below in the form of a clickable
image map; i.e., you may discover additional information about the named individuals
or their descendants by clicking on the people icons or the marriage (=) sign. Collateral
branches of the tree are presented in a surname
list, now containing more than one thousand
names. If you are a cousin or have information on any of these
ancestors, please contact me at gmiller@csuhayward.edu
Enjoy!
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BLANC(H)E -- According
to family lore Thomas BLANCHE was born in Scotland sometime in the middle of the
nineteenth century and to have been a member of the Royal Navy. Research at the Family
Records Centre of London in 1999 revealed that in reality Thomas "BLANCE"
was born in Delting Parish, Shetland at the far north of Scotland in 1842 and came from a long line of Blances
that have been traced back to the mid-1700s in Shetland. By the late 1860s Tom had
moved to London and married Margaret SAUVAGE. They lived in Poplar, a poor, dockside community in London's
East End, where they raised eight children, born between 1871 and 1888; one
of these was my grandmother, Alice Blanche. At present the fates of Alice's siblings
and their descendants in the U.K. is not known, however, you can read a few educated
guesses in "Filling
in the Blanc s." |
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Alice (1879-1960)
went to high school in Dundee, Scotland and later began to learn the hair dressing
trade in London. Somewhere after the turn of the century she went to Paris for specialized
training in hair dying and the manufacture of wigs or "transformations"
as she called them. |
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While in Paris she accepted a position as a paid companion to a rich
young woman who was traveling to Egypt. After arriving in Egypt she was hired
as a governess for the children of an English family. During this same time
she claimed to have attracted the eye of an Egyptian sheik who offered to make her
the number one lady in his harem. It is unclear when all this occurred, but by 1905-06
she had met Adolf Arthur MÜLLER, a Swiss businessman, who was working
in a bank in Cairo. They were married in Paris and returned to live in Switzerland
by 1907 or 1908. |
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FLYNN -- Patrick FLYNN was born ca. 1820
in County Mayo, Ireland. Sometime during the Great Hunger, Patrick married Bridget CAVANAUGH and emigrated from Ireland. Their first son,
John, was born in 1850 and in various later records John claimed to have been born
in England, Ireland, and Louisiana, respectively, and to have arrived in America
in 1853. The Patrick FLYNN family settled in Clinton, Iowa
where two more children were born. In 1855 or 1856
Bridget CAVANAUGH FLYNN died. In 1857 Patrick remarried, this time to a Bridget
ORMSBY. They lived for several more years in Clinton, Iowa and in 1866 settled
on a farm in Meeker County, Minnesota, where the family grew to include a total of 14 children. |
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 John FLYNN (1850-1936) , the eldest
of the FLYNN children, married Catherine MCCARNEY, the eldest daughter of James
MCCARNEY, the farmer who lived next
door. The young couple lived for several years near
their parents in Meeker County, Minnesota but in 1880 moved to Morris in western
Minnesota. John and Catherine had eleven children, many of whom, upon reaching
adulthood, moved to Washington, North Dakota or California. |
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John and Catherine's eldest daughter, Mary
B. FLYNN (1879-1973), has been the inspiration for a great deal of my genealogical research. In her home town of
Morris, Minnesota, Mary was known as "that long streak of education."
She began her 1898 valedictory address at Morris High School with the words "What a child owes to
its mother, we owe to the past, namely our existence and the rudiments of our enlightenment"
-- not a bad beacon for a professional archaeologist and an amateur genealogist!
In 1902, canvassing the county in a horse and buggy driven by her younger brother
Jack, she made a successful run for the office of Superintendent of Schools of Stevens County, Minnesota.
Between 1904 and 1910 she taught her way across the west (North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana
and Washington) until finally meeting and marrying Charles DUFFY in 1911. Charles
and Mary had six children and lived in Southern California.
• 2000 Flynn Reunion
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 GREEN -- According to family lore, Mary GREENE
traced her ancestry to the group of Scotch-Irish who came to this country before
the American Revolution and gradually drifted southwest down the parallel valleys
of the Appalachians to Kentucky. Her parents had moved west from Kentucky as
newlyweds in 1835, joining the early settlers in the state of Missouri. There
she and seven brothers and sisters were born. When the Civil War broke out
her father was suspected of southern sympathy and was imprisoned, but due to his
voluntary aid in a smallpox epidemic, he was released on his promise to move farther
north. The family went to Illinois for the duration and when the rest of the
family moved back to Missouri, Mary remained with an aunt in Illinois, there meeting
young Nicholas DUFFY. Soon after their marriage, they moved to Minnesota and
finally settled in Hastings,
Minnesota where
six sons were born. Here Mary developed severe attacks of asthma. Hence,
they decided to move to the relatively mild climate of central Illinois, where they
settled in Mason City.
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MCCARNEY -- In March of 1846, while
the potato blight was still just a minor problem and a full year before the full
brunt of the Great Famine, James MCCARNEY (1830-1902), at just 16 years of age,
left his home in County Monaghan and set sail from Ireland. Two months later he landed in New Orleans and
began to work his way up the Mississippi. He lived for a while in Galena, Illinois, where he met Margery MCGINLEY. They were married in Benton, Wisconsin
and in 1851 settled near St. Paul, Minnesota. They lived there until December,
1862 when James volunteered for the Union Army. In 1867 the MCCARNEYS homesteaded
a quarter section near Manannah, Minnesota and not far from the farm of James' younger
brother, Patrick, who had come to the U.S. in 1849. As of 2000 some of the
great, great grandchildren of James and Margery are still working the Minnesota
farm and others have spread across the U.S. |
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James and Margery had nine children, the eldest of whom was Catherine MCCARNEY (1852-1935), my great grandmother. Catherine married John FLYNN, the boy next door, in 1874. They lived in Mannanah,
Morris and Eden Valley, Minnesota and had eleven children.
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MCGINLEY -- According to family lore
Margery MCGINLEY (1827-1900) was from County Donegal in Ireland. She must have lived
on the coast because she told her daughter (Catherine MCCARNEY) that when she was
a girl she could see the coast of Scotland on a clear day. She also told how she
used to get a salmon, hide it in her apron and take it to home to her mother for
a meal, all the while defying the English coast guard. This story may mean that she
lived on the Lough Foyle or on the northeast-facing coast of Inishowen. Family oral tradition says that she
came from a village named "Bally-something"; there are several villages
with the "Bally" prefix on the Inishowen coast |
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Margery came to the United States as a young woman, probably at the
time of the Irish potato famine (1846-1851), when her sister in New York sent her passage money in order
to came and visit her. The official destination of the ship was New York but as they
approached the Eastern Seaboard the captain claimed that the winds were unfavorable
for him to put into New York harbor and that New Orleans was the safest place to
land. [Many unscrupulous ship captains were paid to make such claims by the cotton
growers of the south since the plantation owners found it more profitable to hire
desperate Irish immigrants than to buy black slaves. Many of the Irish immigrants
died of yellow fever working on the levees of the deep south]. When Margery landed
in New Orleans she had enough money to begin the overland trip to New York. She got
as far as Galena, Illinois where she met James MCCARNEY. He persuaded Margery to marry him and together
they set out for Minnesota where they homesteaded. The farm is still owned by their
descendants.
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 MÜLLER -- On November 23, 1920 Adolf Arthur MÜLLER, along
with his wife and two sons boarded the S.S. Rotterdamat the French port of Boulogne sur Mer and sailed for a new
life in America. In leaving Switzerland, the Müller family abandoned a grand
home outside of Zurich, a life of privilege replete with maids and a St. Bernard,
and a large extended family established in the cities of Aarau and Zofingen. It is
a mystery exactly why my grandfather left Switzerland and whether there are descendants
of his extended family still living there. The only clues that exist concerning these
questions are in the form of family oral tradition and old photo albums surviving
from the old country.
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ORAL TRADITION -- According to my uncle, Norman (Bibs) MILLER, his father, although
christened "Adolf" normally went by his middle name, "Arthur."
He was the youngest of four children; a brother, Emil, and two sisters, Martha and
Aida. The MÜLLER family tree reconstructed from this oral tradition and other
documentation is shown below: |
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PHOTO ALBUMS -- Two old photo albums containing a total of 67 photos survived the
passage from Switzerland to California. Unfortunately, few of the photos are identified
as to date or person. Several of the portraits are embossed with names of photographic
studios in Aarau, Lucerne, Zofingen and Zurich. With the hope that one day some distant
MÜLLER cousin will recognize some of these faces, I present here a digital sample
from the MÜLLER album, along with educated guesses as to their identities. |
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SAUVAGE -- Very
little is known of this branch of the family beyond the fact that my great grandmother
 (father's mother's
mother) was named Margaret BLANCHE nee SAUVAGE. Born in Bromley on London's
East Side in 1848, she married Thomas BLANCHE in 1869 or 1870 and had eight children.
They lived in London during the late 1800s and she died at about age 40 from cancer. The
photo at the right is of Margaret SAUVAGE.
Family stories have it that she came from a long line of British seaman. One
of her ancestors was supposed to have served under Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle
of Trafalgar in 1805 and another, of slightly shadier reputation, was claimed
to be a pirate. The French spelling of this surname suggest that it may originate
from the Huguenots that fled from France to England in the late 1600s. |
