 |
 |
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, and Monaghan), 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 george.miller@csueastbay.edu
Enjoy!
|
| |
BLANC(H)E -- According
to family lore Thomas BLANCH 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." |
| |
Alice (1879-1960)
attended high school in Scotland (probably while a guest in the Edinburgh home of
her uncle, Robert Blanche. Later, under the tutelage of an older sister she learned
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. |
|
| |
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. |
| |
|
| |
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. |
| |
 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. |
| |
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 Virtual Reunion
|
| |
 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.
|
| |
MCCARNEY -- In March of 1846, when
the potato blight was still just a relatively minor problem and a full year before
the  full brunt of the
Great Famine, James MCCARNEY (1826-1902), at just 20 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 2002 some of the great, great grandchildren
of James and Margery are still working the Minnesota farm and others have spread
across the U.S. |
| |
 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 and they settled down for a few
years near their parents' farms in Mannanah. Their first child, Mary, was born in
Litchfield. In 1880 they moved to Morris in Stevens County where they raised eleven
children. Sometime between 1910 and 1920 they moved back to Meeker County and settled
in Eden Valley, where they had a general store. Their final years were spent in the
Seattle area close to several of their children who had settled there during the
20s.
•2002 McCarney Virtual
Reunion
|
| |
MCGINLEY -- According to family lore
Margery MCGINLEY (1828-1900) 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-_?_";
there are several villages with the "Bally" prefix on the Inishowen coast
and further investigation might reveal that one of them was Margery's town of origin.
Much further back Margery's origins appear to have been far from the Esmerald Isle
and Celtic Ireland. Mitochondrial DNA testing of Margery's descendants has demonstrated
that she belonged to haplogroup J1b, a genetic clan that first arose around 10,000
BC in the area of Turkey or Syria. But that's another story and must await time
for a complete explanation. Check back later. |
| |
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.
|
| |
 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.
|
| |
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: |
| |
|
| |
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. |
| |
|
| |
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 late1800s 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. |
