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How the McLain family of King's County, Ireland became Beals in Brooklyn, N.Y.
~My search into where I came from~
I started researching my family beginning with my great-grandfather, Harry
A. Beal of Brooklyn. As I was slowly learning how to work backward with censuses and vital records,
I hit a genealogy "brick wall" at the 1880 census. Trying to find the family before that census was impossible,
it was almost like they didn't exist before then...
Annie Beal, a 37 year old Irish widow and her three children living at 145 14th
Street in 1880, had practically appeared out of nowhere in South Brooklyn.
The oldest piece of information in the family, was that Annie Beal's son, Henry G. Beal
(my great-great grandfather) was born in Yonkers in 1866. I knew my answer would be somewhere in that town...
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| N. Broadway, Yonkers, 1870 |
My grandfather's sister, Gloria, told me that the while in Yonkers, the Beals
lived with their cousins (circa late 1860s). Since I couldn't find any Beals there in the 1860 or '70 census, I looked
for the only other name I had, thinking they may have been maternal cousins of the Beals. On Henry G. Beal's 1926 death
certificate, it gave his mother's maiden name as McClain. Could researching McClains in Yonkers lead me to the family
Gloria told me about?
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Yonkers, N.Y., July 19, 1870
Name Age Occ.
Birthplace
McLAIN, Henry, 38 Painter
Ireland
McLAIN, Anna, 27 Keeping House Ireland
McLAIN, Henry, 4 New
York
McLAIN, Alice, 2 New
York
McLAIN, Camelia, 10 mos.
New York
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Brooklyn, N.Y. June 11, 1880
Name Age Occ.
BEAL, Anna, 37 (widowed) Ireland
BEAL, Henry, 14 at school N.Y.
BEAL, Alice, 12 at school N.Y.
BEAL, Camilla,10 at school N.Y.
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...the answer was in the 1870 census of Yonkers... and it was that the Beal family had previously been McLains...
Annie Beal had been widowed twice between these two censuses, and the McLain children had taken the name
of her second husband, George T. Beal.
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From these censuses, I had reached the point of my family's arrival in
New York from Ireland, but what next? Concievably they could have been from any of the 32 counties, and I didn't have
a maiden name for Annie McLain. Since Henry G. McLain was their oldest child, i made a guess that his parents were married
around 1865. Coincidentally, Ireland started keeping civil records in 1864 and I had a shot at going a step further.
A hit in the marriage index would tell me their registration district. The key to the the marriage records
is to find the groom's name and the bride's name separately and see if they were in the same volume/page of the record, and
I had success in 1865...
M'LAIN Henry Tullamore vol.9 p.509
ELLIS Anne Tullamore vol.9 p.509
When I was able to find their marriage ledger from Tullamore's registration
district, I saw they were married at Clara church at the town of Clara in King's County on September 11th, 1865
by a vicar of the Protestant "Church of Ireland". This also led me to Henry McLain's land holdings in Griffith's Valuation
of 1854.
I was very unfamiliar with Irish records so I consulted a professional Irish Genealogy
research service of experts in this field to find out where certain records were held and what I could move onto next.
Their answer was: "Due to the time-frame and parish that
your family lived in, we have reached a consensus that it is futile to continue any research of this line. All parish
records and censuses for Kilbride, King's County, were completely destroyed by fire in 1922"
I was very disappointed but it challenged me to do what they deemed impossible
and tell my family's story by exploring land records, military records, and further researching the McLains that came to New
York. I even submitted cheekswabs for Y-chromosome DNA comparison in hopes of finding lost distant relatives with answers.
My search has gone on for ten years, and still continues, searching for what
was Lost in Yonkers...
McLain...
a variant-spelling
of "MacLean" from the highland clan "MacLaine of Lochbuie"...
anglicized
gaelic "Mac Giolla Ean" meaning Son of the Servant of Saint John.
NEXT...
See the rest of my family tree "New York Irish" here...
Research on my McLain & Beal Ancestry
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