Revised 24 August, 2004

There's a William Connelly buried at St Joseph's (Old Irish) Cemetery on 9 June 1883.

There is a probate (Hamilton County) entry of 11 July 1883 naming Walter Granger as administrator of a William Connelly's estate. This entry indicates that William was killed by a train, and the probate proceedings were going to be suspended until a lawsuit, brought by Granger, was settled.

So I checked for newspaper articles concerning the accident:.

Pam Adkins acquired a copy of his death certificate. According to that, he died on 7 June 1883 of a railroad accident, was born in Ireland, was married, age 72, and resided at 187 E 6th St.

St Joseph's Cemetery lists the burial for a William Connelly on June 9, 1883, residence was 187 E Sixth, age 76, died of an accident, and he was from Galway, parents are Patrick and Mary.

In 1860, a possible family looks like this:

Despite the double entry for Mary, age 8, her age and the age of James agrees favorably with what is known. When Mary (then a Heaney) was buried, her birth place was listed as London on the cemetery records.

In 1870, there's a possible census entry for a William Conley, age 60 on roll 1209, page 50:

If we ignore the ages of the parents, the ages and birthplaces of Mary and James agree with other information we have. John and Winifred aren't here anymore, suggesting death dates for them of between 1860 and 1870.

This William is also living quite close to the Flannerys, where Anne is a daughter about James' age.

In 1880, James is in his sister Mary's home, and there is a listing for this family:

Despite the destruction of the court records in a courthouse fire, a single microfiche was found that contains some journal entries concerning the lawsuit. Most of the image is unreadable, though some dates indicating some court activity can be read. So I used newspapers to see if the events of this case were reported.

The next step was to find the death of William's wife Mary, even though I had no idea when she died other than sometime after William's death. Records supplied by St Joseph's Cemetery suggested no candidate for a Mary Connelly, but she could be l isted as Mary Connolly, Conley, or some other spelling variant. A search of the cemetery's records on film eventually resulted in finding this entry:

For an image of this entry ,click here, but be aware it is 547K large.

This burial plot also contains Anne Flannery, Cornelius Flannery, and James Connelly, a three-year-old son of James and Ann Connelly.

At the same time, a William Connolly was removed from the old cemetery and buried in the same lot. The grave he was removed from is the same as that shown in 1883 for "our" William.

Searching in Ireland

William Connelly is apparently the son of Patrick and Mary Connelly, and Mary Donnelly was a daughter of James and Winifred Donnelly; both are said to have come from County Galway. I can't say for sure whether William and Mary married in Galway, then left for England, or they met in England and married there.

Griffith's Primary Valuation can be used to look, first, at the spelling variants used in Ireland about that time (1848-1864):

The spellings represent the possible variants that might be found in Irish records, and the numbers are the counts of families found in Griffith's (GPV) with that spelling. Notice the "Conneely" spelling (and pronunciation) and some of it's variants. Awareness of these variants is important for research in the records.

Name variants in County Galway

Here are the counts of these name for County Galway, which is as good a place as anywhere to start:

Places in County Galway where both family names can be found

By looking at the GPV, we can compile a list of those places (parishes and townlands) that contained both Donnellys and Connellys. This isn't any kind of a guarantee that William and Mary came from one of these townlands, but at least at the parish level there's a pretty good chance.