The Eventful Existence of Edward Callaghan: How DNA Testing Bridged A Life Lived Across 3 Continents

by Wendy, January 9, 2020

Edward Callaghan lived quite an eventful life and the funny thing is I never knew that not only was he the ancestor of an elementary school friend of mine, but would also become the ancestor of one my children. I’ve tried for months to sum up his life. We’ll see if I succeed this time.

My husband’s dad’s 1st cousin has done extensive research on Edward and uncovered all the known facts about his life. Edward is my husband’s 3rd great-grandfather and was born about 1820 in County Fermanagh, Ireland. His arrival in America coincided with the onset of the Great Famine. He settled in Galena, Jo Daviess County, Illinois, and married Mary Riley, another Irish immigrant.

Pretty typical story, right? Irish immigrant boy meets Irish immigrant girl, gets married, makes Irish-American babies, and lives happily ever after. But the questions Edward’s descendants have contended with for many years are pretty darn interesting!

You see, Edward’s wife died on 31 August 1859, a mere 13 years after they were married. They had 5 children, the youngest of whom was only 3 months old when her mother died. And how did Mary (Riley) Calla(g)han die?

Well, Edward might have killed her. Hubby’s cousin dug up The Galena Gazette newspaper article that reported Edward was arrested on suspicion of murder. However, a Coroner’s Grand Jury Inquest rendered a verdict of “death from causes unknown.” With no evidence that Mary’s death was caused from violence, Edward was released from jail.

The story is that Mary possibly died from being beaten by her husband while he was drunk. Supposedly, he hit her over the head with a leaf from a black walnut table, she remained “insensible” throughout the night, and died early the next morning.

Did he or didn’t he? We will probably never know, but in 1860 Edward went to the courthouse in Galena with two of his brothers, gave them Power of Attorney to take care of his children and sell his property, and then disappeared.

No one knew exactly where Edward went after that, but he returned to Galena in April of 1863 and immediately got into more trouble. The Galena Gazette is the source of reports that Edward was injured by a gunshot from the Sheriff. The newspaper article also mentioned that Edward was previously in Pikes Peak, Colorado, possibly chasing the gold rush. Again, we don’t know if this is true, but Edward was in trouble once again. He and two of his brothers were arrested, went to court, paid fines, and went back to being fine, upstanding citizens. Well, not exactly.

Edward disappeared again, only this time it looks like he headed home to County Fermanagh, Ireland, where he married Catherine McCaffrey, his second wife. We have conflicting years for the marriage, but it appeared that Catherine and Edward were in Bacchus Marsh, Australia, of all places, by 1864, where their first daughter was born. There, they had 3 daughters, 2 of whom lived to adulthood.

At some point before 1870, Edward must have abandoned the family or Catherine decided to get away from him. Because, next thing you knew, Catherine and her daughters were in Massachusetts, while Edward returned to Ireland. Catherine remarried to a David Guthrie and life went on for her. But what about the Callahans back in Galena, Illinois? Did they know about their nieces/half-siblings born on the other side of the world and now living over 1,100 miles away in the U.S.?

Surprisingly, yes! Probate documents back in Galena, Illinois for Edward’s brother named both daughters! What communication ensured the family was aware of them, we do not know. As far as Edward, the story ends there, as he appears to have died in County Fermanagh in 1895 and that, as they say, is that. Maybe.

For years, my husband’s cousin has worked diligently to piece together exactly what Edward’s life was like. Considering the trouble Edward got into and his travels around the globe, this has been easy in some respects, thanks to plenty of newspaper articles, vital records, and probate records that left a paper trail, but difficult in others.

This is where I got involved. As I was working on my husband’s ancestry and communicating with his dad’s cousin, the cousin brought up a question: was their ancestor, Edward Callaghan, who’d come to Galena, Illinois actually the same as the one who lived in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia, or were they two different men with the same name? This happens and even with the 2 daughters from his second marriage named in probate records back in Illinois, there was no proof that the girls named were those particular Australian-born girls. A darn good question, not to mention a tricky one, too. One, however, that DNA could potentially resolve.

Edward Callahan | Our Prairie Nest — Photo of Edward Callaghan courtesy of John F. Callahan, Jr.

The cousin briefed me on the DNA testing he’d done, gave me access to his results, and I got to work. First, it was pretty easy to determine that the descendants of Edward Callaghan of Galena, including my husband, his father’s first cousin, and other cousins, matched the Callaghans in County Fermanagh. Without a doubt, they were the Callaghans of Rosslea (or Roslea), and matches and in-person meetings with living cousins back in Ireland helped substantiate that. Yes, my husband’s cousin has also been a busy guy – but genealogically, not criminally!

What we needed to do next was determine whether or not the Edward Callaghan who’d lived in Bacchus Marsh, Australia had living descendants today. I started building out a tree for them and determined that they absolutely had great-great grandchildren living. But had any already tested their DNA?

As I mentioned, it turned out I’d gone to school with a descendant of Edward Callaghan of Bacchus Marsh, Australia, without knowing it. How odd to come to her 30 years later and ask if she was willing to share a DNA sample, to prove she was related to my husband! With her help and her willingness to spit in a tube, we worked out the ancestry of the 2 Australian-born, Massachusetts-bound Callahan girls. This gave my husband’s cousin a test to control for a descendant of the Edward in Australia and once he shared the results, I started going through the matches.

While my husband’s cousin and our Australian-Edward test subject were not a match, we found plenty of Galena descendants who matched Australian descendants, and vice versa! With three DNA test subjects proven by the paper trail to be descendants of Edward, we went on to confirm an entire family network connected by DNA and spanning the globe through many generations. We were able to determine that, yes, “our” Edward from Galena and County Fermanagh was the father of both the Galena-born children with Mary Riley and the Australia-born children with Catherine McCaffrey! DNA testing proved that the Fermanagh-to-Galena and Australia-to-Massachusetts Callahans were all the descendants of the same Edward Callaghan.

It was both exciting and satisfying to answer the question definitively for my husband’s cousin, considering he’d worked so long to put together the details of Edward’s rather messy life! Of course, we’re still left with oh-so-many questions, such as:

Did Edward kill his first wife? Did he leave Galena, not for the Gold Rush, but because he was fleeing the law? Or did he actually join the Gold Rush and have untold adventures? Did he ever feel guilty over what happened to his first wife, and depriving his young children of both their mother and father? Did he ever have contact with his children or just his brothers?

And why come back to Galena, only to leave again? Why go back to Ireland? Was Australia meant to be a place where he could begin anew or did his possibly terrible temper result in a disastrous second marriage, as well? Did Catherine leave him or vice versa? Why did Catherine choose Massachusetts? Is he the Edward who died in 1895 and is buried at St. McCarten’s Aghadrumsee Cemetery, Magheraveely, County Fermanagh, Ireland?

There are still so many unanswered questions about the man himself, but DNA has at least given us a “map” of Edward Callaghan’s eventful existence across 3 continents!

Genealogy Goals

by Wendy, January 3, 2020

In January of 2019, I put out the declaration that 2019 would be the year I found Great-Great Grandma Emma. After 26 years of searching for her place of birth without luck, that was a pretty bold thing to say. Especially since I did everything wrong in 2019. Here’s what we can all learn from my mistakes:

Set a Specific Goal

“Finding” my great-great grandmother meant, to me, answering… um, about a bajillion unanswered questions. While it mostly came down to wanting to know where she was born, I wasn’t specific about that. “Finding” someone is hardly a goal in genealogy, because we’re always seeking someone or something, a fact, a story, proof, looking to fill in gaps in someone’s life… It’s a lot to do and take in, so having a well-articulated goal can help you focus your efforts. Um, something else I didn’t do.

Focus Your Efforts

If you have a specific goal or objective, it’s so much easier to focus your efforts. Otherwise, we might approach our research in a haphazard manner and waste time and energy. That specific goal will allow you to narrow your focus to the places you need to look – certain cities or towns, repositories, and more. How are you going to keep track of all of that, though?

Have a Plan

I didn’t have a plan for Emma. Beyond my bold statement to anyone who happened to read it, I was operating on sheer stubbornness. That can be fun for a little while, but it’s not productive in the long run. A plan based on your goal will go so much further.

Where have you looked? Where do you think you should look next? What records have you obtained? Which records are still out there? Whether you’re a spreadsheet person, listmaker, or plan in some other way, do craft something that allows you to make notes or check off a task. Finally, make sure you’re sticking to the plan with some accountability.

Track Your Efforts

Accountability doesn’t have to be public, such as with blogging or social media posts. Though that can be fun and add an extra layer of motivation, the real accountability should be to yourself. The beauty of having a plan is that you can also add a tracker to check off the things you accomplish, make notes on what you found or didn’t find, and keep track of the dates of research, repositories visited or databases searched, and more.

Don’t do what I did with my great-great grandma, which was basically throwing something at the wall and seeing if it stuck. That’s not the most logical or efficient way to get things done. Did it work? Heck yeah, it did! On December 4, a little discovery based on a suggestion from a NEHGS Research Consultation led to me cracking the case wide open on December 13, 2019! Somehow, I did it. I met my unspecific, unfocused, unplanned goal with a couple weeks to spare before the end of the year.

Would I suggest the same route for you or myself again? Maybe, if you’re feeling adventurous. 😉 So much in family history research seems to come down to timing and/or serendipity, anyway. But I’d like to think that we can help those things along with a little smart productivity.

2019: The Year I Find Emma

by Wendy, January 4, 2019

I am confident that 2019 will be my year – the year I find the origin of my great-great grandmother, Emma Anna Murphy. Emma, who married first a Mr. Reagan and then my great-great grandfather, Erastus Bartlett Shaw of Middleborough, Massachusetts in 1888.

The first time I tested my DNA was in 2006, before FTDNA offered Family Finder or Ancestry DNA became a thing. The only option available to me was mtDNA, which wasn’t applicable to Emma, but I still wanted to get “in” on this technology. I hoped that this new tool would help me break down the looming Emma brick wall. Since then, I’ve followed up with several autosomal tests, had my father test, and also seen other relatives on that side of the family test.

Now, after 25+ years of attempting to either dismantle or climb it, I think the end is in sight (despite a professional genealogy firm telling me the prognosis of a search for Emma was “poor”)! The technique that I believe will yield answers is that of creating genetic networks or DNA match clusters.

I found that creating a spreadsheet that sorted all DNA matches known to connect to my father’s mother – and therefore, potentially, Emma – was the way to go. Here’s a look at what I did:

You could probably create a network like this in mere moments using DNA Gedcom or Genetic Affairs, but I did this by hand in Excel, person by person, because I wanted to look at each person individually. The process allows us to see patterns in our matches in a different way.

How did I do it? First, this was made based upon my father’s DNA matches. Since Emma is his great-grandmother, it makes sense to work off Dad’s DNA instead of my own. He’s a generation closer to her and thus ought to have more of her DNA than me or my sister do.

I then took the 4 close matches he has who are confirmed as maternal matches. They are my father’s half-niece, his great-niece, a second cousin, and a first cousin, once removed. While the half-niece is my generation and the great-niece is even more generations removed from Emma, they are still useful for pinpointing maternal-only matches for my father. Why? Because my grandmother was married twice and her eldest son (father of the half-niece) and daughter (grandmother of the great-niece) were from her first marriage, while her two younger sons (my other uncle and my father) were from her second marriage, to my grandfather. Thus, these two nieces allow me to absolutely rule out my father’s paternal matches.

Next, I looked at the first cousin, once removed. She is actually a first cousin we didn’t know my grandmother had and I’m sure there’s a story there that the DNA match herself doesn’t even know (one I’ve been trying to approach as sensitively as possible with her). But that isn’t the focus of this post. The nice thing is, I can actually rule out the first cousin, once removed, because she connects to my grandmother’s maternal side, and my focus is my grandmother’s paternal grandmother.

With that large grouping of people in gray set aside, that allows me to move on to the peach, pink, and green matches. A review of the green matches shared with my father’s great-niece didn’t give me much hope that I would find my answer there.

So my focus is on the peach and pink clusters. I’m already biased toward one of them, because two of the matches in it who only match me, my cousins, and one another appear to be likely candidates. However, ruling out all others also helps in this instance, to ensure I’m not chasing the “wrong” cousins. I’ll definitely post updates as I work through this project and let you know if I’m successful!

DNA Testing: Caveats

by Wendy, August 17, 2018

Family Tree DNA first began offering direct-to-consumer genetic testing in 2000. After years of reading articles about the success people had with DNA testing for genealogy, I took my first test in 2006. Only a year later in 2007, 23andMe joined the party, and now everyone is doing it.

Yet, not everyone understands the risks of DNA testing. So many people test and are disappointed or, worse, upset by their results. There’s so much education out there, that while I am an enthusiastic advocate of genetic genealogy, I also ask people to take a common sense approach. What do I mean by this? I mean it’s a good idea to try to understand the science behind, as well as risks and rewards of, DNA testing for genealogy, before spitting into the tube.

As with scientific processes, there is an answer for each of your concerns. Here are some things to keep in mind:

You might not get the ethnicity you “want”

You’ve tested, gotten your results, and you’re upset because the results don’t show that you’re “British enough.” This can happen for a number of reasons and should not put you off genetic genealogy, as it is now considered an important tool for meeting the genealogical proof standard.

The different companies have different test groups and regions, so while one company might label you as Italian, another might label you as Greek. This happened to me and I’m not too concerned. I don’t see this as a problematic ethnic label and because they will probably refine this in time.

Also, your ancestors might not have been “as insert-ethnicity-here” as you expected. After all, do you know what ethnicity their parents or grandparents were? What about their great-grandparents? Your admixture might be more diverse or mixed up than you expect, and that’s okay!

Instead, let DNA ethnicity results be your guide in genealogical research (rather like online family trees), and not the be-all and end-all of who you are.

You might find unexpected relatives

I love that Judy Russell emphasizes this consistently in her blog posts and presentations. I had the pleasure of seeing her speak at the Nebraska State Genealogical Society Conference this past April where she stated as emphatically as she does in her blog posts do not test if you are not prepared for the potential results.

Yes, you might find unknown siblings, first cousins, second cousins… even parents. You might realize a grandparent’s parents weren’t their parents after all. I’ve found a first cousin I didn’t know I had and I thought that was the only surprise I would get. A year later, I found out there are still close surprise relatives around every corner.

While my family and I welcome these relatives, other families may not. Or perhaps the tester now has to come to terms with their new “identity.” As enthusiastic as I am about DNA testing, I’ve learned to take an “I’m here for you when you’re ready” approach to those cousins who’ve received a genetic shock.

If you don’t think you can be open to people who suddenly find themselves on the receiving end of this kind of “what do you mean my father isn’t my father?!” news or handle it yourself, then this warning bears repeating: DO NOT TEST IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED FOR THE POTENTIAL RESULTS.

I hope that won’t put people off from testing, because there is support out there and many people within the genealogy community feel it is their duty to be as supportive as possible to others in these cases.

You might be wasting your money

Let’s be honest: most people only take these tests as a lark to learn their ethnicity. Honestly, that just isn’t worth the $49 or $59 or $99. If you do take the test just for ethnicity reasons, please do consider at least adding a skeletal family tree to whatever testing service you use. Going as far back as great or great-great grandparents is super helpful and those of us utilizing DNA testing for genealogical reasons would greatly appreciate it! And don’t be surprised to hear from people trying to figure out how you’re related. If you’re not sure, it’s perfectly okay to answer that you’re not really into genealogy and sorry you can’t help them.

But it’d certainly rock if getting your DNA tested turned into a gateway to you becoming interested in genealogy. 😉

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Set a Specific Goal

Focus Your Efforts

Have a Plan

Track Your Efforts

You might not get the ethnicity you “want”

You might find unexpected relatives

You might be wasting your money

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Set a Specific Goal

Focus Your Efforts

Have a Plan

Track Your Efforts

You might not get the ethnicity you “want”

You might find unexpected relatives

You might be wasting your money

Hey There!

Let's Connect

Books on my Bedside Table

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