john kelley, b. 1843-45, england, near london

[witchniche]

Help! i apologize if this has been posted before... brickwall going on 12 yrs now... i've got feelers out to all US historians in his area and we are all coming up empty. so i thought i'd try the sleuths across the pond!

john kelley, b. 1843-45, england, d. 12 june 1932, bergen, genesee, NYS, USA.

first census I'm sure of is 1875, oakfield, genesee, NYS with wife sarah (johnson)

one US census says he immigrated to states 1861. no civil war record and later census returns says he's not a US veteran.... death certificate says parents "unknown".

trying to find his parents!!!!
his obit:


his obit, says the reverend that officiated at his funeral, Rev. H Bradley Sayre. and i've uncovered he was presbyterian/methodist.

[Lesley Robertson]

Ancestry 1851 census has a number of JKs born 1843-1845, but only 3 claim a London birthplace. Unfortunately, 2 of the 3 are not living with family, one is in a boarding school and another (with another boy of the same surname) as "nurse children". It might be worth checking whether these 3 are still to be found in the UK in '61 and '71. If they are, check the next nearest - there's always a chance that the family said he was born near London because it was somewhere people had heard of.
If you can't find them in the later censuses, first check for death certificates for them (children often died young). If they can't be found, start looking at passenger ships.
It's also possibly worth looking at newspapers of the time - if a group of children were shipped out, for example, it might be mentioned.

If it was my search, I would also list their children in birth order, and check which names might be associated with the wife's side. People didn't always observe the traditional naming patterns (especially if he left his birth family early like the 2 boys I mentioned earlier) but the appearance of a less common name in the list (eg Veta) may provide a clue to follow.

[witchniche]

so john's children:

Charles Leslie, Phyllis, Fred B., Walter j, Grace Anna, Clark Harold or Clark Duboise, Pearl, VEDA, Eliza, Earl Martin, Harold.

two of the children are not confirmed. eliza and harold. census returns say 10 children, 9 alive.

i asked my mother what the b. in fred b. kelley stood for... and she said her g'pa told her absolutely nothing....

however, there is a fred brown in the boarding school census... i might be reaching here....

charles and walter, both of those names are repeats on the wife's side. none of the others repeat...

ok to be continued.... the clerk of court here is pulling his death cert, parents 'unknown' but will try to verify the birthdate... but given the headstone is very possibly wrong, i wouldn't count on his kids knowing his birthdate either....

[pwholt]

See if you can establish when his wife died, and then look for an obit for her, as well as any of the children. Tiny scraps of information turn up in the most unlikely places. It was in my great grandfather's obit that I found mention of his wife's step father and birth father who she never knew. also look for an additional obit for your man as it may tell you additional information. pwholt

[witchniche]

i found two obits for john... the reverend that officiated was methodist, so john not a catholic... now to scour the marriage entries in the non catholic churches... the second obit had less info.

i found one blurb in the paper that sarah was sick and being tended by her daughter, 1936, the year she died.

[witchniche]

See if you can establish when his wife died, and then look for an obit for her, as well as any of the children. Tiny scraps of information turn up in the most unlikely places. It was in my great grandfather's obit that I found mention of his wife's step father and birth father who she never knew. also look for an additional obit for your man as it may tell you additional information. pwholt

you were right... i found him, i search the fulton history papers https://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html and in searching his name i came across an obit for a mary bloomfield -who i don't have in my tree, no idea who she is yet... but he was a pallbearer and so was a wm h. kelley... turns out it's my john's nephew and wow was he easy to trace back...