Searching for the County Sligo Origins of Sarah Kilcullen

The Sligo coastline at Mullaghmore
By Aonghus Flynn - originally posted to Flickr as Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, CC BY 2.0, Source

My great-grandmother, Sarah Kilcullen, has always been an enigma to me. She died in 1939, when her son, my grandfather, David Austin Lacey, was just 21. When I was growing up, forty-some years later, my relatives and I occasionally talked about the Lacey family, the family that Sarah married into, but I don't recall discussing the Kilcullens much. This may have simply been because Sarah had been gone for so long at that point and memories had faded. By the time I became seriously interested in genealogy, my grandfather had passed, and the only person I could ask about Sarah was my father. He told me what he knew, or thought he knew, but I never had any success piecing together a family tree for my great-grandmother based on that information. I've also never seen a photo of Sarah. I feel badly that she appears so lost to history, and that I can't seem to learn more.

What We Know/ Don't Know

This is what I learned about Sarah from my father. She was born in County Sligo, Ireland. My dad thinks she may have been been from Carrowhubbock, but he can't remember if someone told him that, or if he Googled Kilcullens at some point and saw Carrowhubbock as a possible location for the family. He also thinks her parents were named Patrick and Bridget, but this is another tidbit that doesn't appear to have a strong source. My father also has a suspicion that Sarah had a brother named Owen, but it's just a hunch based largely on the fact that Sarah named her youngest son Owen. So, we have a lot of maybes here, and not a lot of certainty.

There are a few things that are definitely known to be true, however, and can be backed up with documentation. Sarah was born in County Sligo, Ireland. She arrived in America from Ireland in the early 1900s, met Thomas Lacey in San Francisco and married him there in 1908. They had eight children together. Sarah died in Alameda, California in 1939.

Over the years I have run countless online searches looking for more information, but nothing has matched up with what I think I know about my great-grandmother. In searching immigration records, there are many Sarah Kilcullens that are presented in search results, but they're either the wrong age, hail from the wrong location, or have parents with names that are unfamiliar to me.

I decided to go back to the drawing board with Sarah, forget what I think I know, and look only for things that I could prove with documentation. I started with trying to learn Sarah's birthdate. Here is what the records indicate:

1910 U.S. Census: born about 1883, age 27
1920 U.S. Census: born about 1883, age 37
1930 U.S. Census: born about 1885, age 45 
Death index: born about 1883
Gravestone: born 1883

It's not conclusive, but it's a strong indicator that Sarah was born in 1883.

Next, I looked for Sarah's death date, and this was easy, because The San Francisco Examiner published her obituary on December 4, 1939, stating that she died on December 3 in Alameda. The obituary also says that Sarah was a native of Ireland, and that she had a sister in San Francisco, Annie Duffy. This was new to me. I had never heard anything about a sister named Annie. 

A Surprise Sister

I was able to find a number of records for Annie, including census records and a death record indicating that she was born on June 29, 1889 in County Sligo, Ireland. I also found Annie on a passenger list, arriving at Ellis Island on October 10, 1907, on the ship Teutonic. That record states that Annie was 20 years old at the time of her arrival and worked as a servant. She was headed to San Francisco upon her arrival in America, and her last address was Pound Street, Sligo. The relative she listed as her closest was Mrs. James Mulrooney, a cousin. Typically, that column would indicate the closest relative in the immigrant's home country, so this is a hint that Annie's parents may no longer have been living in 1907 and she was apparently staying with the family of a cousin. By 1909, Annie had married Matthew Duffy, also an Irish immigrant, in San Francisco. They would have five children together. Annie was working in a laundry in San Francisco in 1920, per the U.S. Census. She died in 1944.

I have run a number of searches for Mrs. James Mulrooney in Sligo without turning up anything helpful. 

As I mentioned in a previous post about the Lacey family, we know that Sarah and Annie had a cousin in San Francisco, as well. Elizabeth McCormick King was the wife of Valentine King, who supported Sarah's future husband, Thomas Lacey, when he arrived in America. We believe Valentine was related to Thomas. His wife Elizabeth was the daughter of Patrick McCormick and Margaret Kilcullen. Margaret was from County Sligo, and while I haven't determined her exact relationship to Sarah and Annie Kilcullen, they were definitely family.  

San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake
Source: Eadweard Muybridge/Bonhams

Searching Immigration Records

My belief is that Sarah immigrated to America either before Annie or around the same time. The U.S. Census records list very different immigration years for Sarah, as seen below, so I'm not sure exactly when she arrived.

1910 U.S. Census: 1902
1920 U.S. Census: 1907
1930 U.S. Census: 1903

When I search Ellis Island records for Sarah Kilcullen, I get the following matches

The Sarah that arrived in 1906 from Ballina was going to Pittsburgh to meet a brother, Thomas. This Sarah was born around 1884. I don't think this is my Sarah, because Ballina is in County Mayo, not County Sligo, and I've never heard anything about Pittsburgh or a brother named Thomas in relation to my great-grandmother. The year of birth is close, though. 

By 1927, my great-grandmother was married and raising children in Alameda, so the second Sarah isn't her.

The fourth Sarah arrived in America in 1879, several years before my great-grandmother was born, so this doesn't appear to be her.

The third Sarah is interesting. This passenger manifest lists Anne Kilcullen, age 52 and a widow, traveling with her 20-year old daughter Sarah. Two lines below them is Owen Kilcullen, age 23. They arrived at Ellis Island on October 29, 1901. According to the record, this Sarah was born about 1881, two years earlier than I think my great-grandmother was born. Anne lists that she had last been living with her son, aged 17, in Templeboy, County Sligo. She and Sarah are going to Scranton, Pennsylvania, and it appears they are going to meet Anne's son John Kilcullen there (abbreviated as Jno in the record). Owen is also going to Scranton to meet a brother, but I cannot read the writing of the brother's name. It looks like it could possibly say Pat Kilcullen, but I can't tell for use. 

Of the four Ellis Island records, the last one is the most promising. It's entirely possible that Sarah went on to San Francisco after initially settling in Scranton. However, searches for Anne, John, Owen, and Patrick Kilcullen in the Scranton area have not turned up any records that conclusively appear to be this family, or that connect to my great-grandmother. I am still considering this family a possibility, but at this point there is no proof.

Searching under alternate spellings, I also found an Ellis Island record for a Sarah Kilcullon, who arrived in New York from Ireland on September 11, 1902. This Sarah was born in 1880 and hailed from Carraroe, Sligo. She was headed to Los Angeles to see her brother, John Kilcullen. I found John Kilcullen, Sarah Kilcullen, and a Domick (possibly Dominick?) Killcullen living together in Los Angeles in 1903, at 455 E. 3rd Street in what is now Little Tokyo. After that time, I cannot find conclusive records for any of these three individuals. It's possible that this is my great-grandmother, and that she went to Los Angeles before moving up the coast to San Francisco, but again, there's no proof.

It's also possible that Sarah did not arrive at Ellis Island, and thus is not recorded there. A records search for a Sarah Killcullen arriving at other US ports in the early 1900s turns up so many records that it is overwhelming, and there's not enough information in any of them to connect them to my great-grandmother.

Templeboy, County Sligo
(source: Airbnb)

Searching Irish Records

I've searched Irish records for Sarah and her family many, many times over the years. As new information is constantly being digitized, I frequently search again, hoping something new will emerge. Very early on in these searches, the record my father and I found online and assumed/hoped was Sarah provided the following information. 

Sarah Kilcullen

Born May 22, 1881 in Carrowhubbock North, County Sligo

Baptised May 26, 1881 in Kilglass, County Sligo

Parents: Patrick Kilcullen and Bridget Kilcullen (recorded in the church records as Patricius and Brideel)

This may be where the birthplace Carrowhubbock and parents Patrick and Bridget became part of what we believed we knew about Sarah. In revisiting this record, however, it really doesn't provide us enough info to tell us it's my great-grandmother.

The other mothers listed in this birth registry are recorded with their maiden names, not married names, so this record also provided the suggestion that Bridget's maiden name and married name were the same, Kilcullen.

I was able to find this same family in the 1901 Irish Census. 

Unfortunately, this census record does not mention a daughter named Annie or Anna, and we know that Sarah had a sister named Annie Kilcullen. I don't think this entirely rules out this listing, as I have sometimes seen children be left off census records when they were living with grandparents or cousins elsewhere, which certainly happened in Ireland. It's just that, other than the name Sarah Kilcullen and the location of County Sligo, there's nothing here to definitively connect this Sarah to my great-grandmother. Also, this Sarah was born in 1881, not 1883. Again, there can be some wiggle room on the recording of dates in various records, but it's another reason this Sarah Kilcullen can't be proven as my great-grandmother at this point.

The only Kilcullen household I found in Sligo that listed sisters named Sarah and Annie in 1901 is the following.

In this record, sisters Sarah and Annie Kilcullen have a 6 year age difference, which I believe was the gap between my great-grandmother Sarah (born 1883) and her sister Annie (born 1889). However, the record indicates that this Sarah would have been born in 1878, five years earlier than what I believe is correct for my great-grandmother. This family was living in Carrownrush, near Dromore West and Easky.  I wondered if this could be the same family that emigrated to Pennsylvania in October 1901, and whose Ellis Island record was the most intriguing. The mother in the immigrant family was Anne, aged 52, as is the mother in this Carrownrush family. She was traveling with a daughter, Sarah, age 20 and a son Owen, age 23. The Carrownrush family has a daughter Sarah, age 23, and a son Owen, age 27. In the Carrownrush family, there's also a son named Patt, and the immigrant Kilcullen family may have been going to see a brother named Pat in Scranton. The ages are a little off, but it's possible this is the same family group.

At this point, I still cannot conclusively prove where my great-grandmother came from in County Sligo or who her parents were. I would really love to solve this mystery and give Sarah's story more definition. Until I can find an immigration record or Irish census record that is identifiably my great-grandmother, that won't be possible. I will continue to research.