Irish · Famine-era NYC & Jersey City
Dowling – Curry – Kelly – Gilroy
Grandmother Margaret Mary Dowling's family — famine-era Irish immigration to New York, exceptionally well documented across ten census years.
Your grandmother Margaret Mary Dowling's family — real, well-documented mid-19th century Irish immigration to NYC/Jersey City, exceptionally well-sourced compared to most of the tree.
The direct bridge to Robert
🟢 Margaret Mary Dowling's parents: John Joseph Dowling (1879–1970) and Anna Loretta Curry (1883–1957) — your great-grandparents. Exceptionally documented: 10+ census years (1880–1950), WWI & WWII draft registrations, NYC birth/death certificates, a Brooklyn Daily Eagle citation dated Sept. 12, 1943 (content not yet retrieved — free full-text search available via Brooklyn Public Library's "Brooklyn Newsstand" archive, 1841–1955). Settled permanently in Queens (Flushing/Middle Village) by the 1920s.
Andrew Curry — a complete Famine-emigration life arc
🟢 b. Nov 1830, Ireland – d. Jun 8, 1911, Jersey City, NJ
- Arrived 1846 — height of the Great Famine
- 1850 census: NYC's 6th Ward (Five Points district)
- 1863 Civil War draft registration, Neversink, NY (Sullivan Co.)
- 1880/1885: Jersey City
- 1900/1910: back in Manhattan His wife Hannah Gilroy (1801–1881, d. Jersey City) — father Thomas Joseph Gilroy (b. 1765, Ireland).
Andrew Kelly — Westmeath to the Lower East Side
🟢 b. Apr 4, 1832, Westmeath – d. May 14, 1901, Manhattan. Arrived 1860; documented 1860/1870/1900 censuses plus NYC death certificate. Parents Edward Kelly and Elizabeth Murray, both from Castletown Delvin, Westmeath — neither emigrated themselves.
William Dowling — the reverse-migration story
🟢 b. 1822, Dublin – d. Aug 7, 1865, South Dublin (the South Dublin Union workhouse — later the site of major 1916 Easter Rising fighting)
- Arrived NY Jul 25, 1848
- Appears in "List of Interred Soldiers of the U.S. Army, 1828–1888" — served in the U.S. military
- Departed back to Dublin, Aug 23, 1864 — after ~16 years in America
- Died the following year, apparently in poverty, in the workhouse system
Ward / McGowan — pre-Famine emigrants, Staten Island
🟢 Francis "Frank" Ward (b. 1784) m. Celina/Sabina/Sophia McGowan (b. ~1783, Fintona, Co. Tyrone) — both born a full generation before the Famine wave. By 1865: Middletown, Richmond Co., NY (Staten Island). Daughter Ann E. Ward (1831–1915) arrived separately in 1844, married into the Curry family.
Vallaly/Vallely — brief Rhode Island detour
🟢 Andrew Vallaly (1820–1879, Ireland → NY) — 1865 census shows him in Cumberland, Providence Co., RI, before settling permanently in Manhattan's 22nd Ward by 1870.
⚠️ Data quality note
Martin Dowling's record is a merge of multiple different people (birth dates spanning 1845–1853, activity documented all the way to 1942 and a WWI draft registration) — needs untangling before trusting any single "fact" about him specifically.