More Adventures in Genealogy: Don’t Trust Other People’s Work Edition.
I don’t know if I can explain the problem so that it makes sense, but I’m going to try.
John Number 1 was born in Sraheen, County Mayo, Ireland in 1860. His parents were John Basquill and Bridget Kelly.
John Number 2 was born in County Mayo, Ireland in 1876. His parents were Nicholas Basquill and Ellen O’Brien. He emigrated to the US and settled in Scranton PA.
Two Johns, with two different sets of parents and two different birth dates. Not so easy to keep straight, apparently.
Somebody else attached Mary McGing and her children to John Number 2, and I blindly followed suit. Bad idea! The result was that when I discovered a John Joseph Baskwell born in Ireland 1876 and living in Scranton PA, there was no place to put him. It looked like he was a THIRD John. AIEEE! It was like the worst genealogical tetris problem ever, and I nearly had a brain hemorrhage.
I got out all my records for the three Johns and went back over them again with a fine-toothed comb. What I discovered is that Mary McGing and her children belonged with John Number 1. Further, Census records showed they were all still in Sraheen in 1901 and 1911, and as far as I can tell they never left there. That left John Number 2 without a wife and kids, which meant that he WAS the John Joseph Baskwell who married Anne Simerson. YAY! This is backed up by the fact that old city directories show him living at 611 West Market Street, Scranton PA, with his brothers, Patrick John Baskwell and William Joseph Baskerville. So my hunch that John Number 2 was actually one of “mine,” was correct.
(And yes, all this is further complicated by the varied and creative spellings of the Basquille name. Good times!)
red paper boat 