red paper boat

Microfilm 04222 / 03 | Page 77
Multiple Parishes; Multiple Counties; Archdiocese of Tuam. Marriages, June 1822 to Nov. 1823

“Sept 7th [1822] Patt Tenpenny to Sealia McDonaugh”

This has nothing whatsoever to do with my own family, but I love the name.

It also gave me a clue to an unrelated mystery. There is a classified ad in one of the databases on Ancestry that has always perplexed me.  

Searching for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements Placed in “The Boston Pilot,” 11 Jan 1868

Who is Seatia? That is not a name that’s found in the area of Ireland these folks come from. However, Celia is, and 19th century spelling being what it is, the name often shows up as Sealia. I think that’s the name in the ad. Either there’s an OCR failure or there was a mistake made when the ad was originally placed.

Not that this helps me figure out who these folks are. I think the Catherine in the ad must be Catherine Moore, who married Patrick Basquill in 1831. They emigrated to England, and he died there in 1860. Afterward Catherine came to the US and settled in Cincinnati. I know she was living on Water Street at one point, so this ad had to have been placed by her.

I’m not sure who Sealia would be, though. It would have been a nickname, but for which girl? There was a daughter named Bridget. Delia seems to be a common nickname for Bridgets in this family, and it’s similar to Sealia. But as far as I can tell Bridget never left Ireland.

There is a son named John, but again, as far as I can tell he stayed behind in Ireland. At least, he and Bridget were still there as of the 1901 census. If either of them came to the US, they later returned to Ireland.

James is the only one of the three that fits. He was in Cincinnati by 1874, but I don’t know where he was in 1868. The only problem here is that he would have been about 8 years old in 1858, the point in time when Catherine lost track of the children.

Lastly, she describes herself as their step-mother. I don’t know of a previous marriage for Patrick. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one, of course.

It’s just all very odd to have one piece of the puzzle clearly pointing to Catherine Moore being the woman who placed the ad (the address), but none of the other pieces quite fit.

But at least now I can be fairly certain–thanks to the newly Mrs. Tenpenny–that the Seatia in the ad is really Sealia.

“A CHILD SCALDED TO DEATH.– An inquest was held before Mr. Tatlock this (Friday) morning, at the Bars Hotel, Chester, on the body of John Basquil, a child fifteen months old, whose parents live in Steven street, Boughton. About three weeks ago the mother left the child in its cradle in the corner of the kitchen, while she went out upon some business. The teapot was standing on the jockey-bar close by. A married woman named Mary Dermiddy was left in charge of the child, and while she was in the house, four men, named Phil Branagan, Richard Clancy, John Clancy, and James Jordan came in. The men had had a quarrel in which Branagan had struck John Clancy, after which the former ran into the Basquil’s house, the rest following. Mrs. Dermiddy told the men to go away, when he struck her and knocked her down. Richard Clancy charged Branagan with striking his brother, when according to the evidence, Branagan took up the teapot to strike Clancy, and in doing so some of the scalding water fell upon the child in its cradle. The mother returned in about a quarter of an hour, and found a commotion in the house, and on taking her child from the cradle, discovered that it was badly burnt. The poor woman then fainted. The child was taken to the Infirmary, and went on without satisfactory improvement till Wednesday last, when it died. A verdict of “Accidental Death” was returned. Branagan has absconded from Chester.”

From: Cheshire Observer 1865 Sep 16 page 5 column 2

John Basquill was the son of Mark Basquill and Catherine Lalley. He was the third child of theirs to die as a baby.

It can be easy to forget, when you’re looking at mountains of birth, marriage, and death records, that those bare facts belong to real people with real stories to tell. I’ve known for years that Mark Basquill and Catherine Lalley had lost their son, John, at a young age. I had no idea how or why.

Another son, Mark, died at age 11, and a daughter, Catherine, at 18. That’s five children who died young, most as babies. Of the two oldest children, one daughter named Mary emigrated to Massachusetts but soon of enterocolitis and exhaustion. She was just 26. Another daughter, Margaret, was born in 1859 and was recorded in the 1871 England census, but I can’t find any trace of her after that point. It’s possible she emigrated to the United States or married, before the 1881 census.

Out of seven children, I can find evidence for only one of them reaching adulthood.