Thomas and Margaret Martin

Thomas Martin (1819-05-01 – 1901-11-16) and Margaret Jane Gelray (1827-02-28 – 1861-02-07) were Irish-American immigrants and my great-great-great-grandparents, being the parents of Robert Martin. Born in Ireland, they married in Newry on 1846-10-15. In America, they lived in various towns in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, mostly Medford. Thomas remarried after Margaret died aged 33 of asthma.

Thomas was the son of Michael Martin and Margaret Cartmell. Margaret was the daughter of Robert Gelray and Mary Jane Wiley. All four of these parents are shrouded in obscurity, in that there is no direct record of their presence anywhere, and their names are only known from reported information on vital records of their children.

Thomas’s occupation is generally reported as stone mason, like his son.

Records

We can get some information about their lives and origins from available records, the earliest being the 1846 marriage.

The marriage records Thomas’s place of residence as Maytown and Margaret’s as Cloreagh (Cloughreagh or Cloghreagh), both in the parish of Killevy, northwest of the Newry city center. Margaret’s sister Hannah lists her birthplace as Maytown.

Their ages in years are reported on various documents, particularly the census and marriage records; others have more information discussed below. In the 1850 census we find a Thomas and Michael Martin who are a close match to Thomas and his brother, but Margaret is not listed with them; there may be any number of reasons for this.

Record	Date	Location	Thomas age	Inferred birth	Margaret age	Inferred birth
Fed Census^ref	1850-09-17	Medford	31	1819^-
Naturalization^ref	1855-02-16	Medford	(35)	(1819)
MA Census^ref	1855-09-17	Medford	34	1821^-	29	1826^-
Fed Census^ref	1860-07-26	Medford	35	1825^-	30	1830^-
Death^ref	1861-02-07	Medford			33	(1827)
MA Census^ref	1865-05-01	Medford	45	1821^-
Marriage^ref	1869-06-01	Medford	48	1821^-
Fed Census^ref	1870-07-25	Arlington	40	1830^-
Fed Census^ref	1880-06-04	Somerville	58	1822^-
Fed Census^ref	1900-06-09	Somerville	83	(1817)
Death^ref	1901-11-16	Somerville	84	(1817)

Thomas’s naturalization record has his birthdate as 1819-05-01. The 1900 census has it as May 1817. His age at death is recorded as 84 years, 6 months, 15 days, which implies a birthdate of 1817-05-01. My best supposition is that the naturalization date is more likely to be correct: it was furnished by Thomas himself as opposed to his death record and possibly the census; it may have required documentation; it’s closer to his other reports; and he could’ve lost track of his age later in life.

For Margaret we have much less information. Her age at death is recorded as 33 years, 11 months, 7 days, which is inconsistent with her death date, since there is no date of birth that would make her that age. Specifically, a birth of 1827-02-28 would yield an age of 33y11m10d, while 1827-03-01 would yield 33y11m6d. Yet this age is so specific it implies her actual birthdate was known. My “best guess” is that there was a mistake around the 28th being the last day of February, and the former date is correct.

Family

They had four known children, plus one conjectural one:

(?) Michael (1849^- – 1849-09-22), possibly of this family; see below.
Robert (1852-08-28 – 1932-01-09), my great-great-grandfather.
Mary Jane (1854-07-18 – 1909-11-16)^ref, married Samuel McWhorter, but appears to have had no children.
Margaret (1856-05-07 – 1892-10-23), unmarried.
Martha (1859-11-10 – 1880-10-19), unmarried.

All descendants of Thomas and Margaret are therefore through Robert.

Michael

The death of a Michael Martin is recorded in Boston, MA, aged 9 months, with father Thomas but mother not specified, and birthplace Boston^ref; no birth record has been found. This may be a child of this family, but these are also common names, so coincidence cannot be ruled out, and the family was not normally in Boston (but may have been for any number of reasons). However, there is a good case to be made for connecting Michael:

A search for any other Michael Martin born in 1848 or 1849 failed to turn up anyone else who this child could be.
A common onomastic pattern is to name the first two sons after the father’s and mother’s fathers, respectively; and the first two daughters after the mother’s and father’s mothers, respectively. The naming here exactly matches this, if we add Michael.
There is a gap of nearly six years from Thomas and Margaret’s marriage to the birth of Robert, which would be unusually long for a first child. An older child would do much to fill this gap.

So, I consider this a plausible but unproven theory.

Thomas remarriage

Thomas remarried to Ellen Devlin in Medford on 1869-06-01 (although one record shows the day before). They had no children, and he outlived her. In the 1900 federal census, he was living with her widowed sister Rosanna (née Devlin) McCullough in Somerville.