We had traced the Sullivan family back very confidently to Joseph Sullivan who married Mary Ann Egenolf in 1897 in Our Lady and St Frederick’s RC Church, Limehouse. We also knew about the Egenolf family’s coming from Germany, and tradition stated that the Sullivans hailed from Cork.
But the Sullivan trail seemed to end with Joseph. His marriage record and census returns both indicated his birth in or around 1875 in Shadwell, East London, and his father was named on his marriage certificate as Jeremiah Sullivan.
One possible lead was a Joseph Sullivan born in Bermondsey around the same time, but this proved a false trail. There appeared to be no birth in the name of Joseph Sullivan in the East End of London which fitted the details we had.
So, perhaps Joseph was actually born back in Ireland, and was -er – less than accurate in his census information? A possibility, except looking for a Joseph Sullivan’s birth in Cork, even with a father’s name, yielded pages of possibilities. Turns out Joseph Sullivan is a fairly common name in Ireland – who knew???
Just to confuse the issue further, we had the marriage certificate for Joseph’s eldest son Thomas Sullivan – my husband’s grandfather – which named his father not as Joseph but as Jeremiah. Perhaps Thomas’s grandfather attended his wedding and was named rather than his father? Joseph was certainly dead by the time Thomas married, so this was a possibility…..or maybe Joseph was also known as Jeremiah?
That was as far as we had got when we had our DNA profiles done. Among my husband’s DNA matches was a gentleman called Alan McAdam, whose tree went back to an Elizabeth Sullivan, born 1870 in Shadwell.
Her father was Jeremiah Sullivan who had been born in Cork, and census data revealed that she had a younger brother born in Shadwell in 1875 – called Jeremiah!
With the DNA to back us up, we can now fairly safely assume that my husband’s great grandfather was baptised Jeremiah (maybe Jeremiah Joseph) and was later known as Joseph – perhaps to distinguish him from his father. This also explains his birth name being used on his son’s marriage certificate.
We can also extrapolate that Jeremiah’s wife was Rebecca Wolfe, and I am currently following up some possible DNA matches with the Wolfe family descendants.
Thank you DNA!