Van | Family History

McGrath and Mooney: My Irish Roots

March 17, 2016 Van 2 comments

Mary Ann McGrath Bucklin sometime in the 1880s

This is my great great grandmother Mary Ann McGrath Bucklin and even though she was born in England, she was all Irish. I knew about her ever since I was young. I didn’t have much information on her and assumed that she was Irish. But she was supposedly born in England. So I searched for her parents’ names. I found her father’s name on the marriage registration when she married James A. Bucklin in 1854. I wanted more.

I wanted the name of my great great great grandmother and Mary Ann wasn’t talking! But her DNA was. My mom had a strong DNA match at 23andMe named Matt G. and the only common surname that we had with him was McGrath. Normally that wouldn’t be enough to go with since McGrath is a common Irish name, but since there was so much common DNA, I pursued it a bit more vigorously.

I sent him her birthdate and birthplace, but the thing that revealed the connection was when I told him that she had settled in Palmer, Massachusetts. That was where his McGrath Irish roots were from also! And the best thing about it was that his grandfather and great grandmother had gathered information about the family and written it all down for the rest of the family. (For someone who does genealogical research, this is a very exciting thing to hear.)

So I prodded him to find that written information and see if he could find the clear connection. And sure enough he finally found the name of a certain Mary Ann who had married a James Bucklin in Massachusetts in 1854. Mary Ann and James later moved to Louisiana and over time they lost touch with the rest of the family back in New England.

And here’s the best part. (Wait, didn’t I already say something else was the best thing? Oh, well.) I told you earlier that I wanted the name of Mary Ann’s mother. She was the last unknown great great great grandparent of mine. And they had her name! And the name of all of Mary Ann’s siblings -Arthur, Margaret, James, Catherine, John, and Daniel. They had lived in Roscommon, Ireland and the last sibling was born in Ireland in 1838. So the family moved to Massachusetts some time between 1838 and 1854.

And everyone knows what happened in Ireland during that time, right? The Great Irish Potato Famine. I’ve heard about it all of my life, but never thought that it had any direct effect on my family. Boy was I wrong! Mary Ann’s parents found a way to move themselves and their seven children to the United States at a time when over 1 million people starved to death in Ireland. They were among the million people who left to find a better life.

So this St. Patrick’s Day I’m going to celebrate my Irish roots. And I’ll be glad to tell everyone that I am the great great great grandson of Maria Ettadosia Mooney McGrath!

Part of a journal by Mary McGrath Bucklin’s son Louis Charles Bucklin in 1893. He refers to himself as an Irishman. (see green print)

Erie Patureau

March 9, 2016 Van 3 comments

Previously I have posted about my paternal grandmother, who we all called Mee Maw. Everybody still fights over who was her favorite and it’s a good kind of fight. And even though I posted a photo of her as a young girl a while back, I still think of her a matronly woman who loved to travel and visit with her children and grandchildren. But lately I’ve been getting to know her as just Erie Patureau. A girl who grew up in Plaquemine with six sisters and two brothers. The family ran a shop and there was lots of family around.

Things changed when her mother died in 1909 when Erie was just a teenager. The shop was closed, she graduated from Crescent Graded School around 1911, and the family moved to Lafayette in 1912. I’m not sure of all of the dates of those events, but I found a little clue in an article about her graduating class from SLI from March of 1915. It states that “The following January (1912) after all danger of finals was over Erie showed up. Modest and retiring, she was hard to make friends with, but we were determined and now she’s ours.”

So now I too feel like I have gotten to know her a bit and she is mine. But I’m willing to share her with the rest of the family.

Phenice DNA at AncestryDNA

March 3, 2016 Van Leave a comment

Aunt Loris Bucklin Woolley (my mom’s sister) agreed to submit a saliva sample to AncestryDNA a few months ago. I had myself and my parents tested at 23andMe previous to that, but I wanted to spread my net to the pool of Ancestry.com testers. One of the first DNA matches that I noticed on her results was someone named Henry Oakley Spencer.

I had expected that match because I already knew that he had a good portion of matching DNA with my mom. I had interacted with him on Ancestry after noticing that his family tree had matching names of Daniel Phenice and Susan Jackson. Then he had taken a DNA test at AncestryDNA and uploaded his result to GEDmatch.com. He showed up as having more DNA in common with my mom than anybody else she matched DNA with. It was actually more than would be expected for 3rd cousins.

So the match to him was not a surprise. The surprise that I did find was a DNA match with the Quillen name. My great grandfather Harry Clifton Phenice (grandson of Daniel and Susan) had a sister named Emma Orra that was married to a Quillen, so I assumed that’s how we were related. And sure enough, I was right. This DNA match was the great granddaughter of Emma Phenice Quillen.

1921- Catherine Jane Foster Phenice and Samuel Phenice with grandchildren

Circa 1920- Cathrine Jane Foster Phenice and Samuel Phenice with grandchildren (children of Emma Orra Phenice Quillen). On Cathrine’s lap is Harold, in the middle is Erma, and on Samuel’s lap is Dean.

Actually two Phenice 3rd cousins (to my generation) have tested there and are matches to Aunt Loris. But the best part is that one of them responded to my note to her and ended up sending me a photo of Harry Clifton Phenice’s parents Samuel Charles and Cathrine Jane Foster Phenice with some of their grandchildren!! I love getting new old photos of my ancestors. It’s an exciting reward to the research that I do.

So if you enjoy this photo, you can thank my third cousin Michelle Quillen.

Way, Way Back

February 24, 2016 Van Leave a comment

1875 - William Horsnell and Rebecca in Iowa Rev. This is a photo from around 1875 of William Horsnell and his wife Rebecca in Delaware County, Iowa. He is the reason many of my relatives are here today, though most of us do not descend from him. For those of my generation, he is our great great great great uncle. But he was just Uncle William to my great great grandmother Martha Ann Cook Keys. Her mother Ruth was a Horsnell and the sister to this William Horsnell.

In 1886 William at age 79 moved to a new pioneer state of Louisiana with his new wife. He must have liked it here and wrote back to his family in England, because otherwise Martha would not have known about it. But heard about it she did, and decided to follow through with plans to move her family to the United States even though her husband had recently died. So she sold off most of their possessions and moved to a new country with five young children in tow.

They had intended to move on to Beaumont, but when they stopped to visit Uncle William in China, Louisiana, they liked what they saw and decided to stay. And the rest, they say, is history.

The End of an Era

February 18, 2016 Van Leave a comment

The Yellow House on Lucy Street

The Landry Family moved to 758 Lucy Street over 50 years ago and soon it will no longer be part of the family. Our parents moved to an assisted living apartment in Lake Charles a few months ago. In the meantime, someone decided they just had to have that house on 758 Lucy Street. They had taken a walk through it before it was cleaned out and they declared the house to be a “happy space.”

My parents agreed to go ahead and sell the house. So we all got together and cleaned it up, cleared it out, and said our good byes. So many years of Christmases, New Years, Easters, Halloweens, and Thanksgivings with us kids, then grandkids, and now with the great grandkids. So many good memories there.

Here is a photo of the family soon after we moved in. When my parents were looking for a house, they were unsure of which house they wanted. The children, however, were not. We all wanted the yellow house on Lucy Street. We eventually covered over the yellow with siding, but in this photo you can still see the appealing yellow color. It was also before we concreted the driveway. Just like it was when we first moved in.

In order from left to right: Al Landry, Jamie Landry, Betty Lou Bucklin Landry, Van Landry, Jodie Landry, Karen Landry, and Rob Landry

Patureau Brothers

February 10, 2016 Van 2 comments

This is a photo of my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau. (He is one on the left in the photo.) It was probably taken around 1925 in Lafayette, LA where he had a veterinarian practice. The other man in the photo was his older brother Louis Leobon Patureau. (Great grandfather of Elmo Leobon Patureau, Jr. Great great grandfather of Byron J. Patureau and his sister Dana.) The woman is Gertrude Brammer Patureau who was married to Louis Leobon’s son Arthur. Vincent Maximilian was the father of my grandmother Germaine Erie Landry, aka Mee Maw.

It is the clearest photo that I have of my great grandfather. Here is a crop of the photo that just shows him. I know that some cousins on the Patureau side of the family have a wedding photo of him. I need to get together with them and get a good scan of that one too.

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July 2, 2016 Update

I now have reason to believe that the photo was taken in Beaumont, Texas, at the home of Gertrude Brammer Patureau. And I also found that wedding photo of Vincent Maximilian Patureau and his wife Marie Therese Landry. Actually my cousin Tricia found it at her house when she was cleaning up early last month. What an exciting find! She also found another old Patureau family photo that I had been hoping to find.

Patureau

Grandpa Bucklin

February 4, 2016 Van Leave a comment

Fred D. Bucklin in 1950

Last week I had a post about my paternal grandfather, so I thought I’d post something about my maternal grandfather, known by us as “Grandpa”. His name was Fred D. Bucklin and he was born Oct. 2, 1907. An interesting thing about him is that he had an identical twin brother named Clarence and they were both nurserymen. The sad part about it was that I never met his brother even though he lived just down the road from my grandfather and they both lived until I was in my mid 20s.

They were estranged, so their families were estranged. I remember hearing about Clarence’s daughter Carla Bucklin, but I never met her. She actually is a couple of years younger than me, so she would have fit in and got along with all of my cousins. Not that her life was one of deprivation because she didn’t know us, but you can never have too many cousins! Right?

Those cousins are Larry Pilcher, Toni Chavez, Paul Pilcher, Lynn Broussard, Kevin Pilcher, Jodie Landry, Rob Landry, Karen Landry Fontenot, Al Landry, Van Landry (me), Jamie Landry Perry, Rhonda Effron Brown, Charla Quaranta, Brent Woolley, Keith Woolley, Glen Woolley, John Bucklin, Dale Bucklin, Anita Bucklin, and Mary Long.

Father of Sylvia Bucklin Pilcher, Betty Lou Bucklin Landry, Alma Bucklin Waldorf, Loris Woolley, and Austin Bucklin.

Update Dec. 20, 2020 – replaced photo with enhanced version

Bucklin

Lieutenant Landry

January 28, 2016 Van One comment

Rob Landry circa 1919 during World War I

I’ve posted two photos of my dad’s mom, so it’s time to post one of her husband Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. This is a photo from around 1919 when he was 26 and involved with World War I. He was a 1st lieutenant in the US Army. He later married his first cousin’s daughter Germaine Erie Patureau and they had eight children together.

Even though my dad was the third son, he was named Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. My dad and his siblings called their dad Pappy. He was known by his grandchildren as Pee Paw. Sadly I never really knew him because he died in 1957 (three years before I was born). I’ve heard many good things about him and he was a handsome young man.

Phenice Cousins

January 20, 2016 Van One comment

Sometimes it’s so easy to decide what to post, but other times it is not. Had a hard time deciding this time. I’ll go ahead and post a few of them that are related to this topic.

1939 - Marilyn Phenice, Betty Lou Bucklin, and Sylvia Bucklin Topaz This first one is around 1939 in Hathaway. It looks like everyone is having fun spending time with cousins: (from left to right) Marilyn Phenice (daughter of Orville Phenice), with cousins Betty Lou and Sylvia Bucklin (daughters of Myrtle Phenice Bucklin). Simple times in the country.

1949 - Marilyn Phenice and Betty Lou Bucklin Topaz

Fast forward ten years to 1949: Marilyn doesn’t seem quite as happy with her cousin Betty Lou.

But how could she possibly be perturbed with Betty Lou? From these pictures you can see that she is a sweet and carefree young girl.

It’s a Little Erie in the Church

January 14, 2016 Van One comment

Erie Patureau circa 1906

I retrieved several photos from my dad a couple of weeks ago that I didn’t know he had. I don’t know how I missed them all these years. This one is really interesting. It is from around 1906 and I think it must be the First Communion photo for my grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau (Mee Maw to us grandkids). The family was French/Acadian Catholic and they lived in Plaquemine, Louisiana. The photo had some age spots and was a bit dim, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get a good scan.

I scanned it and worked on it a while and I am really excited about the final result. I hope you enjoy it. If you know more about this photo than what I’ve said, please share it with us.

2018 Update – I always wondered how this could be a First Communion photo when Mee Maw was about 11 years old in the photo. I was pretty sure I got the age correct because of other photos of her when she was younger or older. I always thought First Communion happened when children were younger.

Then I posted the photo of my dad’s First Communion and I got some interesting feedback from a 3rd cousin. Dolores White Hebert informed me that when they were young, they had a Private First communion when they were around the first grade. Then they had a Solemn First Communion when they were around 11 years old. So this photo is more likely from Mee Maw’s Solemn First Communion, which fits with her age in 1906. No more wondering about the discrepancy that I noticed.

Patureau

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