You’re right, the name doesn’t sound familiar. But I did mention them quite awhile ago when I was talking about my great grandmother, Hannah Sullivan McConville. I had interviewed my mom’s cousin Florence (we called her Aunt Florence). Florence told me that Hannah lived in London, and she and her sister were sent to America in the 1870’s to be nannies for the children of Willie and Annie Wharton, who were their cousins. I think their parents had passed away and that was why they went across the pond.
Well, I went searching records to verify this story and I finally found an 1880 US Census record for Brooklyn, NY. and although her sister Mary Ann is not with her, Hannah is living with George and Ellen Wharton, and their two daughters: Kate, who is 3 and Maggie, 1 year old. I found that instead of Willie and Annie, their names are actually George and Ellen...Well, Aunt Florence was close.
That was all I could find, until started looking into George and Ellen. George works in a segar store (cigar) and Ellen is keeping house. After digging around, I found that George died in May 1903 and was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn. I found a memorial in Find A Grave, but no photo of the headstone. I decided to put in a photo request through Find A Grave in March of 2018, and that is where I was stuck until a week ago when I got an email from Find A Grave saying that my request had be fulfilled.
I check the website and found this photo:
Kinda dark and hard to see, so I lightened it up a bit and got this:
Still hard to see, but I can read most of it:
George Wharton
Also his wife
Ellen Wharton
& her sister
Bridget Sullivan
SULLIVAN! That's it, that's the connection, Ellen is a Sullivan. Then I searched Ellen Sullivan Wharton and found her marriage to George Wharton in the NY Index - 28 May 1876. Using Family Search, I was able to get a marriage record and place of birth for her and George - Carlow, County Kerry, Ireland.
After digging around and getting more info, I searched Ancestry again, this time I entered all of the information that I had, and found Ellen in another tree on Ancestry. Not only that, but this person is also a DNA match. She is listed as 5th to 8th cousin of mine.
My thought is that Ellen (and Bridget) are not cousins, but they are Hanna's aunts. Sisters to her father, Michael. The only problem with this theory is that the marriage record for Ellen lists her parents as Timothy and Margaret Lyons. My tree lists them as Timothy and Margaret Devin. My only source for Margaret's last name is a tree done by another of my mom's cousins before I started my research, and I don't know where she found Devin as the surname. Actually they could both be somewhat accurate, she may have had a previous marriage in there somewhere, I don't know.
What I do know is that DNA doesn't lie, so I am on the right track
