RootsChat.Com

Jutta,

Thank you very much for your information.  Charles Francis isn't nearly as unusual a name as I thought it was.  I'm such a slow typist, I sometimes wish I could talk with people over the phone about their ancestry.  Sometimes it seems like it would be much easier.

After 50 years of researching my family, what a surprise it is to know that there are at least two others that are researching what seems to be the same family.  I guess the first thing I need to do is make sure we are writing about the same Francis family.  You and Angelahutch have added so much to the pot.

Angelahutch is writing about Irish Travellers.  I don't even know what Irish Travellers are.  You mentioned a Gypsy Rose Lee.  The only Gypsy Rose Lee I know was in burlesque in America.  A movie was actually made about her life.  Is an Irish Traveller what Europeans refer to as a traveling burlesque performer?

Let me review my Francis family notes and what you have written in your emails. 

One question that's popping into my mind is, how many Francis families were living in Wexford, Ireland in the 1840's?  It would certainly make a difference if their were a hundred or one.  Sometimes when I look at census records here in the United States, I feel many questions are answered when there is only one family living in an area with my family's surname.  That has occurred over and over again, especially when I'm searching a family that lived in the mid-1800s.

If Angelahutch reads this post, I want to thank her for letting me know where she lives.  In return, I'll just say, "I live in Kentucky in the USA."

Please keep in touch.

Hi angelahutch,

You wrote, "Thomas Francis 1797 married Rosanne Scott (stayed in Ireland).  That isn't all together correct.  First, I'd like to clear up Miss Scott's first name.  It was Rosanna not Rosanne.  At least that is the way it is spelled on her tombstone.  One of her granddaughters was named after her (my great grandmother).  She also spelled her name as Rosanna.

Thomas Francis was born in Kilmuckridge, Wexford, Ireland.  He worked as a farmer and died during the Irish Potato Famine. 

After her husband Thomas died, the family seriously considered moving to the new world.  Records show that two voyages were made.  The first was made by two of her sons, John and George.  They sailed from Wexford, Ireland on August 15, 1844.  George was about 17 while John's age is still unknown.  On September 17, 1844, the brothers finally arrived in Alton, Illinois.

Sometime between September 1844 and April 1845, the brothers made the trip back to Ireland to bring the rest of the family to America.

On April 6, 1845, Rosanna along with her six children; John, Charles, George, William, Elizabeth and Margaret, set sail on "the Old Messenger" for the new world.  It took six weeks for their sailing ship to reach Quebec, Canada.  They still had to travel by way of lakes, river and canal to reach Alton on June 20, 1845.  From Alton it was a short team ride to Gillespie, Illinois.  In the 1840s the family would have found the land around Gillespie like untilled prairie land.

About a year later, Rosanna (Scott) Francis died.  She is buried in the Gillespie City Cemetery in Gillespie, Illinois.

According to Charles Francis, Rosanna's son, the Irish and Scottish history of his family goes something like this:

"He (Charles Francis) was born in County Wexford on the 2d of February, 1823 and come of Scotch-Irish ancestry of the Protestant faith. His family was prominently connected with the religious troubles of that country. His father, Thomas Francis and his grandfather, Charles Francis, were both natives of County Wexford. The latter lived on a farm which had been purchased by his father, a Scotch emigrant, who had fled into Ireland at the time of the religious persecution when under the reign of Queen Anne, the Protestants were so terribly treated. Thomas Francis also succeeded to the old homestead and there spent the remainder of his life, dying at middle age. He married Miss Rosanna Scott who was also born and reared in County Wexford, where her parents, George and Rosanna Scott, passed their entire lives. Their ancestry had also sought refuge in Ireland from persecution for their opposition to the Catholics. Their places were burned, their homes pilfered. After the death of Thomas Francis, his widow with her four sons and two daughters, took passage on the sailing vessel, the "Old Messenger," and after six weeks landed at Quebec, Canada, continuing their journey by lakes, canal and river to Alton and on by team until they arrived in Gillespie. About a year later the mother died. She was a high-minded, noble woman, who with a loving fidelity cared for her children."

You wrote that, "Thomas Francis born 1780"... "Children: Thomas Francis 1797 married Rosanne Scott (stayed in Ireland)."  Did you see a will or some estate papers that established the relationship between that Thomas Francis who was born in 1780, or any other reliable document that established the father to son relationship? Please advise.  If there are such papers, I would like to obtain a copy of them.  Otherwise, I'd have to take Charles Francis' word since he would have personal knowledge of his grandfather.