Person:John Reid (62)

John Reid was born in about 1821 in Ireland. He was the son of Mary Reid, formerly Denning or Dennan, and her husband Michael Reid, a builder.^[3] John appears to have had a number of younger siblings, all baptised at Monasterevin in County Kildare.

John's next sighting is as a young man in 1844, by which time he was married to a Julia Hanlon. John and Julia appear to have had seven children together, but moved around Ireland extensively. Baptisms have been located for six of their seven children, with each of those six baptisms being in a different county. Family tradition has it that John worked building the Irish railways, and this does seem to make some sense of the pattern.^[4]

In 1844 the family was living in Carlow town, where the Great Southern and Western Railway was being built - the line from Dublin as far as Carlow would open in 1846, continuing on to Waterford a few years later. In 1848 the family was living at Donaghmoyne, County Monaghan, close to where the Dundalk to Castleblayney (later extended to Enniskillen) line was under construction, opening in 1849. In 1849 they were still in that area, but living at Dundalk, County Louth, the eastern terminus of the line. In 1851 they were living at Drumcree, County Armagh - which parish contains the town of Portadown, which was rapidly developing around a newly-built railway junction and locomotive works.

Of the children's baptisms the only one that does not appear to be in the immediate vicinity of a railway under construction is Michael's baptism in 1846, when the family was living at Bracknagh, County Offaly, although the Great Southern and Western Railway's Dublin to Cork main line was under construction five miles to the south at Monasterevin, County Kildare.

By 1851 the family was living in Dublin, living in the city's southern suburb of Rathmines. They may have continued moving though - although no baptism for their son William has been found, he claimed in the 1911 census to have been born in County Armagh in about 1858. That said, the family clearly settled in Dublin for a time. Two of John and Julia's children (Rosanna and John) consistently claimed in the 1901 and 1911 censuses to have been born in Dublin, despite having been baptised respectively in County Monaghan and County Louth whilst the family was moving around.

By 1870 the family was living at 8 Lower Kevin Street, in the southern suburbs of Dublin. This was the address given by their daughters Maria, Margaret and Rosanna when they married in 1870, 1872 and 1875 - all were married at St Kevin's Catholic Church on Harrington Street. Maria married a Robert Kelly, whilst Margaret and Rosanna married two brothers, Richard and John Farrell. The family may have lived at 8 Lower Kevin Street from the mid 1860s - in 1864 there was a John Reid who was a sponsor to the baptism of a Julia Bacon (daughter of Joseph Bacon and Julia Kelly) who lived at 8 Lower Kevin Street.

After her marriage to Robert Kelly, Maria moved to England living for a few years in Liverpool, before emigrating to New York in 1883. John's son Stephen also emigrated to New York in 1883, travelling a couple of months before his sister Maria. Stephen married in New York in 1885.^[5] About the same time, John and Julia appear to have left Dublin and moved to Monasterevin with their sons John and William, whilst their daughters Margaret and Rosanna and their son Michael stayed in Dublin. Michael lived with his sister Rosanna at 19 Stephen Street, working as a grocer's assistant. When Michael died in 1885, aged 38, his father John was next of kin and had to secure a grant of administration from the Principal Probate Registry in Dublin - the grant was given on 12th February 1886 and described John as being a bricklayer of Monasterevin.

John died on 22nd November 1887 at Whelans Row in Monasterevin. His death certificate says he was 66, implying that he was born in either 1820 or 1821. His widow Julia had to secure a grant of administration - with the estate being valued at exactly the same as that that John had inherited from his son Michael in 1885: £59 17s 4d, perhaps suggesting that John had simply placed the money in a bank account, leaving Julia requiring a grant of administration to access it after John's death. Julia stayed in Monasterevin for a time after John's death - she was still there in 1888 when she secured the grant of administration, but later moved in with her daughter Rosanna at 19 Stephen Street, Dublin, where she died in 1896, having outlived John by nearly nine years.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Death certificate, in General Register Office of Ireland. Civil Registration.

   1887 DEATHS Registered in the District of Monasterevan in the Union of Athy in the County of Kildare
   No.	Date and Place of Death	Name and Surname	Sex	Condition	Age	Occupation	Cause of death	Signature, Qualification and Residence of Informant	Registered	Registrar
   5	1887 Twenty Second November Whelans Row Monasterevan	John Reid	Male	Married	66 Years	Operative Stone Mason	Paralysis 2 days Certified	William Reid Son of deceased Present at the death Drogheda Street Monasterevan	Twenty Second November 1887	Joseph Storey Registrar

   
2. ↑ Principal Probate Registry (Dublin). Will registers of Ireland, 1858-1891. (Dublin: National Archives of Ireland).

   1888
   REID, John
   Effects £59. 17s. 4d.
   Letters of Administration of the personal estate of John Reid late of Monasterevan County Kildare Bricklayer who died 22 November 1887 at same place were granted at the Principal Registry to Julia Reid of same place the Widow.

3. ↑ Whilst no baptism record has been found for John, other evidence links him to the family of Michael Reid and Mary Denning or Dennan, who were living in Monasterevin through the 1820s and 1830s. It is worth noting that the Monasterevin Catholic parish records only began in 1819 and the first couple of years are faded to the point of complete illegibility - perhaps John's baptism predates the start of the register or is in the period which is illegible. A family tree sketch drawn up by John's grandson in the 1960s (Image:Reid diagram.pdf) shows that John had a brother Michael Reid, who had a son named James. Family tradition recalls that this Michael Reid had emigrated to New York, where he was a successful building contractor, and that his son James Reid visited Ireland in the mid 1920s, with some of John's children and grandchildren meeting their wealthy American cousin in a posh hotel in Dublin. A photograph of James Reid on the SS Baltic on his way to Ireland remains in the possession of John's descendants. This fits with the records for Michael Reid (1833-1918) and his son James, who visited Ireland in 1926, sailing on the SS Baltic and staying at the Shelbourne Hotel. Moreover, Ancestry DNA tests have been taken by: (1) a great grandson of Michael Reid (1833-1918), (2) one of this John's great-granddaughters (through his son John), and (3) a great-great granddaughter of this John (through his daughter Margaret). All three tests are listed as shared matches with each other, supporting this theory.
4. ↑ Given the extensive movements of the family it has taken some time (and the launch of computerised databases of many Catholic baptism registers) to locate the baptisms of John and Julia's children - but it would have been harder still in the absence of the sketch diagram mentioned above naming all seven of John and Julia's children as well as giving the names of some of their spouses and children.
5. ↑ Indeed, it is only Maria and Stephen's appearances in the New York censuses that give direct evidence for John having been born in Ireland - although all John's confirmed sightings are in Ireland, no surviving records have been located in which he gave his place of birth, whereas in the American censuses Maria and Stephen was asked where their parents were born and said that both were born in Ireland.