The Foleys of Massachusetts and Vermont
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One line of my family came from Ireland in the 1860s. I've joined Ancestry.com and found the first Foleys to come over were Edward (sometimes Edwin) Ryan Foley who came over in 1866 and Margaret Ryle (Reilly aparently) came over in about 1861. They married in 1870 and had many children - 9 all together, 6 of whom survived early childhood.
Due to the incomplete family records from Ireland, I wasn't able to learn much about Edward and Margaret before the emigrated. But Edward may have lived in the Cork area and at least left Ireland from Cork. We spent the night in Cork in August 2019:
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| River Lee, Cork, Ireland, 2019 | St. Mary's Church, Cork, Ireland, 2019 |
My Foley cousins sent me scans of their scrapbook (thanks!). For many years I thought his wife, Carrie Lena, died before 1920 (maybe in the flu pandemic), but I was wrong, she lived until 1927. Here's a partial transcript of my great grandfather's obituary:
John E. Foley was born on December 21, 1871 (actually 1872) in East Warren, Vermont son of Edward and Margaret Ryle Foley. On June 30, 1896, he married Carrie Rice in Bethel VT. They had three daughters, Nellie, Margaret (called Pat) and Phyllis. John Foley was a blacksmith. After their mother died, Phyllis and Pat lived with lived with their older sister sister Nellie.
John Foley died at the home of his sister Nellie Fletcher of Burlington, VT. He left one other sister, Mrs. J(ILLEG) Syne of Burlington.
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| John Foley, Rochester Blacksmith, 1914 | John & Carrie's Daughters, Phyllis Foley Monahan, Margaret "Pat" Foley Salls with Their Nephews George, Bill and Winslow Trask, Early 1990s, Montpelier, VT |
His daughter, Nellie, married my grandfather John Trask in 1916. John Foley died in the spring of 1957.
In restarting my genealogical research through ancestry.com, I focused on Margaret Ryle as that name is much less common than Edward Foley. However, the name Ryle was probably an American misspelling of "Reilly" or "Riley" because I'm not finding a Margaret Ryle in Ireland. I know show was born in 1845 and seems to have come over to the states in about 1861.