It's a Wedding!

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I was emailing with a new Genealogy Friend this past Saturday when we went off onto the subject of County Mayo, Ireland. I have never gone and tried to search down the records for my McDonough family from that area, I always had so many other things to do and it is intimidating for me. So like everyone else, I have skirted around the subject.

Well anyway, I got to thinking about my McDonough relatives and thought I would give it another look and see as to what I could find. As you can see I found something.....

I was looking at historical newspapers on Ancestry today. Sometimes when I search them I find some really great stuff, other times I am amazed that that word even looks like what I am searching. When I typed in the name of Michael Canaan I was able to find this newspaper announcing the wedding of Warren F. Weber and Mary Margaret Canaan on 27 June 1934. Really cool! Oh, Mary Canaan is the daughter of Michael and Belinda (McDonough) Canaan.

Michael Canaan was born in Syria and immigrated to the United States with his parents and siblings. He was a fireman in the Dayton, Ohio area. Michael married Belinda McDonough who was born in County Mayo, Ireland. Belinda immigrated to the United States as a single woman. Belinda is the sister to Mary Ann McDonough McMurray. I am told she is known as Aunt Bell from Ohio.

Belinda had a sister named Sarah McDonough that lived in Ohio, Sarah lived with the Canaan family. Sarah also was born in County Mayo and immigrated, but she never married.

I do not have any pictures of these people. I would really like to have some pictures of them, so if you are reading this and would like to share your pictures please let me know. I am very content with copies!

After finding this article today I continued to search using different family names from the Canaan, McDonough, and Weber family. I was able to find a number of articles about these families. Here is what I was able to find:

• Obituary for Michael Canaan's mother- Mary Canaan. It listed that she died at her daughter's home, listed the daughter as Mrs. C.L. Sanders (so I got her married name and her husband's name right there), it listed the cemetery that Mary is buried in, the church where the funeral mass was held, and living children. Also listed was the pallbearers for the funeral, I have not tracked down their names to see if all of them were related. I know at least 2 of them were.
• Obituary for Warren Weber's father- Edward Weber. It listed his residence, where he was born, his occupation, his wife's full maiden name, the names of his living children (listing the daughters using their married names) and where they were living, the name of the cemetery he is buried in and what church the mass was held at. Again with the pallbearers, but I have not tracked down all of their names.
• The listing a birth and death of a baby.
• Social functions that family members attended. This might not seem like much help, seeing their social calendar. The thing to remember here is that they attend weddings, showers, birthdays, anniversary parties, and many other events that are related to significant things in their lives.
• One social function in particular caught my eye. I had previously found a passenger ship record for Donald Canaan. He was traveling from Ireland to Ohio with just his mother. I know Donald was born in Ohio, so I thought this was odd. One of the articles I found today listed the Mary Weber hosted a party prior to Sarah McDonough, Belinda and Donald Canaan went to Ireland for a visit. I thought it was interesting as they were gone for several months. I did not find when Sarah returned from Ireland, as it appears she was not on the same ship. I will need to go back and check the rest of the ship records.
• I also found some other articles covering other activities the family were involved with.

I must say that I have searched newspapers at various archive places. You have to find the film, load it into the machine, then wind through the reel looking at each and every page. It is very long and very tedious. Especially when you are looking for a single event and you are not sure of the date. I have done this. I much prefer to search online and have an index look it up for me. I was able to read articles covering a 20 year time period in about 40 minutes. Of course with each new article I was trying to enter the information and keep searching for more. So this actually tied up quite a few hours looking at this stuff.

I will admit that I also found some other people listed with the same surnames. So I read some articles that did relate to this family along the way. I also pretty much stayed with one newspaper that was local to where these families lived.

Prior to my discoveries today I did know that Michael and Belinda had a daughter named Mary. She was probably named for Michael's mother, but Belinda also had a sister with that name. I did not know who she married or when she married. I also found the articles announcing both the birth and death of her child, which is always sad to read. If it had not been for those announcements though, I may never have known about her son.