Timothy & Jeremiah Kiley

    My grandmother was interested in her family’s history and often told me about her parents and their siblings. I listened politely to what she said, but never asked her any insightful questions. She died when I was in high school and not at all interested in genealogy. How I wish I had been more curious!
     I was intrigued, and horrified, to hear that her mother’s two brothers, sons of Timothy and Margaret (Donovan) Kiley, died as teenagers or in their early twenties, supposedly during or after service in the Civil War. Neither was found in the 1870 census, in New York City where the family lived, or elsewhere, and I’ve found no death or burial records for either. I wonder if my grandmother really knew what happened to them.
    Timothy Kiley, who was born in New York circa 1841, according to the 1850 census, was more likely born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland, in 1839. He was not living with his parents in 1855 or 1860 and his whereabouts at those census times are unknown. Timothy Kiely enlisted in New York as a Union soldier in May 1861, but deserted in August 1861, as did a future brother-in-law in the same unit. He allegedly died, unmarried, from the effects of a long imprisonment during the Civil War. Did his imprisonment have anything to do with his desertion, or had he re-enlisted and been captured.
    Jeremiah Kiley, who was born in New York circa 1845, enlisted in 1861 as a drummer and was honorably discharged and mustered out in June 1862. According to my grandmother, he died during the Civil War, so he must have re-enlisted.
    One of the difficulties in tracing the surname Kiley is that alternative spellings are many (i.e., Keily, Kieley, Kiely, Kileigh, Killey, Killy, Kyle, etc.) and it is often mistaken for Kelly and Riley, or some variations thereof. While I have never found in records after 1861 anyone named Timothy Kiley who definitely could be my great-grandmother’s brother, it is conceivable that Timothy did not die (perhaps was disowned in disgrace?) and took up life apart from his family.
    As for Jeremiah, I have no ideas about what became of him.

Do you see what I see?

1860 NYC, Ward 5, Dw 187, Fam 805

    Almost forty years ago I found Timothy and Margaret Kiley, in the 1860 census.  They were enumerated in New York City’s 5th Ward.
    That was back in the days when you had to find someone in the city directory, consult maps to find what ward the address was in, rent the microfilm, and scan frame after frame to find what you were looking for.  There were no reader-printers, so you had to write everything down.
    Enumerated were Timothy, Margaret and five children.  Their surname was Killy, not Kiley, but that didn’t bother me too much.  A carelessly written lower case E can look like a lower case L.  Three children were missing, but they would be old enough to have left home.
    Fast forward to 2014.  I wanted to verify what I had recorded by hand of the family entry.   What a difference in how census research is done!  I signed on to Ancestry.com and searched for Timothy Killy, born in Ireland, resident of New York City.  To my surprise, I didn’t find him.  So I searched on every other set of parameters I could think of (Margaret, the children’s names, with wild cards, different birth place, etc.),, always with some variation of Killy.  What I didn’t do was go through all the returns when I searched for Timothy with age, birth place, and wife, and no last name.  There were too many.
    Finally, since I had the ward, district, page, dwelling number, and family number, I browsed through the census until I found the entry for Timothy and his family.  Sure enough, there he was–Timothy Killy.  Why wasn’t he indexed?
    Finally, it dawned on me.  The surname looked a little like Hilly.  And Timothy Hilly was how he was indexed.  I had seen what I expected to see (more or less), and someone else had seen something different.

Source:
1860 U.S. census, digital image, Ancestry.com

Timothy and Margaret (Donovan) Kiley from County Cork, Ireland

1850 NYC, Ward 7, Dw 315/Fam 648

    For more than forty years, I had no reason to question the 1850 census that reported Anne (born c.1838), Elizabeth (born c.1840), and Timothy (born c.1841), children of Timothy and Margaret (Donovan) Kiley of New York City, were born in N.Y.  Despite diligent searches for a 1840 census record, a city directory listing, a passenger list, and a naturalization record, nothing was found for the Kileys until 1850.     

    Not too long ago, my third cousin, a descendant of the Kileys’ youngest child, provided a record that refuted the census information. Eliza Keily,daughter of Tim Keily and Margt Donovan of Ring, was baptized in the Parish Church of Clonakilty, County Cork, on 25 April 1840 with sponsors John Baze and Eliza Baze.  That this was undoubtedly the correct family is substantiated by my  grandmother’s note; she wrote that Margaret Donovan’s “mother’s brother or grandfather was Capt. Theodore Bayse.”  Elizabeth died in NYC in June 1889 at age 49.  Her death certificate says she was born there.  It also says her father was John Kiley!
     On record in the same parish church is the baptism on 5 June 1839 of Tim Kehely, son of Tim Kehely and Margt Donovan of Ring, with one sponsor, Mary Baze.  He might be Elizabeth's brother, Timothy, who was said by my grandmother to have died unmarried from the effects of a long imprisonment during the Civil War.  His death record has not been found, and his birth date  is known only from one census record.
    No record of baptism was found for Anne Kiley, whose given name was said by my grandmother to be Honorah (she was recorded as Honora on the 1850 census).  Although her ages on the 1850 and 1860 censuses (12 and 22) suggest she was born in 1838, her ages in 1870 and 1880 (29 and 39) and her age at death in 1899 (58)  indicate she was born in 1841.  She, therefore, might have been born in the U.S.

1860 NYC, Ward 7, Dw 187/Fam 805

    The baptism on 21 January 1810 of Tim Keily, son of Jms Keily and Mary Driscol, residence not given, with sponsors Micl Mahony and Brget Mahony, is probably that of the immigrant Timothy Kiley, whose mother was said by the writer’s grandmother to be Honorah O’Driscoll.  Despite the difference in the given names, it is not outside the realm of possibility that Honorah was Mary Honorah.  Timothy Kiley’s birth, as reported in U.S. census records, agrees, more or less, with the birth of Tim Keily.
    A final record, that of the baptism on 28 December 1835 of Eliza Bage, daughter of Tim Bage and Mary Connor of Ring, with sponsors John Connor and Margt Donovan, provides another link between Margaret Donovan and the Bage, Base, Bayse, Baze family.
    What about Timothy’s wife?  Margt Donovan, daughter of Tim Donovan and Bat Bare (residence not recorded), was baptized on 16 November 1810, with sponsors Dan Murry and Mary Brien.  The surname Bare could be read as Base.  Was she the one?  To date, no marriage record has been found and Margaret's identity is uncertain.

    The Kileys were in New York City in August 1843 when their fourth and fifth children (twins) were baptized.  Why they were not listed in city directories between then and 1850 is puzzling.
    Was Timothy the eldest child and Anne the third? 
    When did the Kiley family immigrate to America? 

Sources:
Burial record for Anne Combs
Church records, Irish Genealogy (http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/)
Death certificate for Elizabeth (Kiley) Johnson
U.S. census records
Census images from Ancestry.com, 3 April 2014