Mary Molloy in Ireland

This site is dedicated to the memory of my Grandmother Mary Molloy, without whom none of this would have been possible. She kept Sarah Johnstone's stories alive and passed them on to us.

The purpose of this website is to explore the relationship of my GG Grandmother Sarah Johnstone and her decendants to several families in Grenville County, Ontario, Canada. The primary areas of my research are Roebuck, Spencerville, Prescott and the Townships of Augusta and Edwardsburg.

"My name was Johnstone, I came from Johnstone in Ireland and I moved to Johnstone in Scotland." My GG Grandmother, Sarah Johnstone, used say something like that. I can imagine her telling my Grandmother, Mary Molloy, stories about Ireland and her family history that began with that sentence. Sarah Johnstone also told her Granddaughter, Mary Molloy, about relatives in Canada. I am certain that Sarah also communicated with her relatives and I do know that my Grandmother, Mary Molloy, wrote to at least two of them.. My mother, Rebecca Molloy, remembers talking to her mother about the letters and about their relatives in Canada. She also remembers reading letters from William McKinley.

The details that my mother remembered were very few and fragmented at first. She knew that she had cousins in Canada in the Spencerville and Roebuck area. She also knew that William McKinley sent her mother, Mary Molloy, ten pounds when her son, William McKinley Molloy, was born in 1920. She also remembered a cousin David who may have moved to Winnipeg where he had a store. Neither William McKinley nor David had any children. She thought that William McKinley was a postmaster. There were relatives who made bricks and other relatives who made some of the first stoves in Canada. All she could be sure about David's last name is that it sounded French and started with a "B". There was an "F" or "V" sound in the middle and an R" at or near the end or, it may have ended with a "D" or "T". She had heard of Aunt Prudence and a surname that sounded like "Mailey" and another that sounded like "Parary". She had also heard a story about a Protestant McKinley who had married a Catholic woman and had to leave Ireland. The most interesting detail was that several of Sarah's sisters had moved to Canada. She does not think that there were any brothers in the group.

We began a long process of trying to piece the puzzle together. With the help of my wife, Anita, who is a French Canadian, we came up with the name Bovard or Bouvard or Bovaird as David's last name. We considered these three names as spelling variations of Bovaird. There are relatively few Bovairds in Canada so that family would be easier to research. None the less, I set out looking for a group of Johnstone women in Ontario. I did not have much luck and decided to work on the Bovaird connection.

The results of that research can be found on other pages of this webiste and in the family tree. See the links below.

I could not find Sarah Johnstone or Cornelius Dempsey in the 1851 British census so I am assuming that they were still in Ireland. The first record we have of Sarah Johnstone and her husband, Cornelius Dempsey, is the record of their marriage in Kilbarchan, Renfrew, Scotland on June 13, 1854. Just over a year later, on June 22, 1855, their first child, Mary Dempsey, was born in Knightswood Colliery, New Kilpatrick, Dumbarton, Scotland. 1855 was the first year of Civil Registration and a lot of information was recorded on her birth registration.

The Dempsey family moved a few times during their years in Scotland. Their first two children that I have found records of were born in New Kilpatrick, Dunbarton in 1855 and 1857. Their daughter Elizabeth Dempsey was born in Abbey (Paisley), Renfrew in 1860. The 1861 census has them living in Kilbarchan, Renfrew. Two more children were born in Kilbarchan in 1862 and 1865. Then they were back in New Kilpatrick for the birth of another child in 1868. They were still living in New Kilpatrick when they were enumerated for the 1871 census. They were living in Govan, Lanark in both the 1881 and 1891 censuses. Neil Dempsey died in 1886 in Govan, Lanark. Sarah Johnstone made her last move, sometime after he died but before the 1901 census, to Duntocher, Old Kilpatrick, Dunbarton where she died in 1907.

This work is ongoing and very little of the information I have is posted on this website. I will add more as I have time. I would like to thank everyone who has helped me in my research and made sharing this information possible

My wish list of items and information that I am looking for

Family Tree

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DISCLAIMER:

I have personaly researched most of the information contained on these pages, but some of it has come from our Oral Family History and some from other researchers. I have not been able to verify all of it. Please verify all information for yourself