Annie,
Impressive research. Well done. (I agree with you about local phone books. As
relevant today as floppy disks).
Elwyn
On Friday 14 June 2024 at 19:42:06 BST, Annie Crenshaw via CoTyroneList
<[email protected]> wrote:
There are extensive trees on Ancestry.com posted by James Rodgers, Patrick
Loughran and Christopher Larkin that include the Woods family of Moymore,
County Tyrone; and more trees with less data, but many basic facts on this
famliy. Also Lauren Bannon (born in Co. Down) has posted Woods family data on
people's Ancestry.com trees -- including very nice vintage photos and
birth/marriage/death certificates. If you don't have an Ancestry.com
membership, I'll be glad to contact these members and ask about their data and
connections to the Woods family of Moymore. Their email addresses aren't listed
with their trees; each member is contacted through Ancestry's "anonymous"
message service.
James Rodgers (Ancestry.com member) appears to be a great-grandson of Patrick
Joseph Rodgers and Susan Woods. He lists the children of John Woods and Mary
Conway as:
Patrick Joseph Woods 1882–1956
Alice G Woods-Nelson 1883–1943
Susan A Woods-Rodgers 1884–1956
Mary Ann Woods-Dwyer 1887–1957
James Woods 1889–1967
Peter Woods 1891–1938
Agnes Marie Woods-Clifton 1894–1966
[Note that he has hyphenated the women's married surnames]
Patrick Loughran (Ancestry.com member) has more children listed for John Woods
and Mary Conway:
Alice G Woods 1877–1943
Patrick Joseph Woods 1880–1956
Catherine (Kate) Woods 1882–1953
Susan Woods 1886–
Mary Ann Woods 1887–1957
Susan A Woods 1888–1956
James Woods 1889–1967
James Woods 1890–
Peter Woods 1891–1938
Agnes Marie Woods 1894–1966
Rose Ann Woods 1896–1978
Brigid Woods 1899–1908
I haven't checked each child to see if the data is correct, but I can see at a
glance (and by comparing to the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses and civil birth
records) that neither list is quite right. James Rodgers doesn't have all the
children, and Patrick Loughran's list is repetitive in the children's names. He
didn't get Susan's correct birth date (1884), but he did identify the daughter
Bridget who was born in 1899 and died in 1908.
The father John Woods died 29th November 1907 at Moymore, age 58, and that's
why you see him with his wife Mary Conway and their children in the 1901
census, but not in 1911, when the widowed Mary was counted at Moymore with her
children who hadn't yet left the home. Moymore is in the Superintendent
Registrar's District of Cookstown, Registrar's District of Pomeroy, and Poor
Law Union of Cookstown. Also, although Moymore is in the Pomeroy Electoral
Division, it's in the civil parish of Desertcreat, in Dungannon Upper Barony.
Irish place names and government/civil/religious jurisdictions can be confusing!
I checked for John and Mary Woods' children who remained in Ireland and might
have descendants still living in County Tyrone today. If your niece who visited
County Tyrone hasn't given you the names and residences of the relatives she
found, you can probably identify more about them yourself with a bit of
searching, even without the land-line telephone directories that are fading out
of business.
Most of the Woods children emigrated to the USA, but at least two remained and
died in County Tyrone. I looked for those children and grandchildren who died
the most recently, and so whose families might still be found in County Tyrone
today.
John and Mary's daughter Catherine "Kate" Woods (1882–1953), married Patrick
Rafferty and lived at Carrickmore, a village west of Pomeroy. Among their
children, daughter Alice Rafferty (1923–2005) married James Toal. Alice died in
the Omagh nursing home and is buried in Carrickmore Roman Catholic Cemetery.
She and James Toal have memorials on Findagrave -- see
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/83466666/alice-toal.
An obituary or funeral notice would name their immediate surviving relatives,
although not with the detail that's commonly published in American obituaries.
John and Mary's daughter Rose Ann Woods (1896–1978) married Joseph Toner. She
died at Cookstown, according to the Ancestry.com trees that I've mentioned
above, but I haven't traced and found in what cemetery they may be buried.
Their daughter Mary Rose Toner married a Bannon, and she died in 2013 in Newry,
County Down. These are probably the ancestors of Ancestry.com member Lauren
Bannon who has vintage family photos.
Since the Woods family was Catholic, it's a good research effort to contact
Catholic churches in the area around Moymore and Pomeroy. John Woods and Mary
Conway married in 1876 at the "Roman Catholic Chapel of Cookstown," which is a
good place to search. This chapel is probably the Cookstown church named "Holy
Trinity" today; someone else on this list can probably tell you. See
https://cookstownparish.com/
And, confirmation of these churches being ones attended by the Woods of
Moymore is in one of the daughters' marriages. Catherine Wood and Patrick
Rafferty married in 1916 at the Roman Catholic Church of Tullyodonnell in
Cookstown Poor Law Union, Pomeroy Registration District. Tullyodonnell is the
area called "The Rock" which is covered by the Holy Trinity clergy of Cookstown
today.
Geographically, looking on a map from west to east: Carrickmore / Pomeroy /
Moymore (a little northeast of Pomeroy Forest) / The Rock (Tullyodonnell) /
Cookstown (northeast of The Rock). All those places would have been very
familiar to your Woods family.
The wonderful County Tyrone web site, of which this list is a part, has a
list of Catholic churches that you might also consult. See
https://www.cotyroneireland.com/churchrecord/churchlist.html
If you wrote to the Catholic clergy in the area and asked about Woods,
Rafferty, Toal, Toner and Bannon, you might find more leads to families living
around there today. Some of your relatives might be members of those churches.
The Tyrone Constitution newspaper, established in 1844, is the oldest
newspaper in the county, and one of the longest-running in Northern Ireland.
I'd search for obituaries/death notices in that newspaper for the relatives
I've told you about. The same news company owns the Tyrone Courier, which can
be searched. Besides searching death notices, if you sent a "family history"
query to the editors, they might publish an article about your search for
living relatives. And of course you can post your questions on Facebook groups
and other on-line media.
The Dungannon Library has newspapers that can be consulted on microfilm,
including the Tyrone Constitution and Tyrone Courier up until 2010. I don't
know if you can pay one of their staff to do research for you. I've only
accessed their archives through the help of friends who visit the library in
person.
Seehttps://www.librariesni.org.uk/resources/cultural-heritage/newspaper-library/
On Susan Woods herself, various records give her birth date as 1886 or 1888.
Her husband's 1920 naturalization record has her birth date as 10 August 1886,
at "Pomeroy, Ireland," while her Pennsylvania death certificate has her birth
date as August 10, 1888. However, the only birth record I see for her is the
1884 record already posted for you by Elwyn Soutter, who's an excellent County
Tyrone researcher and a very helpful person.
Regards,
Annie
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