The theme for this blog is the "big picture." I have been very busy with several personal projects and time has gone by quickly and many of those projects have gotten in the way of writing this blog. The "big picture" I am referring to is going beyond the simple study of a family and approximately where they are from to gathering enough information on them to get the "big picture." Many persons searching for their family roots often are easily satisfied by just finding out the names of their direct line ancestors and approximately where they lived and when. Some find this information from secondary sources in the form of various indices. This was the first step for me in discovering my Frampton Irish ancestors. Many years ago, I found my Great Grandmother Elizabeth Murphy in the LDS Ancestral File and in a now defunct listing of the Irish in Canada. This resulted in my contact with Foster Murphy and Karen Beatty, my first distant relatives that I found through my research. I could have stopped here and been satisfied with the "small picture," because this information gave me their names and where they were approximately from and when. But I was searching for more and Foster and Karen shared with me all they had gathered and what sources they got the information from. I wanted to examine the sources myself. So first I began researching the Canada census to gather names and approximate birth years, not only for my Murphy families, but my other Frampton Irish families: McLean, O’Connor, O’Farrell, Doran, etc. This was another point at which I could have stopped. But I soon discovered that much of the census information was somewhat unreliable in the ages given and it was not precise enough to determine where my ancestor’s farms were located. So I began research in the church records and was then able to nail down precise baptism, birth, marriage, death, and burial dates. These became the first real "primary sources" that I used. This is a point where many researchers stop! They get the vitals and have little interest in the "big picture" beyond that.

After gathering all that I could on my ancestral families in terms of census and church records in Frampton, I still had many unanswered questions. In terms of getting passed my "brick walls," I learned from various genealogy magazines and guidebooks that I needed to go beyond just the Frampton vicinity and also study the neighbors. The neighbors turned out to be all the Irish that lived in the Frampton vicinity and many adjacent areas to include places in the Quebec City area. Some research guides told me about notaire records. My first venture into researching in notaire records was intimating. The obstacles seemed somewhat insurmountable: the French language, the poor handwriting, the lack of indices, no clear way of selecting the most likely notaire registers, no central repository of such records, etc. But I still wanted the "big picture" so I started my notaire research.

I absolutely cannot say enough about the value of notaire records in your research. In review of a previous blog on this subject: they provide precise locations of your ancestor’s farms; they sometimes point backwards to other notaire registers where original land entries might be found; some records provide the approximate arrival date in Quebec; some records even say where in Ireland a person came from; if your ancestor could sign their names, their signatures can be found on the documents; the land records often provide the names of the neighbors; will and testaments often provide the names and locations of children and relatives; and they often provide the most accurate spelling of your ancestral surnames. I have discovered that the greatest notaire "treasure" to be found is a document know as an "estate inventory." These documents are fascinating and very detailed. They have a complete listing of all the property owned by the deceased such as their livestock, furniture, dishes, utensils, etc, They also list the persons they owe money to and the person who owe them money. Associated documents include details on disbursements to the heirs.

The detailed information you can get from notaire records will give you the "big picture" of your ancestor’s lives and times. It is a true genealogical "treasure hunt." The notaire documents give not only detailed information but the legal language they are written in give a fascinating picture of the times in which your ancestors lived. An accumulation of the numerous documents of your ancestors become a more or less complete illustration of their lifestyle. It is my favorite form of research and I am currently spending a great deal of time pursuing it. I have been indexing every record I have found for the Frampton Irish. I have fully realized that there is no "rhyme nor reason" for determining which of the hundreds of notaire registers that you might find your ancestral documents in. But my research work makes it tremendously easier for you. I have published two volumes of indices and I am working on a third volume. My work has suddenly become a little easier with the notaire registers being placed on-line by the Archives de Quebec. Some of you have taken advantage of my work through the purchase of my indices or asking for a "custom report" on your ancestors. My "custom reports" include copies of the pages from my notaire indices that have references to your direct line ancestors. The references make it possible for you to seek the actual documents on your own without a great deal of search time. Right now, I am also including any references found in my draft volume III. Some of you have also retained my services in finding and obtaining the actual notaire documents.

I am now about half finished with my draft volume III. My recent work involved indexing the on-line documents of Notaires Francois Bourget and Louis Napoleon Carrier. Although the documents are on-line, finding the specific documents involves using the alphabetical or chronological indices that are in the notaires handwriting. My advanced experience with the surnames of the Frampton Irish allows me to move rapidly through the indices picking out the dates of the targeted notaire documents. Then I consult those actual documents and extract certain indexing information such as the date, type of document, names of involved parties including neighbors, and property descriptions, if given.

Notaire Francois Bourget kept his register from 1852 to 1904. For the most part he kept his office in the Parish of St. Henri (not far from Frampton). His location would lead one to believe that his register would be categorized with the court for the District of Beauce, but his register is actually categorized with the District of Quebec City. I have extracted 39 records for the Frampton Irish. The most noteworthy of these involve the Allen and Cullen families of St. Anselme and St. Isidore who have relatives in Frampton. There is also a testament for Margaret Hall, widow of William Fitzsimmons of St. Malachie.

Notaire Louis Napoleon Carrier kept his register from 1863 to 1879 and also had his office in St. Henri. His register is also categorized under the District of Quebec City. I have extracted 57 records for the Frampton Irish. This register includes several "new titles" granted to the Frampton Irish for properties in Frampton Township from the heirs of George Desbarats that give precise descriptions of the land and the neighboring Irish. Another marriage contract record involving the O’Rourke family of St. Isidore allowed me to correct my records from Louise O’Rourke being married to a Patrick Murphy to have actually been married to a Thimothy Murphy. The church record for this marriage erroneously gave the name of the husband as Patrick Murphy. So this proves that notaire records sometimes have value for making corrections for other primary sources.

Not all notaire registers are on-line yet. Some have indices on-line but not the actual documents meaning that "good old fashioned" microfilm must be consulted to view the actual documents. In a recent trip to Salt Lake City, I was able to view two such registers. The first was the register of Notaire Francois Xavier Ponsant. Ponsant operated in Ste. Marie from 1832 to 1872 and his register is categorized with the District of Beauce. I extracted 14 records for the Frampton Irish. The most significant of these were estate property inventory documents in regards to the late Catherine Allen Ross, former wife of Frampton surveyor Andrew Ross. Andrew Murphy (my own ancestor) and James Kelly were the "experts" appointed by Andrew Ross to establish values.

The other register that I started on in Salt Lake City, is the register of Edward George Cannon. Edward George Cannon worked in Quebec City from 1834 to 1885. He has so many Irish surnames listed in his index that he probably could be called the "notaire to the Irish." But many of these Irish in his register were not specifically related or connected to the Frampton community. Therefore, I have had to screen his chronological index for documents that might "most likely" be those of the Frampton Irish. While in Salt Lake City, I was able to extract 36 records of the Frampton Irish before I ran out of time. So far I have found in this register several land sales in the Frampton vicinity, several building leases in Quebec City involving my ancestor’s relative Patrick Daly and some documents related to the business dealings of St. Malachie’s Michael Quigley. I have since ordered several rolls of microfilm to be delivered to my local family history center so I can continue with these extractions. But because his register is on 17 rolls of microfilm, this may take me some time to complete.

I have had a busy last few months with a planned trip to California and then an unplanned trip to North Dakota. The purpose of our California trip was to attend our 40^th high school reunion and a cruise with some of our high school friends. The trip to North Dakota was to attend the funeral of my uncle. On our way home from our high school reunion, we made a side trip to the San Jose, California area and went on a "geo-hunt" to find several of the landmarks that are significant in the history of the Frampton Irish. So the theme of this blog is the "Californians."

Settlement in Frampton Township started in 1816 and the Irish kept steadily arriving through the 1830s. There was some out migration by a few families that only stayed long enough to develop their farm and perhaps get out with a few dollars/pounds in their pockets. However, there would not be a significant out migration until around 1840, and that movement would influence many others to follow to California. But the first journey to California would be a somewhat "leap-frog" movement involving two other locations first.

The first out migration to be made from Frampton was to Upper Canada (Ontario) to an area around today’s Toronto. James Gugins and Jane Ann Kell had lived in Ste. Marie de Beauce from their marriage in 1819 to around 1830. Jane Ann Kell was the daughter of Frampton residents Thomas Kell and Ann Colpitts. Around 1830 they moved to a place called Tossoronto in Simcoe County in Upper Canada (Ontario). So as of that time, friends and relatives of Frampton settlers were now living in Ontario. This couple may have ultimately been the first in a chain migration to the area around Toronto.

The next significant out migration was in 1840. Margaret Murphy (daughter of Martin Murphy) was married to Thomas Kell, Jr. in 1828. One source says that Thomas Kell, Jr. and his family went to a place near Toronto and were there for two years. One of their children (Martin Kell) was reportedly born in Ontario in 1840. So it makes sense that the first place in Ontario that they went to was probably where his sister Jane Ann Kell lived with her husband James Gugins. Thomas Kell, Jr.’s youngest brother George Kell also made this journey and would ultimately make his home in Scott Township, Ontario. Another Frampton Irish family, Kieran Horan and Winnifred Daly also went to Ontario in about 1840 and settled in Albion Township of Peel County.

In 1841, Martin Murphy and his family left Frampton for an area in Ontario. It seems that their first stop must have been the area around Toronto where his daughter was residing. Traveling with the Martin Murphy group also were James Enright, Thomas Enright, Mary Enright, William Martin, Dennis Martin, Patrick Martin, James Miller, John Sullivan, Robert Sullivan, Mary Sullivan, and Michael Sullivan.

In 1836, the U.S. Congress passed a bill to make the "Platte Purchase." The "Platte Purchase" was land bought from the Sac and Fox Indians. The price paid was $2,500 in cash, an interpreter, a blacksmith and a grindstone. The lands purchased were in Missouri and bounded on the west by the Missouri River and on the north by the boundary with what would become Iowa. This added to Missouri an area the size of the State of Delaware and the land was known to be extraordinarily fertile. The Congress intended to open these lands to white settlers after the Indians had been removed. Apparently word spread to many parts of North America about the possibility of taking up such fertile lands at a reasonable cost. It was a "land rush" that predated the famous Oklahoma land rush by sixty years. Platte soon became the second most populous county in Missouri (second only to St. Louis). The area of the "Platte Purchase" includes the following counties: Atchinson, Nodaway, Holt, Andrew, Buchanan, and Platte. The major city of the area would become St. Joseph, Missouri.

Apparently word of the rich lands of the "Platte Purchase" reached all the way to Canada. Soon the Martin Murphy group would leave Ontario (probably in late 1841) and travel to Atchinson County, Missouri and found a community called "Irish Grove" near the town of Tarkio. There is some indication that the Martin Murphy, Jr. family and the Thomas Kell, Jr. family would not follow to Holt County until 1842. There is also indication that the Patrick Neville and Catherine Kelly family were also present as three of there children, Martin, Anna, and Michael were born in Tarkio, Missouri in 1841, 1842 and 1847, respectively. However, this family would return to Frampton.

By the time the Martin Murphy group arrived in "Platte" much of the land was already taken up and it sounds as if conditions were somewhat crowded. But the "Platte" area (especially St. Joseph) was becoming the gateway to the west with the start of the Oregon Trail. There was a great deal of information available about what might lie beyond the great plains. Martin Murphy and his group joined a wagon train in 1844 to ultimately go to California. His group would be the first to successfully take wagons over the Sierra Nevada mountains into California. Perhaps all of "Irish Grove" left in this wagon train except the Thomas Kell family and the Enrights.

To make a long story short, the Martin Murphy party arrived in California December 13, 1844. They somehow got word (maybe by pony express) to the Kells and Enrights about California. The Thomas Kell party with the Enrights in tow, left Missouri by a wagon train that was sixty wagons strong on May 11, 1846 and arrived at Martin Murphy, Jr’s. home on the Consumnes River (near Sacramento) on October 11, 1846.

The great California "gold rush" occurred in 1849 and California became a state in 1850. New routes to California would be developed for shipping around Cape Horn and a short cut across the Isthmus of Panama and then by ship up the Pacific coast to San Francisco. The Murphys would do well with the grants of land they received from the Mexican government that were later honored by the U.S. when California became a state. The produce and livestock from their "ranchos" would feed many miners in the gold fields. There "ranchos" were in the Santa Clara (San Jose) area of California. Dennis Martin would acquire a rather large land grant that included forests of redwood trees. He built a sawmill and would become prosperous providing lumber for building the houses in the growing city of San Francisco.

In 1849, Martin Murphy’s daughter Johannah Murphy Fitzgerald’s husband Patrick Fitzgerald died in Frampton. In 1851, Martin Murphy sent his son Bernard Murphy back to Frampton to bring his daughter Johannah and her child back to California. Bernard traveled by ship via the Isthmus of Panama. One can only imagine the glorious stories Bernard must have told the people of Frampton about their great adventure across a continent and all about the verdant and rich lands of California. He probably added that it never snows in San Jose. He may have mentioned that Dennis Martin had plenty of jobs for everyone too. Before departing for California, Bernard Murphy married Catherine O’Toole. So the "Fitzgerald party" left Frampton in 1851. The party included Johannah Murphy Fitzgerald and her eight children, Bernard Murphy and his new bride Catherine O’Toole, Catherine’ brothers Willam O’Toole and Lawrence O’Toole, John Franklin, James and John Fitzgerald (sons of Walter Fitzgerald and Bridget Whelan), and John Sinnott and Elizabeth Bulger and their children. But this time they did not travel by covered wagon. Rather they went by ship to the Isthmus of Panama and boarded the ship Oregon and they sailed up the Pacific coast, arriving in San Francisco on June 19, 1851. The Fitzgeralds and the O’Tooles settled on farms in Gilroy, California. The Sinnotts lived closer to their Murphy relatives in the San Jose area. John Franklin moved to the settlement that would become known as Searsville. He probably first worked for Dennis Martin at his saw mill.

Apparently a group left for California later that year. As Patrick Sullivan and Bridget Madigan and their family reportedly arrived in San Francisco on January 2, 1852. Also in this party were probably Bridget’s parents Daniel Madigan and his wife Ann Henley and their daughter Mary Madigan and their daughter Catherine Madigan and her husband Andrew Redmond and their family, Thomas Nash, Michael Walsh and Elizabeth Martin and their family, Patrick Duff, Mary Doyle Hennessy, Walter Fitzgerald and Bridget Whelan and their family, and Robert Kell and Rosanna Burton and their family. The Sullivans settled in San Jose Township. The Madigans settled in the Santa Clara area. Thomas Nash went to San Ramon, California. The Walshs went to the Searsville/Woodside area where they were near Elizabeth’s father William Martin and brother Dennis Martin. Patrick Duff and Mary Doyle Hennessy were married at St. Denis church (founded by Dennis Martin) in Searsville and they resided in that area. The Fitzgeralds joined their family members in Gilroy. Likewise, the Kells did the same in San Jose.

The out migration to California was not yet finished. James O’Connor (brother of my great great grandmother) and Mary Kell and their family left Frampton for California in 1853 and they went to Gilroy. Clement Murphy and Mary O’Toole and their family went to Gilroy in 1855. John, Eliza, Henry, and John O’Toole would all be in Gilroy by the 1860 U.S. Census. In 1856, John Mills went to Searsville, California where he and John Franklin bought some land from Dennis Martin. John R. Doyle also went to Searsville in 1856 and appeared in the 1860 U.S. census in the household of fellow Frampton Irish Maurice Doyle in San Mateo County. John Doyle returned to Frampton in 1862 where he would operate the store for many years, perhaps telling the tales of his adventures in California. Patrick Lawlor was in Searsville in the 1860 U.S. Census. Patrick Jordan was in the Santa Clara area by 1869 and was later joined by his brothers Moses and John Jordan. Nicholas Devereux was in the Santa Clara area by 1870. Michael Duff was in the San Mateo area by 1871 where he was partners with Murtha Doyle in a general merchandise store in Menlo Park.

So the Frampton Irish contributed greatly to the Irish population of the San Francisco bay area. There may have been other Frampton Irish in the area I have yet to identify. They would certainly make a mark on the history of the area. The Murphy family would be millionaires by the 1880s owning ranchos that stretched from the San Francisco bay south to San Luis Obispo. They were the benefactors of Santa Clara University. Several Murphy men served in elected offices at the local and state level. Unfortunately, Dennis Martin’s fortunes in California were not sustained. There were problems with the title to some of his lands that originated as Mexican grants. Around 1859, the court ruled that the 1,500 acres of land that held his mills, orchards, barns, and the St. Denis church were not his and the Supreme Court of California issued a writ of ejectment. Dennis Martin’s lands and the lands where the town of Searsville were situated where Stanford University stands today. In 1876, Leland Stanford began acquiring and blocking up about 8,000 acres and a reservoir would be constructed in 1891 that would inundate the town of Searsville.

So the San Mateo and Santa Clara County areas of California are rich in the history of the Frampton Irish. In our "geo-hunt" we found several monuments that commemorate this history. California State Historic Monument #338 is the Mission Santa Clara. It sits on the campus of Santa Clara University and was undoubtedly the site of many baptisms, weddings and burials of the Frampton Irish. The monument narrative is as follows:

Finding the monument for St. Denis church and cemetery was not so easy. It was found along Sand Hill Rd. near a country club parking lot just north of the boundary of Stanford University. I might not have found it if not for a man parked along the parking lot who was looking up into the bushes. I looked at what he was looking at and there was the monument. The narrative is as follows:

Not far from the St. Denis monument on the way to Woodside was California State Historic Monument #474, site of the former village of Searsville. The narrative is as follows:

Unfortunately, there is no mention that much of Searsville’s early population were Irish people who came from Frampton, Quebec. In fact, Dennis Martin was residing in the area of Searsville as early as 1846, eight years before John Sears.

There are at least three California State Monuments that commemorate the Murphy family. A monument (#680, Murphy’s Ranch) is located near the site of Martin Murphy, Jr’s. first home along the Consumnes River near Stockton, California. Another monument (#275 Murphys) commemorates a small town that grew up around a store in the gold country that was owned by the Murphy brothers. The third monument (#644, Martin Murphy home and estate) is found in Sunnyvale, California (near San Jose). It is located in the Martin Murphy, Jr. Historic Park and the narrative is as follows:

But perhaps the best monument to the legacy of the Murphys and the Frampton Irish that moved to California is the Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum. The museum building’s facade is designed to replicate the look of the home that Martin Murphy, Jr. had built in 1849. It contains exhibits and artifacts of the Murphy family. It also tells the story of the history of Sunnyvale. We enjoyed a wonderful tour conducted for us by the association president. If you are interested in more information about this museum, see their website at http://www.heritageparkmuseum.org Also I found out that a DVD production entitled Forgotten Journey, The Stephens, Townsend, Murphy Saga is available at www.forgottenjourneyprod.com That website has some informative inofrmation about the Murphy journey and the DVD is available through the site.