When my mother's cousin Nan (Gallagher) Fleming researched our family history, she included a note next to her grandmother Anna Cunningham's sister Bridget saying that Bridget married a Sloan and that she was "Ellen O'Leary's mother." Nan Gallagher evidently knew Ellen O'Leary and expected the rest of her family to know as well, since she didn't include any further explanation. So I looked for someone by that name living in Cleveland.
I found an Anna E. Sloan marrying a Dennis O'Leary in September 1882, most likely at St Augustine's Parish, Cleveland. That church is located on West 14th, but by 1883 when their first daughter was born, they were living on Broadway on the Southeast side, not far from the Rodgers clan in Newburgh. They later moved to Newman Avenue, off East 65th Street where they remained at least until Dennis' death on February 11, 1920. Ann was living around the corner on East 65th when she died, July 15, 1939.
On the 1910 Census Ann is called "Ann Ellen," in 1920 she was "Anna L," and in 1930 "Helen". Her death record called her Ann Ellen. So I am sure this is the person Nan Gallagher was referring to.
But Ann (Sloan) O'Leary's records consistently said she was born in Canada. How could she be the daughter of Bridget Cunningham, who was from either Ballymadeerfy or Ballygowan Townland, Kilkeel, County Down, Ireland?
Some years ago, on Ros Davies' County Down Website, I found a listing for a Bridget "Biddy" Cunningham of Kilkeel who married James Sloan on May 20, 1846, at the Catholic church in Kilkeel and was the mother of Bridget, born 1868, and Sarah, born 1871. (Since then, I have found the marriage in the Kilkeel parish records at Catholic Parish Records, Kilkeel and the births in the civil records at IrishGenealogy.ie.) What I should have noticed at the time was the long gap between the marriage date and the two births.
A few months ago I started working on this family again. Either more databases have come on line since I looked at them last, or I was a little more diligent in searching. Whatever the case, I found two of their children baptized in Kilkeel in 1849 and 1851, filling in the gap between their marriage and the birth of Bridget a bit.
More important, I found a James Sloan and Bridget Cunningham in London, Ontario, in the mid to late 1850's. They had three children baptized at St Peter's Cathedral between 1854 and 1859, but none before or after those dates. One was a son named Henry, born September 18, 1855 and baptized November 18. Then in the Irish civil records, I found a Henry Sloan, age 9, who died in Glenloughan, Kilkeel, on November 18, 1864, son of James and Bridget Sloan.
Since I have a lot of confidence in Nan Gallagher's research, young Henry's birth and death records were enough for me to conclude that Henry's parents, James and Bridget "Biddy" (Cunningham) Sloan, began their marriage in Ireland and then spent some years between 1851 and 1863 in Canada before returning to Ireland. Making it quite possible for them to have a daughter Ann Ellen, born in Canada, yet from a family in Kilkeel.
I never found the baptism record for Ann Ellen Sloan herself, despite browsing every page of the St Peter's Cathedral parish registers from 1855 to 1863. Perhaps her parents moved out of that parish and into another whose records are not online. Still, Nan Gallagher seems to have been a very careful researcher and her information has always proved true, so there is no reason for me to doubt that the lady in Cleveland belongs to the family in Ireland.