As I read this article “How Is Pope Leo Shaping the U.S. Church? Bishops” the line “His appointments have focused on pastoral care” made me think about Uncle Vinny. As he resigned from the priesthood he sent a resignation letter to the bishop, with a copy shared with his siblings. In the letter, he lamented being constrained from providing needed pastoral care among other issues.
This welcome news is fifty years late.
Since I last updated the family tree on 27 April, 2025 we mourn the loss of more relatives, including:
My research has mostly focused on adding additional sources, notably historical vital records (Birth, Marriage, Death) from the New York Municipal Archives for relatives who lived in New York, and obituaries from the Boston Globe for those who lived in Massachusetts. I have also researched some people in the 1950 U.S. census,
I have tried to improve the privacy filtering, as I had noticed that some people whose birth years are unknown were mistakenly listed.
If you have information to add, or corrections to make, including living people who have escaped the privacy filter, please let me know.
Thanks to Christine Durden, who pointed me to this lecture by Neil Donovan on the Irish Revolutionary movement in Skeheenarinky. Ella Fox was the Captain of the local Cumann na mBan or Women’s Council. Founded in 1914 as a paramilitary organization, became an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers in 1916. I have grabbed a few screen shots.
He provides some personal details, although he got the name of my grandfather wrong. He mentions that she died in the Car Accident.
I have scanned and transcribed a collection of letters that my uncle Ed (Martin Edward Conlon) wrote to my Mom and Dad during his service in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Ed served in the 34th Infantry Regiment [TOUJOURS EN AVANT (Always Forward)], part of the 24th Division. Ed joined the 34th in Japan where it was reconstituted following its heavy losses at the battle of Taejon.
The collection of letters spans approximately 21 monthss, beginning with his basic training at Fort Dix, and includes deployments in Japan and throughout South Korea.
The internet is a wonderful place where misinformation proliferates at light speed, and errors are archived for posterity.
Today I got an email from the website myheritage.com saying:
A new match was found in the Amazing Robinson Family Web Site managed by John George Robinson from United Kingdom | Contact John George
Well, that family tree is replete with errors. What’s more, they want you to pay to point out the errors.
So it’s important to modify the Ronald Reagan dictum to “Doubt and Verify.” My family tree may certainly have some errors, but I do my best to verify everything with original sources, all of which are attached and cross-referenced.
Added a home movie to the Films and Videos page.
Updated the family tree from 1 December 2024 to 27 April, 2025 with 80 new sources. I now show a connection to the Fifth Earl of Stanhope as described in this post.
The Portrait Gallery has had many new images uploaded thanks to cousin Jim.
I have been thinking about creating a People section with pages on various family members to complement that sites I created for Dorothy Figueroa and William Conlon. These would be repositories for photos and biographical sketches. I would certainly appreciate contributions of material.
Mom and Dad (Dorothy Margaret Figueroa and William Martin Conlon) were married on 31 May 1952 at St. Mary Gate of Heaven Church in Richmond Hill. Fifty years later they celebrated with a grand party at the Carltun in Eisenhower Park, a short distance from where they held their wedding reception.
For easy access, these have been added to the Family History page.
Additional sources have been added:
Genealogical research inevitably ends up in a brick wall, where there is no information on an ancestor’s parentage. Such is the case with my great grandfather James William Figueroa (1848 – May 2, 1919), whose parents are unknown.
First of all, we need to clarify that his full name is known from the birth records of his children, which show him as James William or J. William, even though his tombstone says William J. Figueroa. Perhaps he was known as William, and when the monument was placed 46 years after his death, perhaps the engraver was being cautious, as his death record listed him as John William Figueroa.
The only information I have on his birth comes from his death registration, which stated that he was 71 years old and listed his occupation as a house painter. But the informant was presumably not at his birth, so his age at death might be in error.
On 21 Sept 1871, (James) William Figueroa witnessed the wedding of Charles Brandon to Emily Aitchison both of Kingston. Charles Brandon was at the baptism of James William’s son William Ignatius Figueroa, who subsequently married his daughter Emily Louise Brandon.
On 9 April 1877, James William Figueroa married Theresa Eugenie Perneau in Kingston. Witnesses included the aforementioned Charles Brandon, Charles Remy, Mary Jane Dorrington, Sarah Kelly, Ada Barnett, and Louis Bell. Their children were:
On 22 April 1908, James William Figueroa witnessed the death of his infant grandson Joseph Francis Xavier Figueroa, son of my grandfather with his first wife Annie Wilhelmina Muschett.
Could my great grandfather be the William Figueroa who was born to Joseph Figueroa and his wife Jane on 18 June 1850 in Kingston?
James William Figueroa is not listed in the index to Roman Catholic baptisms in Kingston between 1837 and 1846 so perhaps he wasn’t baptized or perhaps he was born after 1846. We don’t have a record of his parents, so we can only speculate about how he got his family name.
Genealogist Richard Dear speculates that James William’s father was Jose Angel Figueroa, who married Emily Wright on 11/9/1844 . She was the daughter of of Andrew Wright and Eveline White, natives of Kingston. The wedding was witnessed by his father Jose Maria Figueroa, John White, John Wright, Jose Ysidoro de Cordova, Jose Maria Moreu. In Dear’s family tree, his mother is listed only as ‘Jane’.
So far there aren’t DNA matches that lead back to Jose Angel Figueroa. But there are very interesting DNA results that point in another direction. Ancestry DNA shows that Dorothy M. Figueroa, granddaughter of James William Figueroa, shares 101 cM with Steven Stanhope.
Ancestry estimates that they are second cousins, twice removed, but there are a number of alternative relationships.
| Frequency | Relationship |
| 35% | half 2nd cousin 1x removed 2nd cousin 2x removed 3rd cousin half 1st cousin 3x removed |
| 31% | 2nd cousin 1x removed half 1st cousin 2x removed half 2nd cousin 1st cousin 3x removed |
| 19% | 3rd cousin 1x removed half 2nd cousin 2x removed half 3rd cousin 2nd cousin 3x removed |
| 10% | half 3rd cousin 1x removed 3rd cousin 2x removed 4th cousin half 2nd cousin 3x removed |
| 5% | half 1st cousin 1x removed 1st cousin 2x removed 2nd cousin half great-grandnephew half great-granduncle |
He is the son of the 11th Earl of Stanhope, whose royal ancestry is documented in Burke’s Peerage, although I used Wikipedia to derive this chart of his relatives.
Assuming the Ancestry prediction is correct, then as second cousins, the connection would be via Dorothy’s great grandparents, the unknown parents of James William.
If Steven Stanhope is two generations removed, counting his father (11th Earl) and grandfather (10th Earl) as the two generations, we go up through the 9th Earl, the 7th Earl (grandfather) to Rev. Hon. Fitzroy Henry Richard Stanhope (1787-1864) and Ann Wyndham. The Rev. Stanhope was son of the 3rd Earl, represents right generation to have sired or given birth to James William Figueroa (b. 1848).
To be a true second cousin, James William would have to have been born to the Rev. Stanhope and his wife, but the probability table shows that a half-third cousin is equally plausible. This means the brothers and sisters of Rev. Stanhope are good candidates. It’s fair to assume that his sisters were not involved as they were all in their late 50s or 60s in 1848.
So what about the brothers? The brothers who were alive at time were:
Intriguingly, the 5th Earl married Ann Green, whose parents William Green and Ann Rose Hall resided in Jamaica. It seems to me that one of James Williams’ parents was fathered by the 5th Earl, but we can’t conclude whether the child was male of female.
So my money is on the 5th Earl as the father and an unknown woman as the mother, possibly a sister, servant, or friend of the Earl’s wife. Once she was with child, my conjecture is that she was dispatched to Jamaica to give birth away from society’s judgemental eyes, where baby James William could be adopted by the Figueroa family.
The family tree has been updated with a few milestones (deaths and a wedding) and about 20 new sources.
