thank you for the information, I will check it out. I do hope that I have a distant ancestor that is interested in family history and may have some info on Michael. Another interesting note is that my grandfather told me that the infamous Owen (Oney) Madden of the New York City Mafia fame was a 5th cousin to him.
Have a wonderful day
Rich

Hi Lorraine!

Okay, I did some more searching and found a bit more info that you may or may not already have:

1860 US Census, Norwich, New London County, Connecticut

John Holliday, age 37, b. Ireland (abt. 1822); "paper maker"
Margaret, age 33, b. Ireland (abt. 1826)
Maria, age 5, b. CT

I believe this is the census record you mentioned. With a bit more searching, I was able to find this couple on the next earliest census:

1850 US Census, Norwich, New London County, Connecticut

John Holliday, age 28, b. Ireland (abt 1822); "laborer"
Margaret, age 24, b. Ireland (abt 1826)
Eliza Jane, age 8 mos, b. CT

This was most likely the couple's first child, and probably died as a youngster. I then took a look at the Barbour Collection of Connecticut vital records and found the following marriage records in the town of Stonington, New London County:

HALLIDAY/HOLIDAY, John, m. Mary Esther LAIN, of New London, Sept. 29, 1842, by Rev. Erastus Denison, of Groton. Vol. 5, p. 107

HALLIDAY/HOLIDAY, John, m. Margaret SHIELDS, b. of Norwich, June 12, 1848, at Mystic Bridge, by Rev. Sanford Benton. Vol. 5, p. 223

(White, Lorraine Cook, ed. The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records. Vol. 1-55. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1994-2002.)

Both of these records could represent the same John Holiday. The marriages are close enough in time, and John is old enough to have been the groom in both records. If so, the first wife must have died within the first few years of the marriage. I also am fairly confident that Margaret's birthplace of Norwich is recorded erroneously in the marriage record. She consistently indicates that she was born in Ireland on the census records.

I was unable to find any other records of John, Margaret and Maria, which makes sense if they are your family and they returned to Ireland by 1869.

I hope this helps!

Karyn

Hi Lorraine, my Grandad Christopher jackson married in St Cronans RC Church, Roscrea, 1906 ,where he is also buried ,I believe he lied about his age but I am sure in order to get married he would have had to show his birth cert with his real name ,which is written on short marriage cert as Christopher Jackson, Father is down as Charles Jackson, All a total Mystery ,he has a connection to John Kiely.