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Research in Other Countries => United States of America => Topic started by: heatherwalsh on Sunday 30 July 17 05:56 BST (UK)
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Hello Everyone, I have a very hard person to research. I do not have much information and i was not quite sure what board to post this one on. I do know that this person died in America so thought this board would be a good place to start. All the information i have i will give. Looking for LOUIS COLLIGAN, he is male, not sure of spelling. He was born between 1800 and 1830 Ireland, maybe scotland. Father's name Francis, brother William born 1821. LOUIS COLLIGAN went to America to make his fortune and never came home. It is beleived he died in 1875 in America and there was quite an argument over his will. This information is from an elderly family member who is nearing 100 years of age and she is one hundred percent certain that he died in America. She also remembers Coffeyville, Kansas being mentioned.
Any help, Any information about LOUIS COLLIGAN will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance from Heather.
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I have been researching everywhere i can think of, hard as well as spelling changes from country to country sometimes. i found a louis callagan a confederate solider circa 1865, but cant find anything else about him.....doubt its my LOUIS COLLIGAN though.........hmmmm
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I have been researching everywhere i can think of, hard as well as spelling changes from country to country sometimes. i found a louis callagan a confederate solider circa 1865, but cant find anything else about him.....doubt its my LOUIS COLLIGAN though.........hmmmm
Have you tried CORRIGAN as a variant?
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The following could provide some clues for us (if known, of course)... ;)
He very well could have changed occupations when he arrived in America, but what was his brother's occupation, please? I'm hoping he may have had a similar occupation in the states.
Where did his family live c1875 (Ireland, Scotland, etc.)?
Were any family names passed down through the generations? Perhaps he also passed down family names? Of course, if there was an argument over the will, perhaps he didn't have family in the states.
If there was a will, possibly he either was ill for some time and set up a will, or he was a somewhat wealthy man?
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Ok, William his brother was married in 1843 in down ireland, by 1851 he was in lanarkshire scotland and died there. His occupation was a miner as were his sons. I assume william was born in ireland, from the scotland censuses about 1821. His father francis collighan, as spelt on williams death certificate and it says his occupation was a soldier in her majesty's royal horse artillery. In past down christian names we have not come across another louis as yet......williams sons were francis, william, meredith and john that i have found so far.
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oh william died 1875/76, buried in shotts kirk, but spelt cooligan.............oh my gosh !!!!!
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Thank you for the information.
Perhaps no connection, since the sailing was from Melbourne (rather than somewhere in the UK), but
Sailing from Melbourne to Sydney, New South Wales, arriving 13 November 1857 on board the Yarra Yarra
Mr. L Colligan
Description: Miners? [But was it Minors, as there were at least 3 female names in the list of "Miners". The description for the names above this list was "Gentlefolk".]
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i just dont know, i just looked on the person who gave me this information , her tree on my heritage, she has a birth date for louis as 1851, but does not say where.........if she is doing this from memory.........well who knows......then another birth she has is between 1800 to 1821............this is impossible........ i will try and get more information
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i just dont know, i just looked on the person who gave me this information , her tree on my heritage, she has a birth date for louis as 1851, but does not say where.........if she is doing this from memory.........well who knows......then another birth she has is between 1800 to 1821............this is impossible........ i will try and get more information
Not impossible yet. We've only just started. :)
There is a big difference between born in 1851 and c1800-1830 as you first mentioned. Maybe if you could think of all of the known information about the family, even the tiniest things, and sum it up, perhaps we can start to piece it together.
My suggestion might be to find the names, birth dates and birth places of Francis' children. We could then see if there is any pattern.
I'm wondering how certain Louis/Lewis died c1875. Is there a chance that he could have died earlier or (much) later?
I have to step away for a bit, but I will be back later today (it's mid-day in California). Please feel free to take your time assembling the facts/information. There are quite a few RootsChatters who visit the US Board who can try to be of help, so don't worry about this being a challenge. :) :)
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Here are some links for Coffeyville, Kansas. It seems to have been a center of brick and glass manufacture.
http://www.coffeyvillepl.org/
https://web.archive.org/web/20060616194215/http://www.coffeyville.com/History.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20060616194840/http://coffeyville.com:80/Historical%20Society.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20060616194104/http://coffeyville.com:80/Media.htm
If he died in 1875ish, that was just after the founding of Coffeyville, so he might have been among the original inhabitants. It might be worth checking with the public library to see if there is any record of the founding citizens.
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I have tried and tried to find both Francis and his son Williams birth, but come up zero. I am assuming they born ireland as william married there 1843 and first child to his wife born there in 1844. I will email my sister for place names and get back to you shortly.
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William married in district, Banbridge, Address Arghaderg Antrim, religion, roman catholic.
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"there was quite an argument over his will"
What was the argument about? What were the terms of the will? What was the date? Where was it filed? What names were mentioned?
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No answer to any of those questions......my nearly 100 year old cousin remembers it being talked about when she was little, through the family while putting together the family tree. i am still phoning my cousin regular for any updates, photos or letters that she finds.
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Have you tried different spellings of the surname Coligan, Collighan .
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FamilySearch has the Kansas state censuses from 1865 to 1895 but they aren't indexed. If he was in or around Coffeyville at some point, he might be in a census but it would be a hell of a tedious job to find him. You could also try looking through the cemetery records. Here are the cemeteries that have been recorded in Montgomery County, Kansas.
https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=csr&CScnty=946
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thank you i just found a will for a lois colligon on ancestry, i will go back and see if i can down load it
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i found this on ancestry, only will i can find with similar name, i will follow this up if i can and see where it leads me.
Attachment removed due to copyright issue. ~ moderator
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i have no idea how to shrink this sorry
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William married in district, Banbridge, Address Arghaderg Antrim, religion, roman catholic.
Someone has certainly made a mess of that one ::)
Most likely to be Aghaderg Catholic Parish in Counry DOWN- the records start quit early-
http://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0436
Regarding this: "It is beleived he died in 1875 in America and there was quite an argument over his will."
It may be that Louis didn't leave a Will and his estate was complicated to sort out amongst his relatives in Ireland.
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That Will is from Buffalo, Erie, New York
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I know you are looking in America, but there is a record on Ancestry and find my past for a Mr L Colligan who went to Australia in 1857.
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Regarding this: "It is beleived he died in 1875 in America and there was quite an argument over his will."
It may be that Louis didn't leave a Will and his estate was complicated to sort out amongst his relatives in Ireland.
Good point, aghadowey. :-\
heatherwalsh, maybe we can backtrack a little. You mentioned that the elderly family member remembers the will, remembers Coffeyville, Kansas and that Louis passed away in 1875.
Would it be possible to gently ask the family member some questions (not for her to prove her information, but to gather additional clues).
Coffeyville - Does she remember Coffeyville because of the unusual name, because it was mentioned so many times, because another family member visited at some point, because they have a letter sent from there, etc. Perhaps if it is found out why she remembers Coffeyville, that could tell us if he passed away near there, lived there at some point, got married there, etc.
1875 - She wasn't around at that time, so I wonder how she remembers it was 1875...was another family member a certain age when Louis passed away and she's "doing the math"? [Note: When questionning my mum about family members and ancestors, she usually mentions how old she was (or, how old her mum was) when the event happened, so we can then do the math and get an approximate date of the event. Hope that makes sense. ;) ] I wonder how she remembers the date of his passing.
Make his fortune - My guess would be that he arrived in America/Canada after 1850, and possibly after 1860? If he had left earlier, wouldn't he have tried to help his family back home either with sending money back home, or assisting relatives with a passage to North America?
I hope you know that we are asking questions, just to look and find little clues that might help us. :)
PS Another name change could be Colgan (if that hasn't been already mentioned).
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Just an update, the information had come from the elderly ladies, grandmothers letters. we have her daughter now in the process of going through all of the letters for us so we can dechiper the information properly........i will repost when we have better information. thank you to all for your time and help so far........hopefully when i get more substancial info we can then proceed. thank you once again