Delaney and the 1916 Easter Uprising

The Irish rarely talk about the bad things.  I've notice there's alot of supression and bury of ugly things in the past.  Of course, naturally, my Irish kin loved to celebrate all the good, and sometimes loved to celebrate just for the joy of celebrating.

Watching the trailers for the upcoming film, A Terrible Beauty, about the 1916 Easter Rising in April 1916 in Dublin made me curious about what the Delaney's roles were during the 1916 event.  

Theresa Delaney emigrated to the USA with her Sister Ellen Delaney ( who married Michael Cummins eventually ) on Sept 19, 1916, a relatively short period after the rising.  I'd always wondered about the timing of the move, as they were from Dublin.

In one of those wonderful 'family researcher moments', my 1st Cousin 1x removed, S. Schmidt (grandson of Theresa Delaney) had sent me a note about our the Delaney's at the same time.  [thanks so much S.]  Note  a similar story had been shared to me by Katie R., who was the grand-neice of Theresa.  As her story was relayed by Lillian Delaney, her grandmother, this was a great point of convergence.

"I had one on my friends over to see Grandma. Everything went really well with their families being from the same areas. That is until she found out he was protestant (orange). At that point I saw a side of her I didn't think she possessed. She was fighting  mad and literally threw him out of the house, the only comment was he wasn't ever to come there when she was present. No further explanation. When my father found out he said that her father [uncle or grandfather] and brother were dragged out in the middle of the night by what I believed he called brown shirts.  They were hung for being part of the Irish Army (not IRA)[jeh: prob Irish Volunteers] that had staged an unplanned uprising that was squashed by the British and Protestants.  Apparently it was a bloody couple of days with the Irish making themselves felt. They weren't present as most of the loosely formed units, soldiers back from WWI, weren't."

More info on the impact of the uprising on non-combatants can be found here - http://www.easter1916.net/civilians.htm .

This is one of my genealogy "brick walls".  

I don't even know their names.  This will be a tough one to dig out.  This particular issue may unfortunately (koff koff) require me to spend some time in Dublin researching. 

Any ideas?

[Theresa Delaney was the daughter of Andrew Delany and Catherine O'Brien of Dublin.  She had sisters Ellen Bridget (1897) and Elizabeth Lillian (1904).  She had a half sister Sarah (1893) by Andrew Delany and Mary Anne Cowley (1866-1895). Catherine's OBrien's parents were Michael O'Brien/Ellen Kelly]

Finding Frederick Schmidt - Part 1

My great-grandfather Albert Herman SCHMIDT apparently had a ton of brothers and sisters.

I asked my dad about them and each time I would get a varrying set of names.  A few names were fairly consistent.  One of them was Fredrick.  And so the hunt is on for Fredrick SCHMIDT. He was probably born in Lehe, Bremerhaven, Bremen, Germany in the 1875-1890.  His parents were Albert Fredrick SCHMIDT and Martha TOELLNER/TOLLNER/TURNER  And that's about all I know.  

My dad has a sister [t] who is still alive.  I asked [t] about Frederick.  She's smart as a whip, and keeps family things retained very well.  So the basic story was Fredrick had a daughter Patricia, who married someone with the lastname [h].  Ok, noted away.

On for special research technique called "plunder the address book".  My wonderful Great-Aunt Martha Fox need Schmidt passed a few years back.  I stopped by my Aunt [t]s house to have lunch with her, and while there got a peek at my great-Aunts record book.  Amazingly enough I found an entry for Patricia [h] (along with many other goodies).  And she's in Florida.   Oh my.

So today I sent off a blind email introducing myself and asking if she could contact me or I couuld contact her.  I'm fairly sure its the right lady.  Hopefully she's still alive and wants to help.

I'll keep you posted on my adventure in Address Book Mining and UnSolicited Letters.  Hopefully we have a happy ending with more stories to tell.

Next steps for Fredrick.  Continue to find just some base records for him.  Death?  Arrival?  Marriage?   Tough one here.  Anyone got any other ideas?