Jackson genealogical brick wall

Ye socks who despise my family history related posts may tune out now.

Today, I managed to chip away at a longstanding brick wall in my research on our Jackson forebears, if ever so slightly.

In the 1850 Census of South Brunswick (Middlesex County), New Jersey, yours truly discovered the following family enumerated on page 386:

Jackson, John, age 45, laborer, real estate valued at $200, born in New Jersey.
Jackson, Catharine, 35, born in Ireland.
Jackson, John, age 1, born in New Jersey.


These are definitely my ancestors who subsequently settled at Princeton, New Jersey.


But, I can't trace them back any further.


The only other clue I have is Catherine's maiden name, and it's not much of a clue as it is given variously as Rourke, Roarke, O'Rourke, and O'Roarke.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

New ship's manifest discovery

I know some of ye socks (Darrell) don't care much for my genealogical musings, but when I stumble across new bits of the olde family history I cannot help but post them here.

Today's tidbit comes from the records of Castle Garden, the predecessor of the more famous Ellis Island. (Learn more about the place at http://www.castlegarden.org/ .)

It was there I discovered a record of the arrival of my ancestors Thomas and Catherine Daley, who came from Ireland aboard the ship "Ellen" on 13 July 1850. They brought with them a 2-year-old daughter Mary and an infant son Patrick. (I know, how stereotypically Irish of them to give their kids those names, right?!)

Anyway, soon after disembarking, they settled inland a bit at Princeton, New Jersey. And, it was there they had their first American-born child, a daughter named Delia.

Delia eventually married John A. Jackson. Their eldest daughter Annie Jackson Gleeson was mentioned in a post earlier this week about their old house in Long Branch, New Jersey.

Ok, if I haven't bored some of ye to tears by now, I hope all have a good weekend!

Turning my Jackson research on its ear!

For many years, I have based my research on the Jackson side of the family on an old hand-written family tree my grandmother had included in my Aunt Roberta's baby book back in 1943.

Now, it appears that her information may have been faulty!

That's the bad news.

The good news is a recently-discovered death certificate in Trenton, New Jersey, has opened up new avenues of research for me.

And, you know how much we genealogical socks love new avenues of research.

If you'd care for the gorey details of my findings to date, drop me an email!