I am delighted to say that I have located in NYC some long lost cousins who have the same grgrandmother as I... Nora Murphy. There is much information which neither of us has, but I did learn from them that Nora Murphy came from a large family in Ballyhooly. One of her brothers died as a young boy - drowned in the whirlpool of the Blackwater River. At least two brothers went to Australia to look for gold. They found it, came back to Ireland (Ballyhooly), bought farms and married. My grandaunt told stories of them having very long beards. We don't know the year of Nora's birth nor when she married John Archdeacon. It seems that the oldest of their four daughters was born in 1877. I know for a fact that my grandmother, Nellie (Mary Ellen) Archdeacon, the youngest of the 4, was born in 1885. John Archdeacon left Ireland for NYC to find work (shipbuilding/carpentry???) In time, when his wife NORA MURPHY ARCHDEACON didn't hear from him, she feared he was ill so she set off with the youngest and oldest girls to find him in NY. (as the story goes, their letters and maybe their ships, passed each other). Nora was ill during the trip and a short time after landing, died in NY leaving the 2 children she brought with her orphans in a strange city. Meanwhile, back in Ireland, the two other girls, Katie and Mamie Archdeacon went to live with and were well cared for by Nora's brother James and sister ___ in Balleyhooley. My recently-found cousins are granddaughters of one of the girls (Mamie) who came over sometime between 1896-1898. In 1908 she married Michael Hade in NYC. She died in 1967. The girls remember Mamie telling them they had lots of MURPHY relatives in Ballyhooly. Does anyone have any info on any MURPHY family members from the Ballyhooley area? Do you know the name of any Catholic Church in that area? We can only estimate NORA's DoB to be sometime between 1850-1857. That would have made her about 20-27 when her oldest girl was born. We know nothing more about JOHN ARCHDEACON other than even the two girls in Ireland never saw/heard from him until the 4 girls were married and living in NYC. At that point in time they heard from him that he was living in England and 'down on his luck'. The girls were trying to raise the money for his passage to NY where they could rent an apartment for him. Unfortunately, he died - in England - before they were able to send him any money. If anyone has any leads for us - small as they may be - we would be grateful if you would direct them to me ... Eileen Tierney,cnd at [email protected] Thank you!