Thursday, July 7, 2016

Sagerton

Well, summer has taken up a huge amount of my time. I’ve been battling weeds, weeds, weeds. The vegetable garden is in but ever so thirsty. We have had very little rain in the last month or so. I’m taking a much needed break from green stained fingers and dirt trimmed fingernails to try to get back to my blog.

I’m going to attempt to get a name out there that has been a thorn in my side for 20+ years. The name is Sagerton. This name is not only the bastion of all brick walls, for me, but sometimes makes me wonder if it hasn’t completely ‘daughtered out’ and no longer exists.

My great grandmother, Bridget Sheehan Broderick was born c. 1850 somewhere in Galway, Ireland, so we think. She left Ireland for Boston in 1868 and is found in the 1870 Hyde Park, MA census, living with the Daniel Sullivan family. It hasn’t been determined if she came to the USA especially to work for them or if they are related to each other in some way. She married my great grandfather, Matthew Broderick, in Hyde Park, MA in 1874. There were other Sheehans in Hyde Park during that time, but again, it hasn’t been determined if there was any relationship.

The real stickler shows up when you see Bridget’s death certificate. Her mother was Honora Sagerton and her father was Michael Sheehan. Doing any kind of a search on the name Sagerton comes up with a staggering number of ZERO results. There is no rootsweb mailing list for this family, although there is one tiny little place in TX with this name. Trouble is it was named for a man named Sager. Even that name seems to have no association with Sagerton. Then I got truly excited when I found two families of Sagertons, a Stephen and a Patrick, in Kiltullagh, Brackloonbeg, Galway, in 1821 census. But, of course, as luck would have it, there was no Honora, Nora, Anna or even a Hannah. Still, I now have some hope that further digging will bring more information about this ever so elusive family. Two more unrelated, of course, tidbits did show up:

A Mary Sagerton was a marriage witness on Apr. 29 1838 for John Cain and Mary Mahoney.
A Maria Sagerton was born to a Martin Sagerton and a Brigida Mellady (sic.) on Aug 11 1863.

So – recapping –
1821 - Patrick and Stephen Sagerton
1838 – Mary Sagerton, daughter or wife of some Sagerton
1850 – Honora Sagerton, mother of Bridget Sheehan
1863 - Martin Sagerton and daughter Maria
                                     1821 census Kiltullagh Brackloonbeg Galway

So for a period of about 40 years, Sagertons do show up in various places, but this is the sum total of about 20+ years of searching.

You might find it hard to believe that I’m thrilled to have this much. Five years ago I was positive that Sagerton was a misspelling or a mispronounced name and that I would never find a person with that name. It has surely helped immensely that more and more Irish information and documents are now available on line.

The caveat there is, you need to know the Parish and the Town Land, which I didn’t. Otherwise, you must plow through all the records, which are photos of each page, figure out the handwriting and, in some cases, the Latin.

I now have some hope there will be more discoveries. I would be ever so grateful if you would let me know if anyone comes across this name in their research, travels or readings.  ThePyePlate@gmail.com