Mary Cusick: From County Cavan, Ireland to Jersey City, New Jersey
This month I’ve been researching one of my great great grandmothers. She was born Mary Cusick or Cusack in County Cavan, Ireland, in 1846. She didn’t even know her exact birthdate. Apparently, the family never celebrated birthdays. She never learned to read or write, and I’ve seen her last name spelled both ways. County Cavan is a county with no coastline, but it has many lakes. It’s in the northern part of Ireland, near Northern Ireland. I was able to visit it in 2015 and it is a rural area with lush green hills, and reminded me of times I visited Pennsylvania. Mary was a baby and toddler during the Great Famine, but her family must have had the means to find food. When she was a child, she came to America with her mother Mary Smith Cusick and her sister Ellen Cusick. [1] I haven’t yet found out if she had more immediate family making the journey, but I do know her mother’s sister Bridget Smith Flood also emigrated with her husband Peter Flood and son Charles. Charles was Mary...