Rooney Family Tree

Mary Rooney
daughter of Daddy Mick and Mammy Kitty

Mary Rooney and her husband Michael "Coolahan" are listed as parents in the baptismal record of their daughter Mary Jane, born 16 June 1855, at St. Camillus Church in Quebec. The family is also listed in the 1870 and 1875 censuses of Raymond Township, Stearns County, Minnesota with the surname spelled "Colahan."

This family is listed near to these families in the Raymond Township censuses: Rooney, Tracy, Killan (sic), Eagan (sic). So by proximity it would make sense that this is Mary of the Rooney clan.

In searching for the family under the census surname spelling and other variations, only one spelling comes up that matches any members of the family, and that is "Colehan."

Michael

Michael Colehan, the father, is in the 1880 city directory of San Francisco as a mason, alongside "Miss Kate," a milliner, and "Miss Mary J.," a teacher. Nothing about his wife Mary (Rooney) has been found beyond the 1875 census.

Daniel

In the voter register for Alameda County, California for 1886, Thomas Steve Colehan and Daniel Michael Colehan are listed next to each other. They're both laborers in Livermore (a town just a bit southeast of San Francisco and Oakland), and the location of their births is listed correctly (Canada and Missouri). Their middle names are something new here. Their ages are approximately correct: 29 and 21.

Daniel is listed again in the 1892 Napa, California voter registration ("Stephen" is his full middle name there). He's also in the 1894, 1896 and 1898 voter registration list of Alameda, California (the only one of that surname), and his age in 1898 is given as 43, which corresponds to his probable correct birth date of 1855. His eyes are grey and his hair brown and he's a citizen by naturalization of his father.

In the 1910 census of Murray Township, Alameda County, California, Daniel Colehan, born in Canada, is a laborer at odd jobs, single. Next o him is his sister "Katherine," age 62, single, born in Ireland and immigrated (presumably to the U.S.) in 1864. The other two sisters are not listed.

Somewhere between 1912 and 1917 Daniel is listed as retired and in the St. Joseph Home in Stockton and is a Democrat politically. There are no siblings with him. Daniel is still in the St. Joseph Home in 1920, and that's the last record found for him.

Catherine, Mary Jane and Eliza

Daniel, Mary and Eliza are in the 1894 Oakland directory, Miss Eliza Colehan as a teacher and Miss Mary Colehan as a teacher at Laddsville. So neither of the sisters is married.

In the 1900 city directory of Oakland, California are listed Daniel as a laborer and next to him "Miss E. A. Colehan, teacher at Harris School," and "Miss Mary Colehan, teacher."

As mentioned before, in the 1910 census of Murray Township, Alameda County, California, Daniel Colehan, born in Canada, is a laborer at odd jobs, single. Next to him is his sister "Katherine," age 62, single, born in Ireland and immigrated (presumably to the U.S.) in 1864. The two other sisters are not listed.

None of these children are listed in cemetery records on "Find a Grave." A California Death Record index entry for only one of the siblings, Mary J. Colehan, died May 29, 1926 in San Joaquin, California, was found.

Thomas

Thomas Colehan first shows up as a 17-year-old sheepherder in the 1880 census of Alameda, Murray County, California. It says he was born in Missouri and his parents in Ireland.

As noted above, Thomas Stephen and Daniel Michael Coleman are next to each other in the voter register for Alameda County, California for 1886. They're both laborers in Livermore, and they have their location of births listed correctly (Canada and Missouri).

From at least 1902 to about 1910, there are a dozen short articles about Thomas in the Reno Evening Gazette, the Nevada State Journal and the Oakland Tribune. Thomas is the majority owner in either a silver or a gold mine (Colehan Mining Company of Tonopah, Nevada in Gold Mountain), he makes prospecting trips to Alaska and Siberia, visits friends in Mexico, makes trips to the east coast looking for investors, and seems to be quite wealthy. Tonopah is almost straight east of San Francisco. Sometime before 1910, however, one newspaper points out that though Thomas is no longer poor, "he held on too long in the boom times" to those stock certificates and his wealth is considerably reduced.

In March 1905 Thomas married Narcisse Newton Cohart in Vancouver, British Columbia. He had met her 20 years before while they were students in the St. Cloud (Minn.) Normal school. She was from Covington, Kentucky. In the meantime she had married James I. Cohart, a planter from South Carolina, and he died in 1903. She presumably died before 1920.

In the January 10, 1920 federal census of the Divide Mining District, Esmeralda, Nevada, Thomas, age 55 and widowed, is a lodger and a mine manager in the silver prospect business. It says he was born in Missouri (correctly) and that his parents were born in New York (incorrectly).

Later in the year, on July 20, 1920, Thomas marries again, a widowed school teacher named Dorothy Milton Wigstead (in some places spelled Wigstad). Their marriage certificate indicates (erroneously) that he is single (that is, not widowed) and correctly states that his father's name was M. Colehan and his mother's name was Mary Rooney. Dorothy was previously married to Daniel Milton, and the two of them adopted an infant boy, Leslie, in 1910 and then Daniel promptly died. (Dorothy's family trees on the Internet ignore the fact that she married Thomas.) Dorothy is shown in the January 1920 census as being widowed û this would have been from Daniel Wigstead û and again in the 1930 census (this time from Thomas Colehan), retaining her Wigstead last name in both cases. Presumably that Thomas died during the decade of the 20s.

With the exception of Thomas's two marriages, none of the other Colehan children married and none had children of their own.