Caroline family descendants in Chicago

The family name Caroline confuses some, who think that it is a given name. It's also a surname though. The original Irish is Carolan. My forebears seem to have used the Caroline spelling even before they left Ireland in the early 19th century.

Three sisters, some of my 1st cousins 3x removed Granby-born Caroline cousin ancestors sought new lives in Chicago, which was, and remains to this day, a great Irish town. I first wrote about those Caroline cousins here.

The first of my cousins to settle in Chicago was Mary Jane Caroline (1843-1921), who seems to have arrived there about 1880, with her Irish-born husband, Michael Healy (1838-1905) and their five surviving children. Two more children would be born in Chicago. Michael reported his occupation as a carpenter.

Here is Mary with three of her grown sons in the 1920 census in Chicago.

There were no published notices when either Mary Ann died in 1921 or Michael died in 1905.

It seems likely that Mary Jane's younger sister Rose A. Caroline (abt 1855-1926) travelled with them as an unmarried young woman, as she also starts to appear in Chicago from about 1882.

They were joined in about 1885 by their eldest sister Elizabeth Caroline (1847-1906), her husband Thomas Robinson Hale (1851-1906) and their only son, Frank. Yes, both Elizabeth and Thomas died in 1906. Here they are in the 1900 Chicago census.

When Elizabeth died, there was just this small notice in the Chicago Daily Tribune:

Rose married Elmer E. Holden in 1886 in Chicago, she reported on a census. Here is Rose's 1926 death notice from the Chicago Daily Tribune. Here is one example where Carlin is used, although it is not a spelling that she used. And yes, she outlived both her sons.


Between the three sisters, they bore a total of 13 children, of whom 10 survived into adulthood. But of those 10, only three had children, and I've been unable to accurately trace those children.

Most of the Healy children, I found in my research, adopted the spelling Haley as they became adults in Chicago, making my research challenging. I imagine the name Haley sounded the way Healy was pronounced.

The bottom line is that the three sisters left few descendants beyond their own offspring. The trail ends. So far.

Like my Dougherty and McCorkell relatives who settled in Cincinnati, I'm left wondering what first drew my Caroline cousins away from Granby to Chicago.

The never ending story continues....


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