Dowling – Curry – Kelly – Gilroy

Your grandmother Margaret Mary Dowling's family — real, well-documented mid-19th century Irish immigration to NYC/Jersey City, exceptionally well-sourced compared to most of the tree.

What's in the name

🟢 Dowling in Ireland is the Dictionary of American Family Names reading: a shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Dúnlaing, a North Leinster name meaning “descendant of Dúnlang,” an early personal name. Patrick Woulfe (1923) lists the same stem — Ó Dúnlaing / Ó Dunlaing — anglicized Dowling, O’Dowling, Doolin, Doolan, and related spellings, pronounced Ó Dúllaing. Edward MacLysaght and John Grenham place the main sept among the Seven Septs of Laois, with territory once called Fearann ua n-Dúnlaing (O’Dowling’s Country) on the west bank of the Barrow.

That is the name’s Irish history. It is not automatically this household. This documented line is pinned to Dublin — William’s baptism and his death in the South Dublin Union — not yet to a Laois parish. Dublin is in Leinster, so Ó Dúnlaing is the default reading.

🔴 The English nickname Dolling (“dull fellow”) is a different surname. Anglicized forms can also hide Ó Dubhlainn (Galway) and Ó Dubhláin. Those are not collapsed here without a record.

The direct bridge to Robert

🟢 Margaret Mary Dowling's parents: John Joseph Dowling (1879–1970) and Anna Loretta Curry (1883–1957) — your great-grandparents. Exceptionally documented: 10+ census years (1880–1950), WWI & WWII draft registrations, NYC birth/death certificates, a Brooklyn Daily Eagle citation dated Sept. 12, 1943 (content not yet retrieved — free full-text search available via Brooklyn Public Library's "Brooklyn Newsstand" archive, 1841–1955). Settled permanently in Queens (Flushing/Middle Village) by the 1920s.

The historical circumstances of this wave — potato blight, Five Points, and the people who arrived before 1845 — are on Why they moved.

Andrew Curry — a complete Famine-emigration life arc

🟢 b. Nov 1830, Ireland – d. Jun 8, 1911, Jersey City, NJ

• Arrived 1846 — height of the Great Famine
• 1850 census: NYC's 6th Ward (Five Points district)
• 1863 Civil War draft registration, Neversink, NY (Sullivan Co.)
• 1880/1885: Jersey City
• 1900/1910: back in Manhattan

🟡 Hannah Gilroy (1801–1881, d. Jersey City) is attached in the tree as Andrew Curry's wife. That pairing is not trusted: she would have been 29 years older than Andrew (b. 1830), which is a classic mother-versus-wife merge. Her father is listed as Thomas Joseph Gilroy (b. 1765, Ireland). Treat Hannah as a real person in the Jersey City cluster whose exact relationship to Andrew is unverified until the original marriage and census household records are checked.

Andrew Kelly — Westmeath to the Lower East Side

🟢 b. Apr 4, 1832, Westmeath – d. May 14, 1901, Manhattan. Arrived 1860; documented 1860/1870/1900 censuses plus NYC death certificate. Parents Edward Kelly and Elizabeth Murray, both from Castletown Delvin, Westmeath — neither emigrated themselves.

William Dowling — the reverse-migration story

🟢 Baptism image opened 14 Sep 2026. Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers, 1655–1915: St Mary’s (Pro-Cathedral), Dublin city, Diocese of Dublin, 26 Dec 1822 — William Dowling, father Petr Dowling, mother Marcella Dowling, residence Nurnys Court. Sponsors/priest not legible. That is the Irish original. The GEDCOM date was right; the mother was not.

🔴 Anne Dowling is not his mother. The tree’s Petr × Anne pairing is a bad merge or a placeholder. Keep Petr. Replace Anne with Marcella. Do not hunt “Anne of Nurnys Court” as William’s mother.

🟢 Age on the burial index (~44 in 1865 ⇒ born ~1821) sits next to a December 1822 baptism. Workhouse ages are often off a year. Do not invent a second birth.

🟢 Arrived NY Jul 25, 1848. Appears in “List of Interred Soldiers of the U.S. Army, 1828–1888.” GEDCOM military date 23 Aug 1864 is the same day as the return — likely discharge. Departed back to Dublin, 23 Aug 1864 after ~16 years in America.

🟡 Death date: Ireland, Burial Index 1600–1927 (index only, no image) gives age 44, residence South Dublin Union, death 23 Jul 1865, burial St. James, Dublin. The tree had 7 Aug 1865. Prefer the index until the civil death image is on screen. Civil registration is on by 1864, so the certificate should exist on irishgenealogy.ie (free) — Ancestry’s civil-death images are behind World Explorer and are not required for that lookup.

⚪ A second baptism 22 Jun 1855 is still on the same GEDCOM INDI — merge or adult event, not a second birth. Extra spouses in the file are not de-duplicated yet.

Next Irish hunt (needs parish images): Marcella Dowling as mother in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in the 1810s–30s (William’s siblings), then Petr × Marcella’s marriage. Search list: Irish search from the GEDCOM.

Search list pulled from the GEDCOM: Irish search from the GEDCOM.

Ward / McGowan — pre-Famine emigrants, Staten Island

🟢 Francis "Frank" Ward (b. 1784) m. Celina/Sabina/Sophia McGowan (b. ~1783, Fintona, Co. Tyrone) — both born a full generation before the Famine wave. By 1865: Middletown, Richmond Co., NY (Staten Island). Daughter Ann E. Ward (1831–1915) arrived separately in 1844, married into the Curry family.

Vallaly/Vallely — brief Rhode Island detour

🟢 Andrew Vallaly (1820–1879, Ireland → NY) — 1865 census shows him in Cumberland, Providence Co., RI, before settling permanently in Manhattan's 22nd Ward by 1870.

⚠️ Data quality note

Martin Dowling's record is a merge of multiple different people (birth dates spanning 1845–1853, activity documented all the way to 1942 and a WWI draft registration) — needs untangling before trusting any single "fact" about him specifically. The GEDCOM names John Joseph’s parents as Martin Dowling × Ellen, m. 29 Jan 1869 Manhattan — that certificate is the first record that can split the merge. Do not jump John Joseph straight to William until it does.