The Irish Immigrants, continued: James Markham and Hannah Hennessy

In conversing via Skype with Anne Lucia (Lufkin) Haley today, we found a bit of information.
Some of it has been incorporated into corrections on the previous two posts. But we did find a link to a plan of the ship that James Markham sailed on (as a steerage passenger) from Liverpool to NYC.

And I had a lovely conversation last week with an Irish friend: The Rev. Joseph Bergin is a retired priest in the Episcopal Church whom I have known for the 20 years I've been in this diocese. Joe was raised in Ireland and lived and worked there until his 40s, I think. Joe studied Gaelic in school (it was a required course, but he really loved it,) and tells me that he sees Markham as an Irish name. He pronounced it for me as it would be in Gaelic, with the 'k' as a German 'ch' is pronounced in High German. Joe also said that it would have been very common for Irish persons to ship out from Liverpool, as there is a great deal of coming and going between Ireland and Liverpool, and many Irish living in Liverpool. So it was no surprise to Joe that James would have shipped out from Liverpool.
Here's a photo entitled: The Embarkation: Waterloo Docks, Liverpool 1850. I imagine both James and Hannah making their way through the clamor.

So we know more about James Markham (father of James Edwin Markham, who was my great-grandfather). But what about Hannah? Anne has for many years thought of James Markham's wife as Hannah Hogan, because that is the name on James Edwin Markham's death certificate. But it seems that my research has pointed in the correct direction by identifying her as Hannah Hennessey. Thus the link in the previous post to the list of names in Holy Cross cemetery. But that still leaves the problem of when Hannah crossed over from Ireland, and that mystery is not solved.

Anne and I looked up Irish emigrants on line, and found five Hannah Hennessys (Hannahs Hennessy?) on ship manifests from the era. Two of them arrived a few years before Hannah and James married, and before their first child was born. But the ages of the two Hannahs is not quite right. So often, the handwritten ledgers of the time have been mis-read by transcribers that perhaps the Hannah who is listed as 30 years old was actually 20 years old (so easy to misread a 2 for a 3). In that case, she arrived May 13, 1850, having sailed from Liverpool to New York on the Masonic. That is my current favorite possibility.

However, it is also possible that her name was misspelled on the ship manifest, or, again, mis-transcribed. In which case we probably can't find her.

So for you descendants of James Markham Lufkin, Hennessy and Markham are your Irish antecedents. Go have a Guinness! Or a Hennessy!