The Storyline
"Real families.Real discoveries.Real stories."
Notre-Dame de Granby
For seven years, the identity of "Hammil, Thornton" in Owen Hamall's 1880 Chicago household remained a mystery. The answer came from Notre-Dame de Granby in Quebec's Eastern Townships—where William Thornton's 1881 marriage record named his mother as "défunte Mary McMahon." Twelve words in French proved William was Owen's half-brother.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series : Sacred Places
St. Mary’s Church, Inniskeen
On January 1, 1841, Henry Hamill and Mary McMahon were married somewhere in the parishes of Inniskeen or Donaghmoyne. The presence of 44 Hamill burials in St. Mary's graveyard suggests this was their family's church. Today St. Mary's stands as a literary shrine to poet Patrick Kavanagh—but its graveyard still holds generations of Hamills who never left this land.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Sacred Places
The Hamills of Donaghmoyne: Parish Churches of County Monaghan
Four marriages. Four DNA connections. One parish name on every record: Donaghmoyne. This comprehensive guide explores the overlapping parishes, surviving records, and cemetery evidence that help trace the Hamill families of south Monaghan—from the townlands of Dian, Drumaconvern, and Edengilrevy to descendants scattered across two continents.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series : Sacred Places
St. Anne’s Church : Heart and Soul of Griffintown
For 115 years, St. Anne's Church stood at the center of Montreal's Irish immigrant community in Griffintown. Here, in 1879, Mary Ann Hamall—Owen's younger sister—married William Byron, a brass finisher. The marriage record names her parents as "deceased Henry Hammell" and "Mary McMahon," providing crucial confirmation of the family connections documented at Notre-Dame. Demolished in 1970 for urban redevelopment, the church's foundations remain visible in Parc Griffintown-St-Ann, where park benches now face the former altar site.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series : Sacred Places
Notre-Dame Basilica : Montreal’s Mother Church
When the Hamall family arrived in Montreal as Famine refugees around 1850, Notre-Dame Basilica was the largest church in North America. Within these walls, they buried a child and a father, witnessed a widow's remarriage, and baptized the half-brother whose identity would remain a mystery for 170 years. This Sacred Places article traces the family's journey through Notre-Dame's parish registers—from Henry Hamall's death in 1854 to William Thornton's baptism in 1856—revealing the key document that finally proved the half-brother relationship at the heart of the Owen Hamall mystery.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Series: Sacred Places
St. Charles Borromeo Church
St. Charles Borromeo Church stood at Roosevelt Road and Hoyne Avenue for eight decades before falling to urban renewal in 1968. In March 1887, Owen and Catherine Hamall brought their daughter Elizabeth "Lizzie" to be baptized here—their only child christened at this parish. Today, the church is gone, but the records survive, preserving the memory of one of Owen's "lost children."
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
St. Pius V Church
On June 9, 1892, Owen and Catherine Hamall brought their newborn son Eugene to be baptized at St. Pius V Church—in the basement of a building still under construction. Eugene would live only ten months. This companion piece explores the fourth and final parish in the Hamall family's spiritual journey through Chicago, and the Pilsen neighborhood church that has served immigrants for 150 years.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
Church of the Holy Family : Chicago’s Immigrant Cathedral
Standing at the corner of Roosevelt Road and May Street, the Church of the Holy Family witnessed nearly 170 years of immigrant history. Founded in 1857, this Gothic cathedral was built with the nickels and dimes of Irish Famine immigrants—including the Hamall family, who baptized three children here in the 1880s. One baptism record would prove crucial to solving a seven-year genealogical mystery.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
Holy Name Cathedral
On August 13, 1879, Owen Hamall and Catherine Griffith stood at the altar of Holy Name Cathedral—Chicago's mother church, rebuilt just four years earlier after the Great Fire. Designed by Patrick Charles Keely with a 210-foot spire (the highest in Chicago), the $250,000 Gothic cathedral seated 3,300 worshippers. Nine months later, Owen and Kate returned to baptize their firstborn son Thomas Henry. This companion piece explores the first of four parishes in the Hamall family's spiritual journey through Chicago.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
One Parish, Five Destinations
DNA doesn't lie, but it doesn't always explain itself either. As I've worked to untangle the Hamill families of Donaghmoyne parish in County Monaghan, I keep encountering the same puzzle: distinct clusters of DNA matches pointing to relatives scattered across five American destinations—Chicago, Wisconsin, Joliet, St. Louis, and Montana. These matches trace back to ancestors who were married in the same small Irish parish between 1841 and 1858. The geographic spread raises a fundamental research question: How do we prove that families who emigrated decades apart were actually connected back in Ireland?
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: From Research to Story
Spools of Thread: On Holding Things Together, Imperfectly
Nine for dinner at my parents' rock maple table—both leaves extended, held in place with spools of thread. My mother's "company's coming" dishes. Her silverware. Her artificial flowers. The mechanism has been broken for years, but we make do. We hold things together imperfectly.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: From Research to Story
The Hamall Line: Henry Hamall
Born around 1817 in County Monaghan, Ireland, Henry Hamall carried his family through famine and across an ocean, only to die within four years of reaching safety. This documentary biography traces his 1841 marriage to Mary McMahon, their emigration during the Great Famine, and the blended family that would eventually solve a seven-year genealogical mystery.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
The Hamall Line: Owen Hamall
Owen Hamall was born in 1847 in County Monaghan, Ireland—the year the Great Famine reached its devastating peak. He survived the emigration to Montreal, his father's early death, and his mother's remarriage that created a blended family. In Chicago, he built a life as an iron molder, married Kate Griffith, and had six children. Then tragedy struck: four children died within ten months. Owen went blind, appeared on Chicago's "Destitute List," and died at 51. A mysterious census entry—"Hammil, Thornton"—took seven years to solve, finally revealing the half-brother hidden in plain sight since 1880.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
The Hamall Line: Thomas Henry Hamall
A mill worker's son who lost four siblings by age thirteen, Thomas Henry Hamall built a cottage in Riverside, Illinois for $300—then fought all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court to keep it. His 1928 victory in Hamall v. Petru created legal precedent still cited today, and the property he protected passed through three generations of Thomas Hamalls across 87 years.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
The Hamall Line: Thomas Eugene Hamall
He wrote that he didn't think he could attend. But there he is in the photograph, standing next to his ex-wife at their son's wedding. From bank teller to milkman to nurseryman, from Chicago to Miami, from divorce to reconciliation—this is the story of Thomas Eugene Hamall, the father who tried.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies — From Research to Story
The Hamall Line: Thomas Kenny Hamall
Episode 5 of The Hamall Line Documentary Biography Series traces Thomas Kenny Hamall's young life from his 1932 birth in Evanston through his 1957 engagement at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Through birth certificates, census records, photographs, and his own handwritten autobiographical notes, we reconstruct the story of a boy uprooted by divorce at age nine who found stability with his Kenny grandparents in Miami, discovered a calling to the priesthood, served in the U.S. Navy, and ultimately built the foundation for the family man he would become.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story
Thanksgiving Treasures from the Recipe Box
Every family has them—those yellowed recipe clippings tucked into cookbooks, handwritten cards passed down through generations. This Thanksgiving, I'm sharing favorites from my own collection, from the wild rice stuffing that's been on our table since 1986 to memories of Grandmother O'Brien's mashed turnips.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: From Research to Story
When the Record Doesn’t Exist: A Lesson in Documenting Negative Evidence
Learn how to turn "No Record Found" into valuable evidence. This case study follows Elizabeth Hamall's missing 1887 Chicago birth certificate, showing how baptism records, cemetery cards, and documented negative searches tell a complete story when vital records don't exist. A professional genealogy methodology lesson.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Series: Finding the Lost. Documenting the Found. Honoring Them All.
Three Generations of Shrinking and Expanding
The Hamall family nearly died out. From Kate's six children in the 1880s, the Thomas Henry Hamall line eventually narrowed to just one great-grandchild—Thomas Kenny. And then he had six children. That's how close this family came to extinction. That's how much one generation can change everything.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Series: proving that the stories worth telling are the ones that can be proven true.
The Father Who Tried
The wedding photo proves he was there. The Miami records show he moved 1,200 miles to be in the same city as his son. The newspaper clippings prove he rebuilt his life after devastating loss. They were together in the early 1950s—father and son, both adults, both working in Miami. Then in 1957, a career transfer moved his son away. The distance wasn't abandonment—it was logistics, career mobility, and the complications of life. And the pocket watch with the initials TEH, worn to every daughter's wedding, proves the connection endured. This is the story of Thomas Eugene Hamall—the father who tried.
Part of the Storyline Genealogy Case Studies Series: Three Thomas Hamalls – Examining how economic devastation, career mobility, and geographic distance shaped a father-son relationship across decades—and how a pocket watch tells the story effort and connection endured.