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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

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The Sailors’ Church: Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours

Thomas Patrick Kenny was six or seven years old when his widowed mother gathered her children for the long journey from Prince Edward Island to Chicago. Decades later, he still remembered stopping at a church in Quebec where tiny ships hung from the ceiling, floating in the candlelit air like prayers made visible. The church was Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours—the "Sailors' Church."

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Sacred Places

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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

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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

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Saint-Paul-de-Joliette : Where the Story Begins

On October 10, 1798, a voyageur named Gabriel Guilbault brought three children to Saint-Paul-de-Joliette for baptism. They had been born and "ondoyé" (emergency baptized) in the pays d'en haut—the upper country of the fur trade. Their mother was identified as "Josephte Sauvagesse de la nation des Sauteux"—the first documented reference to her Indigenous identity. The story of Marie Josephte Abitakijikokwe begins here.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series : Sacred Places

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Sainte-Madeleine-de-Rigaud : Where Her Name Was Lost

In 1801, Father Leclerc at Oka carefully recorded her full Ojibwe name: Marie Josephte Abitakijikokwe de la Nation Sauteuse. Twelve years later, when she was buried at Rigaud, she had become simply "Marie Josette Sauvagesse de nation"—an Indigenous woman, unnamed. The contrast tells the story of colonial record-keeping and the erasure of Indigenous identity.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series : Sacred Spaces

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L’Annonciation d’Oka : Mission of the Lake of Two Mountains

For three centuries, this Sulpician mission has stood at the confluence of Indigenous and French Canadian cultures. Here, on January 27, 1801, Father Leclerc did something extraordinary: he recorded the full Ojibwe name of an Indigenous bride—Marie Josephte Abitakijikokwe de la Nation Sauteuse sur le lac Supérieur—preserving her identity when most priests simply wrote "Sauvagesse."

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series : Sacred Spaces

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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

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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