Andrew Joseph Farrelly

Life

How we know this: Strong records support Andrew’s birth and parents, his own 1920 household, Mary as his wife’s civil-record name, two daughters, self-employment and Jersey City residence in 1942, and his 1969 death. His wife’s exact identity and immigration chronology remain unresolved. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]

Work and occupation

• self-employed — 1942

  The employer field records Andrew Joseph Farley’s own name.

  Citation: 1942 World War II draft registration: Andrew Joseph Farley [7]

• Bank handyman, City Bank — 1950

Where they lived

• 1920: New York City, New York
• 1942: Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey
• 1920: 264 West 155th Street, Manhattan, New York
• 1880: Clara, County Cavan, Ireland
• 1940: Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey
• 1950: Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey

Use the place list first. The map below is optional.

The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 4 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.

Images of these addresses and sites

Insurance maps show a historical footprint, while recent street photographs show the site today. A recent view is not proof that the family’s building survives.

Historical context

These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.

What we still don't know

• Resolve the 1914 census arrival year against the 1902–1903 Jersey City directory candidates; they may be different men.
• Resolve the wife’s Mary/Annie given-name conflict and identify her Irish parents.
• Transcribe Andrew’s available 1930, 1940, and 1950 censuses, Social Security Death Index entry, and Jersey Journal-era obituaries.
• Search the offline Hudson County Court of Common Pleas Naturalization Records, 1834–1920, control CHDCP003—especially the loose naturalization papers, 1834–1906—for Andrew Farrelly or Andrew Farley.
• [HIS BAPTISM IS STILL NOT FOUND] The Kildallen entry of 4 July 1880 has been demoted to a rejected candidate: it predates his birth by six days and names Mary Boyle, not Margaret. A controlled sweep of 3,729 Templeport baptism rows had already found no Farrelly baptism for 1880. So the baptism of the man this whole American branch descends from remains unlocated.
• Resolve the wife’s given-name conflict: the 1920 census and Helen Bridget Farley’s death certificate say Mary or Mary Cooney, while Sergeant Peter Cooney’s Army card says “Mrs. Annie Farley” and later “Mrs. A. J. Farley (sister).” The latter is certainly Andrew’s wife, whatever her given name.
• Andrew’s 1920 census arrival year of 1914 conflicts sharply with the 1902–1903 Jersey City directory candidates. Those entries may belong to a different Andrew Farley.
• Transcribe and assess Andrew’s available 1930, 1940, and 1950 census entries, Social Security Death Index entry, and Jersey Journal-era obituaries.
• A thin family-tree profile named Kitty Farrelly as Andrew's spouse. Keep Kitty only as an unresolved lead: documented civil records identify Mary Cooney as his wife, while other evidence uses Annie; no record supplied here supports Kitty.
• [NEGATIVE] The parsed 3,729-row Templeport baptism sweep found no 1880 Farrelly baptism or Patrick Farrelly–Margaret Boyle couple; Boyle appeared twice as a positive control. This Templeport negative does not apply to Kildallen, where Andrew’s baptism was found.
• [CONFLICT] Record both dates: baptism 4 July 1880 and civil birth 10 July 1880, registered 17 July. A later reported civil birth date used to remain inside a registration window is a plausible historical explanation, not proof; the birth date is not changed.
• [CONFLICT] Baptism says Mary Boyle; civil birth and civil marriage say Margaret Boyle, and Clara matches across all three. Margaret remains the primary name while Mary is retained as a parish-register variant.
• [CONFLICT/SEARCH GUIDANCE] This family crosses jurisdictions: Andrew’s civil birth is Bawnboy superintendent district/Ballyconnell registrar’s area; baptism is Kildallen parish; the marriage is Cavan superintendent district/Killeshandra registrar’s area at Miltown chapel. Searching one district only will miss records; this is boundary guidance, not a contradiction.
• Andrew is absent from the 1901 census household at Claragh, where he would have been twenty. He had therefore already emigrated by 31 March 1901 — the first evidence for when he left Ireland. His passenger manifest has not been found.
• [CONFLICT, MINOR] His memorial gives his birthplace as Belturbet, County Cavan, while the baptism evidence in this archive puts his birth at the townland of Clara in Kildallan parish. Belturbet is the nearest town of any size, so the memorial is probably a townland rounded up to a place a stranger would recognise, but the two are not the same and neither has been made to override the other.
• [LEAD, NARROWED] Who lies at 1A in Andrew's grave — Holy Cross, North Arlington, Block 50, Section D, Tier G, Grave 10? Graves there fill from the bottom upward, so his 1B position means somebody is beneath him, and that person has no memorial. His infant daughter Helen Bridget was briefly a candidate and is now excluded: her 1921 death certificate places her at St Raymond's in the Bronx. That leaves his wife Mary Cooney, who died on 29 August 1949 and whose burial is otherwise unrecorded, as the obvious occupant. The cemetery office can confirm it in one enquiry.
• [SURNAME] The family used Farrelly in Ireland and Farley in America, and both spellings appear for the same people. This archive had ended up holding some of Patrick Farrelly and Margaret Boyle's children twice, once under each surname; those duplicates are now merged. The change was not made at Ellis Island — inspectors there worked from passenger manifests written at the port of departure and did not record names at all. What actually happened is the ordinary thing: an Irish name got shortened in American mouths and American paperwork over years, and the family went with it. Andrew's own records show the whole transition, Farrelly in the Cavan registers and Farley on everything after.
• [LOCATED, NOT READ] His 1919 naturalisation petition, certificate 92181, sits in volume 372 of the New York petitions (nos. 92101-92348). The index exposes his wife only as "Mary". The petition document names a wife in full, and often her birthplace and date — which is exactly what would decide whether his Mary Cooney is the Derrycriff Mary Cooney, and so whether forty people belong to this family. It is now an order with a precise citation rather than a search.
• [CONFLICT] The naturalisation index gives his birth as 3 July 1880; this archive holds 10 July 1880, which his own draft card repeats. Seven days apart. Either the indexer misread, or this is a different Andrew Farrelly — the name is not rare in Irish New York. Both readings are kept, and the petition image would settle that too.
• [THE 1A QUESTION] He lies at Holy Cross in Block 50, Section D, Tier G, Grave 10, position 1B — which means somebody occupies 1A in the same grave. This archive has wanted that name for a long time. His wife Mary Cooney is the obvious occupant, and if a memorial or interment card for 1A ever names her with a father, it would close the forty-person Cooney island. No Mary Farley memorial exists at North Arlington on Find a Grave; the Holy Cross interment records themselves are the route.
• The houses. The family remembers him owning more than one house in Jersey City and renting one out. The 1940 census sheet has columns for home ownership and value that the index does not carry, and a Lee Burger, 46, is entered on the same 1940 household record, which is what a lodger looks like. Hudson County deeds would settle it.
• The carpet business — routes tried, and why they failed. The family remembers him as a carpet layer with his own company, and the 1942 draft card supports self-employment: the employer field carries his own name. Against it, the 1950 census makes him a bank handyman at a city bank. Three routes have now been closed. Chronicling America holds no Jersey City newspaper at all, so there is no advertisement to find there. FamilySearch's city-directory collection holds exactly one Jersey City volume, 1922 — and its index carries only a name, a year and a place, with no street address and no occupation, so it could not show a carpet listing even for the right man. The only Andrew Farley in that 1922 book is married to a Lillian and is the Rutherford man, not ours, who was still in Manhattan in 1920 anyway. What is left: the page images of the 1922 volume, whose title promises 'a complete classified business directory', and Jersey City directories of the 1930s to 1950s, which are still in copyright and not digitised publicly.
• [THE ONE LINE THE NEWSPAPERS COULD REACH — AND THEY STILL SAY NOTHING] Unlike the Jersey City families, his Manhattan years are covered: he headed a household at 264 West 155th Street in 1920, and the New-York Tribune, New York Herald and Evening World all run through it. Searched on 12 August 2026 and nothing was found: "264 West 155th" returns no hits at all for 1915–1930, and Farley in New York for 1921 returns 643 hits dominated by Cardinal Farley and the politician James A. Farley. His daughter Helen Bridget's death is the specific miss — she lived two days, 19 to 21 June 1921, and no notice appears. A two-day-old child of a working Irish household was not news, and a paid notice cost money. [NEGATIVE, CONTROLLED]

References

1. [1] Index and image linkBack to citation 1
2. [2] register image actually readBack to citation 2a Back to citation 2b
3. [3] Locality keyBack to citation 3a Back to citation 3b Back to citation 3c Back to citation 3d
4. [4] 1969 death-index imageBack to citation 4
5. [5] 1920 United States census: Andrew Farley householdBack to citation 5a Back to citation 5b Back to citation 5c
6. [6] New York City Municipal Deaths: Helen Bridget FarleyBack to citation 6
7. [7] 1942 World War II draft registration: Andrew Joseph FarleyBack to citation 7a Back to citation 7b Back to citation 7c
8. [8] 1920 United States census image — Andrew Farley household, 264 West 155th StreetBack to citation 8a Back to citation 8b
9. [9] 1920 census index — Andrew Farley household and reported arrival yearBack to citation 9
10. [10] Bromley Manhattan atlas plate 44 — West 155th Street block, 1911Back to citation 10
11. [11] Library of Congress guide — interpreting Sanborn fire-insurance mapsBack to citation 11
12. [12] House/context image — 264 West 155th Street, Manhattan; address site, exact 1909 footprint not verifiedBack to citation 12
13. [13] Bawnboy and Templeport genealogy sweep — controlled Farrelly/Boyle negativeBack to citation 13
14. [14] Bawnboy workhouse death-register extraction audit — registers 1–13Back to citation 14
15. [15] Kildallen parish baptism register — Andrew Farrelly, 4 July 1880Back to citation 15a Back to citation 15b
16. [16] Irish civil marriage — Patrick Farrelly and Margaret Boyle, 8 May 1879Back to citation 16a Back to citation 16b
17. [17] 1901 census of Ireland — Farrelly household, Claragh, Bilberry DED, Co. CavanBack to citation 17
18. [18] Andrew Farrelly naturalization petition, New York, 1919 (certificate 92181)Back to citation 18
19. [19] Andrew J. Farley memorial, Holy Cross Cemetery, North ArlingtonBack to citation 19
20. [20] Andrew Farley household, 1930 census, Jersey CityBack to citation 20
21. [21] Andrew J Farley household, 1940 census, Jersey City Ward 10Back to citation 21
22. [22] Andrew Farley household, 1950 census, Jersey CityBack to citation 22
23. [23] Chronicling America coverage audit for this family's places, 12 August 2026Back to citation 23

See also

• Return to the Cooney / Farrelly branch
• See this family in the full tree
• Browse all original records