Anne Cooney

Life

How we know this: Strong for Anne’s 1888 birth and parents; the proposed Farley identity is unresolved and contradicted by two civil records naming Mary. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

Where they lived

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. 3 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.

Historical context

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

What we still don't know

• Resolve the Army-card Annie versus civil-record Mary conflict and find a record naming the American wife’s parents.
• Establish Anne’s death date and place.
• Anne's emigration is undocumented. The 1905 Lucania passenger was tested and rejected (wrong age, Philadelphia destination, and travelling to join a 'Sister Annie' when Anne is herself the Annie). No arrival record has been found for her.
• [ABSENT FROM THE 1901 HOUSEHOLD] The 1901 census of Peter Cooney and Margaret Needham's house at Derrycreeve holds four children — Mary, Thomas, Peter and Ellen — and **not this one**, who would have been twelve. The parent link here rests on a civil birth registration rather than on the census, and that is the stronger record of the two; the absence is noted rather than treated as a problem. Three of the eight recorded children are missing from that sheet and it would be worth reading the image to see whether the index simply dropped them. **Bridget, absent from the same sheet, has since been shown by her own birth registration and her Social Security record to be exactly whose daughter this archive says she is** — so absence from that household has now failed once as a reason to doubt a parent link, and should not be used as one here either.
• The Army file calls Andrew Farley’s wife Annie, while the 1920 census and Helen Bridget Farley’s death record call her Mary. Determine whether Annie was an error, an alternate given name, or evidence for a different Cooney sister; no record yet identifies the American woman with Anne of Derrycriff.
• The 1919 Annie Farley at 37 West 50th Street and 1929 Annie J. Farley at 13 East 63rd Street are Army-documented sisters of the soldier, but neither record proves that she was Anne Cooney born at Derrycriff in 1888.
• [NEGATIVE] The controlled 1930 East 63rd Street sequence contains no enumerated house 13; a vacant or missed address remains possible and this does not contradict the June 1929 Army letter.
• [CONFLICT] Anne of Derrycriff and Annie J. Farley are not proved identical. Annie J. Farley is also not proved identical with Mary Cooney, the civil-record wife of Andrew Farley.
• [CANDIDATE REJECTED] The 1905 S.S. Lucania passenger “Cooney Anne,” aged 17, is not this Anne. She was sixteen in May 1905, not seventeen; the manifest sends its passenger to 613 North 4th Street, Philadelphia, and no one in this family has ever been placed in Philadelphia; and the passenger was going to join her “Sister Annie,” while this Anne is herself the Annie — her sisters were Mary, Bridget Horan and Ellen, called Nellie. Recorded as rejected so it is not attached later.
• [RESOLVED] Anne's family has been found, and it was in Manhattan, not Ireland. An earlier sweep searched only Irish civil registers for Cawley births with a Cooney mother and returned nothing, which is why this branch stood empty for so long. A United States parent-name search returns four of her children at once: Michael Joseph (born 1911, died 1921), Edward (1916-1917), Martin (1920-1999) and Margaret (1921-1996). Search the country the family actually lived in.
• [BEARING ON THE FARLEY QUESTION] Because Anne married Michael Cawley and was raising his children in Manhattan through the 1910s and 1920s, she cannot also be the Mrs A. J. Farley of the Army file. That leaves her sister Mary as Andrew Farley's wife, which is what the 1920 census and Helen Bridget's 1921 death record say. The Army's “Annie Farley” looks like one sister's name attached to another's married surname.
• [CORRECTED, 6 August 2026] An entry on this page briefly identified Anne as the “Annie Farley” of her brother's Army file, and the Farley addresses at 37 West 50th Street and 13 East 63rd Street were reasoned about here for years on the same assumption. That is now excluded: Anne married Michael Cawley and their children were born in Manhattan from 1911 onward. The Army's Farley sister is Mary. The Farley addresses do not belong on Anne's page and any inference drawn from them here should be re-read with that in mind.
• Her 1910 marriage record gives her birthplace as "Islandeary Parish, Nerryrive, Mayo" — the clerk's hearing of Islandeady, and of a townland that is very likely her documented Derrycriff. It is independent confirmation that this is the right Anne Cooney.
• She was alive on 26 April 1950 and no death is recorded for her. Like her husband's, a death between 1950 and 1956 falls in the gap between the New York City index, which ends in 1949, and the New York State index, which begins in 1957.

References

1. [1] register image, row 112Back to citation 1a Back to citation 1b
2. [2] civil imageBack to citation 2
3. [3] index, MitchelstownBack to citation 3
4. [4] Graves Registration Service letter to Annie Farley, 37 West 50th Street, 1919Back to citation 4
5. [5] War Department letter to Annie J. Farley, 13 East 63rd Street, 1929Back to citation 5a Back to citation 5b
6. [6] Upper East Side Historic District report — 13 East 63rd StreetBack to citation 6
7. [7] Compiled property page — 13 East 63rd StreetBack to citation 7
8. [8] 1930 federal census — 13 East 63rd Street address checkBack to citation 8
9. [9] House/context image — 13 East 63rd Street, ManhattanBack to citation 9
10. [10] Michael Cawley and Anna Cooney marriage, Manhattan, 5 November 1910Back to citation 10
11. [11] Michael Cawley household, 1930 United States census, ManhattanBack to citation 11
12. [12] Michael Cawley household, 1940 United States census, ManhattanBack to citation 12
13. [13] Michael Cawley household, 1950 United States census, ManhattanBack to citation 13

See also

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