| Who are we? I mean, the Seibels and the Murphys? Much of what we know is word of mouth and not much concrete evidence. Luckily, I was able to track down bits and pieces from what my mom said, and from the work of others. Initially, I remember mom saying that the Foley name came from the french word for Foal ( Poulain ). Of course, it was inferred that this meant we were French. The long and the short answer is that we are ( if you are from the seibel-foley line).
When I looked up the genealogy, I looked at Foley. I then was able to go back to the name Poulin. The story I found was that a distant grandparent, Louis Poulin, was actually born Louis Foley, and was orphaned in Nova Scotia on the way from Ireland. When he was eighteen, he wanted to marry, but had no status. A man named Joseph Poulin from Quebec adopted him. He married Charlotte Gauthier. They had many children, but one of them was John Foley, also known as Nazaire Poulin. When he married Margaret Hamilton in St. Roche, Quebec, Canada, he then took to the Foley name, and they came to the United States. This "Foley Story" may be true, but the coincidence of having the name Foley, and the word "poulain" which means "foal" in english, is also intellectually troubling.
His son ( of 9), was Henry Foley, our Great Grandfather. He married Ellen Corrigan. Their children include our grandmother, and some of the great Aunts we knew like Sr. Elise, Aunt Mary, Katherine, Helen, Marguerite and Uncle Austin.
The Seibel side is more difficult. I know that we had great grandparents of Peter Seibel and Philippine Arnoldi. Peter seemed to have died in the 1890s, from what I can find out. My mom had a story about the death which I may post. Some of you many already know the story.
The Murphy side is also difficult. It will mean looking over there at records. Grandma was a Lynch, and we have cousins that include Scanlons on that side. We had so many Murphy cousins that for the most part, I only met first cousins. I have been in touch with the Murphys in Ireland, as have some of you.
I will update this as time goes on. I am hoping that other people will see this on the internet, and that we will get some interest and some facts to fill in the gaps.
If you know other stories and or pieces to this puzzle, let me know.
I will be providing some family trees as I get more bits from Ancestry.com.
Phil Murphy, November 17, 2008 _______________________________________
I was able to get a death certificate for Peter Seibel - identified on the Pedigree Chart as Johann Peter Seibel ( from the Morman Genealogy Site). If you want to know the circumstances of his death, email me. I will relate the story my mom told me!
I have sent an email to a Seibel ( Siebel is his spelling ), in Oldenburg, Germany, where the Seibels and Arnoldis came from. I will keep you all posted.
December 30th, 2008 _______________________
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