Week #3 of 52 Ancestors: Philip Joseph Sullivan (1911-1969)

First, let me just effuse about what a good exercise this is! By writing about an ancestor I take a critical look at what I've gathered so far. Things I may have neglected for years look completely fresh and I am inspired to search in the many databases that have been created since I last investigated. I find this preferable to starting over completely.

I get a lot of clients looking for Sullivans. And Sullivans, in Boston or anywhere, are tough to research. There are billions of them and they all used the same eight names. Jeremiah Sullivan is a popular one--nickname Jerry. The client I was working on today had a Jeremiah Jerome Sullivan, aka Jerry Jerry Sullivan!

Today's subject, Philip Joseph O'Sullivan, was my father's first cousin. He was the son of my grandmother Annie Josephine [O']Sullivan's brother, Jeremiah Sullivan, and his wife Roseanne Dunn. While he may not be in my direct line, I love him for two reasons.

First, he was born in New Zealand. Long ago I found in the 1920 and 1940 censuses that his place of birth was NZ. At first I thought it must be an enumerator error, but it wasn't, because his death certificate confirmed it [Mass. VRS, deaths, 1969, Arlington, 2:208]. Then a few months ago I stumbled upon an index to NZ births online, and couldn't resist, so I sent away for his birth certificate. So now, if I go on vacation to New Zealand, I have as a destination: Khyber Pass Road, Newmarket. I like that it provides his parents' ages, AND gives Rose's county of birth as Roscommon as well. I have read that many people from the Milltown area in County Kerry emigrated to New Zealand.

New Zealand, Registrar of Births, Deaths & Marriages, birth certificate, Philip Joseph O’Sullivan, reg. n. 1911006915, 

26 May 1911, Khyber Pass Road, Newmarket, son of Jerry O’Sullivan, 31, b. Co. Kerry and Rose Dunn, 30, 

b. Roscommon; issued 3 November 2014.

I have not seen any evidence that he ever married, and he was single in 1940 when living with his father Jeremiah and siblings in Somerville, working as general job man. I just noticed that for his brother Thomas the enumerator wrote that he had filed his first papers ("Pa"), yet he was born in Massachusetts.

1940 US census, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Somerville, Ward 7, ED 106, sheet 61A,
1256 Broadway, household n. 61, Jeremiah Sullivan; Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 19 January 2015).

The second reason I love him is that he was naturalized. My grandparents came in the late nineteenth century and never bothered, probably hoping to return to Ireland some day. I wonder if World War II had anything to do with him filing his Declaration of Intention.

There are a few interesting tidbits in this file.

• He arrived in Boston on 12 June 1913 from Queenstown on the SS Cymric, so his parents must have returned to Ireland before coming here.
• He officially changed his surname from O'Sullivan to Sullivan. 
• He claimed to be a chemist!
• Some time after coming to Boston he lived in Milltown, his mother's Irish home townland. 
• He was still not married and had no children in 1942.
• He had blue eyes, black hair, and was 5'7.
• He gained ten pounds between 1939 (140 lbs.) and 1942 (150 lbs.).
• Witnesses were Edward F. Woods and John E. O'Brien.

Even better, his paperwork had a photograph!

United States District Court, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, Declaration of Intention, Philip Joseph Sullivan, n. 282025 (red stamp), n. 146348 (printed in black), certificate, n. 5554477, issued 3 August 1942; NARA, Waltham, Massachusetts, received 30 August 2012.

Sadly, my first cousin once removed died without us meeting. He was only 58 when he died on 1 June 1969. Somewhere in a pile in my office is the transcription I made of his death, listing the cause. I imagine he had a hard, lonely life, ping-ponging between continents, working variously as a longshoreman or shipper (or chemist?) I just hope he managed to find a little joy and love along the way.

He's not American. Is he Kenyan, English or Irish?

How can one man be eligible for citizenship in four countries? Birthright, permanent residence, having a grandparent born in another country, or changes in governmental jurisdiction over the place you were born can all qualify you for citizenship. But proving that you qualify and applying can sometimes be a long and confusing process.

My husband is an English citizen with a UK passport and permanent US Resident Alien status. I am American, and our children were all born in the US and are also American citizens. Because children of British citizens are eligible to apply for a British passport, one of our sons asked me to help him complete a UK passport application. A US citizen may obtain a foreign passport without putting his American citizenship into jeopardy. It is not against US law to do so, as long as taking on the foreign citizenship does not require you to renounce the United States in any way (and it rarely does). A UK passport will allow him to travel and work freely anywhere in the European Community (EC) without first having to obtain a visa. This will be a great asset to him when he wants to visit his English relatives for a long period, or even work abroad.

In Ireland, Italy and elsewhere, obtaining a foreign passport is a two-pronged process. First you must prove your right to citizenship in the foreign country (and register the birth), then you apply for the passport. In the case of the United Kingdom, however, it can all be rolled into one step. There are usually a few ways in which you can qualify for citizenship. Most of the foreign passports I have obtained for clients are done by proving that they had a grandparent born in the foreign land. As long as that grandparent was not naturalized in America before the applicant's father was born, the applicant is qualified "by descent."

When our eldest son was born, I tried to have his birth registered in England. If I had been successful he could have just applied for the passport today as any English citizen would. Although my husband is English, he wasn't born in England: he was born in Kenya! At the time of his birth in 1960, Kenya was a Protectorate of the UK, which is why he was granted UK citizenship. All children born in Kenya at that time are eligible for UK citizenship themselves, but not all are able to pass eligibility down to their children.  The only way he could pass down his UK citizenship status to our children was if he were a UK citizen "otherwise than by descent," and that pretty much means either a natural-born citizen or someone allowed to qualify as such because of some special exceptions written into the law. The UK did not accept the application to register our son's birth because my husband was not born on UK soil, and thus they concluded he was a citizen "by descent."

But we got lucky and qualified under one of the exceptions. My father-in-law was sent to Kenya by the UK government to work in schools there, so my husband's birth is treated as though he were born in the UK, therefore he actually can pass down his citizenship status. When I originally tried to register our son's birth, I had not known this, but we now have a letter issued by the UK government which states that at the time of my husband's birth his father was in Kenya working for the UK government, so all I need to do is send that letter plus the original birth certificate.

The next obstacle is that I don't have an original birth certificate: all I have is a photocopy. I wanted to see how difficult it is to obtain a Kenyan birth certificate so I went to the central website for civil registration in Kenya. It looked promising –– under the proper district I got a name and email address (info@births.go.ke) and sent a request off to them. Sadly, my email was returned as "unsendable" a few days later. I  also checked the catalog of the Family History Library in SLC, and not surprisingly, they had no civil registration or church records for Kenya. 

Yet I knew that the British have been diligent about registering overseas births for many years, and on the Kenyan Consulate's website I found a very clear explanation of how the whole process works. I was then able to order two copies of his birth certificate (Certificate of Overseas Birth) from the UK General Records Office (GRO). I'm fairly sure they will not look at all like the photocopy of the one issued in Kenya. Once those arrive I can attach them to the forms, send photos, son's birth certificate, my birth certificate, our marriage certificate, and a big fat check to the British Embassy in Washington DC, and he should be good to go!

The funny thing is, my husband is English, but could have applied to become a Kenyan since he was born there. He could become an American too, and may yet. And in addition, since he has a grandparent (three out of four, actually) born in Ireland, he could also apply for Irish citizenship! So he could have four passports if he wanted! He's a simple kind of guy, though, and I suspect he'll stick with just the one.