| According to our oral family history in the Chicago area, while
Tom Curran was in the Illinois legislature he had a cousin from
East St. Louis who was also in the legislature and who worked
together with Tom on many legislative issues. The story was that
the cousin may also have been named Tom Curran. In 1980, Loretta
McGrath told me that the Currans in St. Louis spelled their name
"Curren". However, when I visited the Currans in St.
Louis I was told that they had never heard of any such person
and that they never spelled their name "Curren". With
the help of my sister Loretta, I finally obtained the necessary
State of Illinois records and narrowed the mystery. The mystery
man was Charles Curren, a Republican Representative from Mound
City, Pulaski County, Illinois. (Mound City is about 8 miles
north of the southern tip of Illinois.) Charles was first elected as a Representative in 1912 and was re-elected in 1914, 1916, 1918, and 1920. In the official listing of Representatives, the surname of Charles was spelled with an "a" in 1912 but with an "e" in all later years. The census of 1900 spelled his surname with an "e" while the census of 1880 and 1920 spelled it with an "a". The census records of 1900 indicate that Representative Charles Curren was born in Illinois in July 1864. The census records of 1880 indicate that the father of Representative Charles Curran was also named Charles Curran and that he had been born in Ireland in the year ending 31 May 1834. The elder Charles Curran could have been an uncle of Representative Thomas Curran of Chicago. The records of the census of 1 Jun 1860 have previously revealed two siblings of Rep. Tom Curran's father that were not part of family oral history either in Chicago or St. Louis. They were Ellen Curran (born late in 1841 and lived at least until 1860) and Joseph Curran (born 1859 and lived at least one year). Finding another sibling would not surprise me. Sarah McKinley Curran, his mother, would have been about 18 years old when he was born. Furthermore, the elder Charles would have been 26 years old at the time of the 1 June 1860 census. It would be plausible that the elder Charles had already married and moved away from his parents. Perhaps to Wisconsin where his daughter Annie was born. The census of 1880 recorded that the elder Charles Curran (b. yr. ending 31 May 1834) was born in Ireland as were both of his parents. That would be consistent his having been born in Donegal before his parents (Denis and Sarah McKinley Curran) moved from Ulster to Scotland, their ancestral homeland. I note that Katherine Cummings (Curren) had a baby named Harold circa 1905 while Molly Finan (Curran) had a baby named Harold on 25 April 1904. It is unlikely that the two mothers (living at opposite ends of the state) had met in advance of the births since neither of their husbands was elected to the legislature until after both babies had been born. Of course, if their husbands were cousins, then they might have had some correspondence - or even attended a family reunion in St. Louis. As always, every answer poses new questions. |