Anthony Daley was born at Clarendon, Pontiac Co., Québec in March 1863, and baptized (Ste. Anne, Calumet Island) on 5 April 1863, with Michael Hughes and Elizabeth McCullough serving as godparents. He was the eleventh son and fifteenth child of Matthew Daley and Ellen Killeen.
He emigrated to the US (Michigan or Wisconsin) around 1880, perhaps with several of his brothers, and presumably to work in the lumbering trade. By 1895, he was a resident of Florence County, Wisconsin.
On 2 October 1895, at Norway, Dickinson Co., Michigan, Anthony Daley married Mary O’Donnell, daughter of John O’Donnell and Bridget Kale. From the Michigan Marriages, 1868-1925 database at FamilySearch, here is the civil registration of their (RC, performed by a priest named F.X. Bastien) marriage (click preview to see larger image):
Anthony Daley and Mary O’Donnell had a family of at least seven children, with their eldest child, a daughter named Donalda,* born in Michigan, and the other children all born in Wisconsin. They seem to have moved from Michigan to Wisconsin, and then back to Michigan.
How many of Anthony Daley’s brothers also emigrated to the States? In the 1910 US federal census for Waucedah, Dickinson, Michigan (sheet no. 2, family no. 22) Anthony (now Andrew) Daly and wife Mary can be found with six children (Denalda, Gerald, Vivien, Wayne, Anthony, and Debbe [listed here as a son, but possibly daughter Kathleen B.?), and with Anthony/Andrew’s widowed brother James, widower of Mary McHugh, listed as a “Retired Farmer.” Brother Dominic Daley may have ended up in Missoula, Montana. And brother Christopher Daley may have also emigrated to Michigan to marry an Ellen. In the 1880 US federal census for the township of Fraser, Bay County, Michigan, three brothers Christopher, Thomas and Patrick Daly, all born Canada and the dates seem to fit, are found working as Laborers in a lumber camp.
*One of my high school teachers (grade 10, homeroom) was a nun named Sister Donalda. I recall thinking at the time (o callow youth!…) that Donalda was sort of a funny name for a female. In retrospect, I remember her as a truly kind person, if sometimes a little bit cranky, and as an excellent history teacher. Viewing the 1900 US federal census return for Anthony Daly and wife Mary, with children Denalda, Gerrald, and Vivian C. (Wisconsin, Brown, Green Bay Ward 6, sheet no. 12, family no. 224) is the second time ever I have come across the name Donalda.
