James Edward Sullivan was born about 1866, apparently at or near Potsdam, St. Lawrence County, New York. He died in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on 7 February 1931.
His Ontario civil death record records his birthplace as Potsdam, NY, and lists his parents as Jeremiah Sullivan, birthplace Ireland, and Ellen Sullivan, birthplace Ireland.1
At some point in his early life (childhood? adolescence? early adulthood?) James Edward Sullivan migrated west, to East Grand Forks, Polk Co., Minnesota. Here he met Anna (“Annie”) Moran, a daughter of Alexander Michael Moran and Mary Ann Leavy, and one of the six of their twelve children who moved from Huntley township, Carleton Co., Ontario to the Grand Forks area (Grand Forks, North Dakota and East Grand Forks, Minnesota) in the late 1870s to early 1890s. James Edward Sullivan and Annie Moran married in Polk County, Minnesota on 26 June 1894; and the first two of their five children (Henry Joseph Sullivan [1895-1952] and Charles Alexander Sullivan [1896-1949]) were born in Minnesota.
In the late 1890s, the couple moved from Minnesota to Ottawa (Carleton Co., Ontario, Canada), where three more children were born: Edward James Sullivan (1901-?); Thomas Leonard Sullivan (1903-1911); and Evelyn Mary Sullivan (1907-1970). At least three (Charles Alexander Sullivan, who served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War I; Thomas Leonard Sullivan, who died in childhood; and Evelyn Mary Sullivan), but possibly four (Edward James Sullivan?), of their five children never married.
To further complicate the Moran-Sullivan, Ottawa Valley-Grand Forks story, Annie Moran’s sister Helen (“Nellie”) Elizabeth Moran also married a Sullivan, who also ended up in the Grand Forks area: Michael Joseph Sullivan, son of Timothy Sullivan and Hanora Enright, who was born at Ferguson’s Falls (Lanark Co., Ontario) in 1859. This couple married in Canada (St. Michael’s, Corkery, Huntley township, Carleton Co.) in January 1888, but were living in Grand Forks, Minnesota by 1891.
So two Moran sisters each married a man by the name of Sullivan, and these two Sullivans (one a son of Jeremiah Sullivan and Ellen; the other a son of Timothy Sullivan and Hanora Enright) were certainly not brothers. Was there any blood relationship between James Edward Sullivan, husband of Annie Moran, and Michael Joseph Sullivan, husband of Annie’s sister Nellie Moran? At the moment, I see no connection beyond that of brother-in-laws by marriage, except that they share the same surname (but it’s a very common Irish surname, of course).
I’m looking for more information on the parents and family of James Edward Sullivan.
- Was Sullivan both her maiden name and her married name? or was it, as I suspect, only her married name? ↩
