Kerrott/Carrott family (52 Ancestors #30)

This week's challenge for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is "Challenging".  Stating that "It's a good time to take a look at another challenging-to-research ancestor.  And it was true.  This was a perfect time to look some more at my Kerrott family.

I have recently renewed my search for the Kerrott/Carrott family.  For years I have known that my great-great-great grandmother Rosa Kerrott was born in County Down, daughter of John and Catherine Fagan Kerrott.  Rosa was born on the 14^th of October in 1814 and married Patrick Smyth on the 14^th of April in 1833.  They left for the United States the day after their wedding.  This information came from a Kickapoo Illinois Directory.  In 2002, I requested a search for the Kerrott name from the Ulster Historical Foundation in Ireland.  They reported that there were no records in County Down with the Kerrott surname name.

I renewed my search after remembering that Peg, my second cousin once removed whom I met in 1994 after I began working on my genealogy, told me that one of her cousins had named a daughter Kerrott (Kerry) after a teacher.  Peg didn’t know if there was any relation to Rosa Kerrott, however. Peg and all of her family were from Little Rock, Arkansas.  So, I began looking at old census records for Arkansas, specifically Little Rock and found from 1870 that John Kerrott and his family lived in Little Rock.  His wife, Frances, was a teacher. Thus began my search for the Kerrott name in the United States.  What I learned was that John Kerrott (living in Little Rock) was the son of William Kerrott.

At this point, I have identified a couple of siblings of Rosa Kerrott who came to the United States.  William Kerrott initially went to Canada, but moved to Minnesota by about 1857, along with his family.  By 1877 William’s nephews from his brother Edward M. Kerrott had moved to Minnesota from Canada. Edward had remained in Canada.

After the National Register of Ireland records were released a few weeks ago, I located Rosa Kerrott and Patrick Smyth’s marriage record in Aghaderg Parish in County Down Ireland. In that record, both Rosa and her father John’s surnames are spelled “Carrott”.  And I found that William Kerrott in Minnesota was a brother to Rosa.

I also have spent years searching for what became of one of Rosa Kerrott Smyth’s granddaughters, Katie Fox. Her mother was Mary Smyth, the oldest daughter of Patrick and Rosa Kerrott Smyth.  Katie was born in 1874 and by 1898 her parents and her five siblings had all died. In both the 1900 and 1910 censuses for Quincy, Adams County, Illinois there is a Katherine Fox listed as a servant in the SB Montgomery home.  Katie’s father, William Fox, had lived in the Soldier Home in Quincy until he died in 1898.

SB Montgomery’s daughter was married to Matthew Finlay Carrott.  Matthew Finlay Carrot’s family goes back to his father, James Finlay Carrott, who was the son of Fredric Carrott.  This Frederic K. Carrott landed in New Orleans in 1840.  He married Jane Finlay in Adams County, Illinois in 1843.

At this point, I cannot directly relate Frederic Carrott to my great-great-great grandmother Rosa Kerrott.  He was born in 1810, and she was born in 1814, so there is a good chance that they may have been either siblings or cousins.

There is still much to be learned and researched about the Kerrott/Carrott family, but this past year has led me to some information that I had not had before, so I am hopeful that perhaps the information will lead me to learn more about the family.