Week 31: End of the Line (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2024 Version)

The theme for Week 31 is "End of the Line." Do you have an "end of the line" ancestor -- one who you're convinced won't go any further back? What about an ancestor who lived at the end of a street, or one who lived in a small town where the train station literally was the end of the line? Check out all of the 2024 prompts here.

When I think of “End of the Line”, I think don’t think of my ancestors but of their descendants. Lines that end because they have no more descendants. Or what about lines that don’t have anymore sons who carry on the surname down the line. 

In my tree, I looked at my maiden name of Crinion. I have taken this line back to my 3rd great grandfather, Patrick Crinion and his wife Ann Dillon. I have found four of their children, don’t know if they had more. They had one son, my 2nd great grandfather and his three sisters. Thus, the surname only continues through his son.

James and his wife Mary Ann Mahon had 10 children with half being female and the other half being male. Their first three children died young and thus lost one of their sons. Their fourth child, my great grandfather David had two sons. The remaining three sons didn’t have children. Charles did get married but had no children. John, I believe had some sort of disability, such as being Intelligently Disabled, because after his mother died, he went to an Insane Asylum, which is not unusual for the time period for these individuals. Their youngest son, James, died at the age of 28, unmarried.

David’s oldest son Frederick had two children, one daughter and one son. While my grandfather, John Crinion had two sons. However, my father and his older brother only had daughters. Thus, the surname didn’t continue through John’s sons.

Looking at my grand uncle, Frederick and his son Harlan, who had two sons, however one died at three years of age. The youngest son, born in 1959, doesn’t appear to be married. None of Harlan’s daughters appear to be married either and they don’t have children.

Therefore, it might the “End of the Line” for the Crinion surname through Patrick Crinion. However, it isn’t the end of the Crinion surname through other lines. I made contact with someone who married a Crinion in Ireland. His family appears to descend through the older brother of my Patrick. Their line, inherited the family lands, and it goes from oldest son to oldest son. My contact’s husband has one older brother, who didn’t have any children. Sadly, he died and my contact and her husband have inherited the family homestead. They have two sons, who may or may not be married. However, they are at an age to easily be married or get married and have children.

I did a Google search and found a website (https://forebears.io/surnames/crinion) that claims there are approximately 656 people who bear the surname of Crinion. NOTE: you can change out the crinion surname with your desire surname and see results for that surname. I find this very interesting, and wonder what records they used to figure out this number. 

We all have “End of Line” branches to our trees, sometimes, this causes surnames to disappear for future generations. One reason, we can’t always use DNA based on surnames alone, I think we will have more surnames from our female relatives than our male relatives who are carrying on the surnames we recognized.

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!