Finding Winifred Mullen: A Long-Lost Aunt, a Boy from Mackinac Island, and an Unexpected Family Connection

My father Robert Kapple standing behind his sister around 1940 (about when Patrick Chapman visited). On right, you can see how much information I've collected on Winifred Mullen since earlier this month.

Winifred Mullen Found!

For years, my Great-Great Aunt Winifred Mullen was just a name in old Irish census records—born around 1892, living in Ireland in 1901 and 1911. I assumed she had stayed there her whole life, unlike her siblings—my great-grandmother Helen Mullen-Mason, her sister Bridget (who became Sister Mary Kathleen), and their brother Thomas—who all immigrated to Chicago (their brother Michael Mullen remained in Ireland until his death).

But Winifred had a secret: she, too, had crossed the Atlantic.

The Ellis Island Breakthrough

After years of searching Irish records for a marriage or death certificate, I finally found her—on a passenger list. In 1913, she arrived at Ellis Island, her name misspelled so badly that previous searches had missed her. Like her siblings, she was headed to Chicago.

But then… she vanished again.

The Chicago Clue

Frustrated, I turned to Ancestry family trees—usually a last resort due to unsourced information—and there she was: Winifred Mullen, married to Henry Chapman in Chicago in 1929. No parents listed, but the details fit (but her married name, Chapman, led me to find more records):

• By 1930, they were living on Mackinac Island, Michigan.

• The 1930 Census gave her year of immigration as 1913 (oddly her marriage record didn't come up in the searches until I included the name Chapman)

• They had a son, Patrick Henry Chapman, born in 1931 

And then I remembered something my father had mentioned decades ago…

The Little Boy from Mackinac Island

My father, born in 1933, once recalled a childhood visit from a young relative—a quiet boy from Mackinac Island, around his age. The boy, he said, was Native American, which made him wonder if we had Indigenous ancestry.

The family thought the boy hadn’t enjoyed his visit—until they heard he couldn’t stop talking about it when he got home.

Now, the pieces fell into place: That boy was Patrick Chapman, Winifred’s son.

The Métis Connection

Further research revealed that Henry Chapman’s family had Métis roots—descendants of French-Canadian fur traders and Ojibwe women on Mackinac Island. Patrick, as a tribal member, carried that heritage.

But our link to him wasn’t through his father—it was through his Irish mother, my long-lost aunt.

A Bittersweet Discovery

Winifred died of breast cancer in her 50s. Patrick passed in 2002, and his only daughter is also gone. I’ll never hear his memories of visiting Chicago or what he thought of my father’s family.

But this journey taught me something: Family stories hold hidden truths. A passing comment about a "Native American cousin" led me to an entire branch of my family tree—one that tied Ireland, Chicago, and Mackinac Island together.

If you’ve ever hit a brick wall in genealogy, don’t give up. Sometimes the answer lies in:

• Misspelled names (check every variation!)

• Unexpected locations (who knew Winifred went to Mackinac Island?)

• Family stories (even vague ones can hold clues)

• Indexing and Transcription Errors (errors in indexing can affect search results)

And if you have ties to the Chapman family of Mackinac Island, I’d love to hear from you. There are still more stories to uncover, and photos.

What Ever Happened to Winifred Mullen? Dealing with early 20th century Irish and American records

 

My Great-Grandmother Helen Mullen-Mason, Bridget (Sister Mary Kathleen), and Thomas, but not Winifred? 

 I've been researching my Irish roots for a quarter of a century. My great-grandmother Helen Mullen-Mason immigrated to Chicago with cousins in the 1890's. Her sister Bridget (Sister Mary Kathleen), and brother Thomas, followed a few years later. That left two siblings in Ireland, after 1911. Brother Michael inherited the family land and remained in Ireland until his death. What happened to their sister Winifred has been a mystery? I have not been able to find a marriage or death record for her in Ireland. Also, oddly, I have not found a civil registration birth record for her either? The other children all have civil registration birth records, even though they are wrong because the family registered the births late and wanted to avoid paying a fine. I've done lots of research in Ellis Island records and did not find her. Winifred has been difficult. 

Why have I researched the siblings of my great-grandmother? For one I'm curious about their lives and their relationship to my grandmother Helen. Did they keep in touch? Yes, they did. My father knew Bridget Mullen (Sister Mary Kathleen), his great-aunt. Apparently my grandmother, and her siblings kept in touch with Thomas, their uncle. I have not found any evidence they kept in touch with Winifred, however. Another reason to research these relatives is I have been looking for photos of my great-great grandparents who lived until the 1930s and I believe there must be photos. Photos, letters, or any information about them would be appreciated. 

The first mention I had of Winifred was in Bridget, Sister Mary Kathleen's, eulogy. When the 1901 and 1911 censuses for Ireland became available I found her on those censuses too. That's all I had about her. I decided to devote last Saturday to researching her. I asked the Gemini AI chatbot for advice on where to search to see if it came up with any new record groups? It did suggest writing to Sister Mary Kathleen's order, the BVM archives, to see if there is any information about her sister Winifred in her file. I wasn't going to get any information from them on Saturday. The AI also suggested getting the exact date of birth for Winifred. Unfortunately, 1892 is missing from the church register book. She should be somewhere in the civil registration books, since legally they were required to register her birth.

Old Irish civil registration records are available at the irishgenealogy.ie website. It's very difficult to find someone at this site because the search provides a limited sounds like search for surnames. If first names and surnames are badly misspelled you can't find them. When you click on a record you get a pdf digitized copy. You can't turn pages and look through entire years to find misspelled names. The only search parameters are generally the first and last names of the individual the record is for. Parents' names and other names on the documents generally are not searchable for birth records. There are boxes to search for parents, but those names were generally never indexed. The page before the digitized record generally had null for parents names. The only way to narrow your search is by the large civil registration districts. 

What you can do is  slowly search through the records, page by page. You can do that if you know the approximate year of birth, then you click on every name that comes up. Each digitized page has ten birth records on it. The problem with that is it will often involve opening, and closing over 100 pages. You'll be opening the same pages over and over again because there are a number of people on each civil registration page. After doing that for a while I decided to use the census records to find other people who were born around 1892 in the townland, and neighboring townlands, to pull up pages for the more specific area of Dunmore (I tried searching on Dunmore, but could only search on the larger Tuam area). I never found her birth record. Being able to narrow searches would be helpful. I have given up on finding her in these records for now. 

I moved on to searching at Ancestry.com. I decided to go through different record sets looking for her. I've been searching passenger lists for years and didn't expect anything to come from that search. I was wrong! Two Winifred Mullens immigrated from Ireland to Chicago in 1913. Researching in Irish records I found that Winifred wasn't a very common surname in the area of western Ireland, where my family is from. Two Winifred Mullens immigrating to the same city, the same year is very unusual, given that uncommon first name. 

Was one of them my Winifred Mullen? Yes, it was! Why hadn't I found this record earlier? Her surname was badly misspelled in the index. The place she was from was the townland of Pollaturick, County Galway, Ireland. Of course Pollaturick would have been difficult to spell, and generally my family would instead give the name of the nearest town, which was Milltown. Of course Pollaturick wasn't spelled correctly on the passenger list either. Now I know she was still alive in 1913, and came out to Chicago to visit the family or settle there? 

I was very excited to find something else about Winifred! I later realized I forgot to copy the second page of the passenger list. I went back to the passenger list search. I searched using the same names I used before. Only one Winifred showed up, and it wasn't mine. I guess the search doesn't bring her up everytime. There are glitches with the Ancestry.com search, and could be why it didn't come up for me before. I was able to use my search history to find it. 

Armed with this information I searched for a marriage, death, or any other record for Winifred Mullen. I found a marriage record from the 1920s for Winifred Mullen. I hoped this was my relative. I also saw that there was an obituary for her in the 1974 Chicago Tribune. The obituary index at Ancestry.com said she had a sister named Kate. I immediately guessed it was the wrong Winifred because she didn't have a sister named Kate. Then I thought maybe this is referring to Sister Mary Kathleen, and Kate was a nickname? There was also a last name, but it seemed to just be a jumble of letters.  I went to Newspapers.com to see if I could find the entire obituary. They didn't have the Chicago Tribune for 1974. I eventually ended up on the Newsbank, HeritageHub site. It didn't have a digitized copy of the newspaper, but it did have a full transcript of the obituary.  

After reading the entire obituary I realized this person was the other Winifred Mullen who immigrated to Chicago in 1913. She indeed had a sister Kate who did marry, so was not a Nun. She had brothers named Michael and Patrick. My Winifred had brothers named Thomas and Michael. 

Below you can see Ancestry.com had Kate's last name indexed as Onanagner, instead of  Gallagher. The obituary was probably indexed using AI. 

HeritageHub saved me the time and effort of trying to get a copy of the 1974 Chicago Tribune. I suppose the information at Ancestry.com was from AI. It would have been nice if Ancestry had a more accurate, and complete index for newspaper obituaries. Only one relative's name was on it, when there were also two other siblings in the actual obituary. 

I have not been able to find anything further on my relative Winifred Mullen, so far. The fact there were two in Chicago, who immigrated in 1913, and were born around 1892 makes it difficult. They were also around the same height. My Winifred was 5ft 6 inches, and the other Winifred 5ft 7inches. After the other Winifred marries it becomes easy to separate them. I will keep trying to find more about this mystery relative, as I wait for the 1926 Census for Ireland to become available which will provide more family information.