Agnes Tobin – Eldest daughter of John Robert Tobin

Oral History and facts: The following account of the Agnes Tobin story is courtesy of the research of Judy Boyce (Seattle), Libby Tobin and Denise Tobin Shine (Melbourne) and Robert (Bob) Tobin (Missouri).

Agnes Tobin

Agnes Tobin was born in 1884/1885 in Co. Kerry, the eldest daughter of John Robert Tobin and his wife Mary Chapman. Her mother died after the birth of her youngest sister Mary. According to oral history, she grew up with her younger sister Eveline in the care of her aging Tobin grandparents, John and Ellen Tobin and her Uncle Patrick Tobin in Brosna, Kings’ County. Baby Mary was reared by the Chapman grandparents presumably in Co. Kerry.

The Census of Ireland 1901 shows Agnes Tobin (16) resident of a house in Kilfrancis, Shinrone, King’s Co. working as a Domestic House Maid. It’s safe to assume that the head of the family, Richard Wallace was her employer. The census was taken six months before Agnes immigrated to America.

The Manifest (passenger record) at the Ellis Island Museum New York, states that Agnes, paying her own fare, arrived in New York on September 20, 1901 travelling with her cousin Mary Ellen Clavin aboard the Teutonic. She could read and write. She was going to stay with her aunt Julia Clavin.

In February, 1904, Agnes is shown as god mother on the baptismal certificate of John Francis (Frank) Boyce, her cousin Mary Ellen Clavin’s elder son, at the St Paul the Apostle Church, New York.

Agnes married John Mawe Tobin (no relation) before 1907. They are shown as witnesses on the Marriage Certificate of her sister, Eveline Tobin to Frederick Brown in 1908 in New York. They had a son, John Edward 1907, who died as a child as the result of an accident in 1919.

A daughter Evelyn H. was born in 1910 and tragically died in 1911 of diphtheria. The children’s names are engraved on a head stone in St Raymond’s cemetery close to the grave of Julia Clavin, their great aunt.

Updated Information 2015

In December 2014, Denise received an email from Robert (Bob) Tobin, who had googled his paternal grandmother’s name, Agnes Tobin, and found the web site of The Undertakers’ Mother.

On reading the information, he felt that his grandmother and the Agnes Tobin featured on the site, were one and the same. His father, Francis (James) Patrick Tobin was born in 1912 and died in 2004.

With his own knowledge added to our scant records, we can claim Robert (Bob) Tobin as a ‘missing link’ cousin and descendant of the John Robert Tobin branch of the family!

Subsequently, during 2015, Bob Tobin has travelled to both Ireland and Australia to connect with  relatives he didn’t know he had and visit some historical family locations.

Bob Tobin has also provided several photographs showing a young Agnes, with her sisters, Eveline and Mary and with her husband, John Tobin.

John Mawe Tobin Manifest and Census Facts

According to the Ellis Island site, a John Tobin from Ballyduff (Co. Waterford) arrived in New York in 1899. He was 25 years old.

On 29^th June, 1910, the Manifest of Citizen Passengers shows John M. Tobin (27) and Agnes Tobin (26) with their 2 year old son, John (Birth Certificate produced) arriving back in New York on the S.S. Caronia from Queenstown (Ireland). The official stamp of ‘Non Immigrant Alien’ is stamped over their last permanent residence of New York, USA. They are also classed as Citizens.

Bob Tobin states:  One of the funny family stories was the arrival of Agnes Tobin at Ellis Island New York. The immigration people kept asking for her maiden name not the name of her future husband with whom she emigrated to the U.S.A. They called her a dumb mick.

This story obviously refers to 1910, not 1901, when Agnes immigrated with Mary Ellen Clavin. As an aside, we can presume that she was also pregnant with baby Evelyn, who was born in 1910.

In the 1920 census, there is a John M. Tobin who’s married to Agnes Tobin, lives in Manhattan, has a son named Francis and says that he emigrated in 1899.  The census says that Agnes is 32, (probably 36). They have a son named Francis J. Tobin.

The 1930 US census shows John Tobin, a 48-year-old widower. He’s living in Manhattan with his son Francis who is 17. It states John’s occupation as a fireman in an apartment house. (This apartment occupied the land where the United Nations building now stands).

The census also says that John was from Ireland and arrived in NY in 1910. (This date is obviously an error, as by 1910, John Mawe Tobin was a Citizen of the USA and 1910 was his second arrival in New York, not his first.)