Rosanna Fitzgerald

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Rosanna Fitzgerald (Cox)

Birthdate:
Birthplace: Lough Cur, Limerick, Ireland
Death: March 10, 1879 (42-43)
Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA (Died suddenly when she heard a rumor that her entire family had been killed in a train wreck on the way to their Sunday School picnic, the rumor was false.)
Place of Burial: 175 Broadway, Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 02148, United States
Immediate Family:

Daughter of Philip Cox and Mary Cox
Wife of Thomas FitzGerald
Mother of Michael Fitzgerald; James T. Fitzgerald; Thomas J. Fitzgerald; John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald; Michael J. Fitzgerald and 8 others
Sister of Margaret McAvinue and Philip Cox

Managed by: Private User
Last Updated:

About Rosanna Fitzgerald

It has always been stated that Rosanna Cox, the great grandmother of President Kennedy, hailed from Ballyconnell in County Cavan.

Digging through old records, a Fermanagh priest has made a discovery that contradicts this.

According to The Fermanagh Herald, Fr. Ultan McGoohan was perusing documents when he uncovered that Cox’s heritage stems back to Knockninny in neighboring County Fermanagh.

Fr. McGoohan, who is director of Pastoral Services in the Kilmore Diocese of Cavan, offered that the woman was indeed born and baptised in the parish of Tomregan. While Tomregan is now known as the Ballyconnell area in Cavan, during her era it would actually have been classified as Fermanagh.

To validate his beliefs, he found that Cox’s father, Philip, was also baptised in a Fermanagh parish named Kinawley. Subsequent evidence pointed to the family living in the nearby town of Tullymore East during the 1860s.

Fr. McGoohan believes that there may be some distant relatives to the Fitzgeralds still living in the Knockninny and Kinawley areas.

Rosanna Cox, born in 1836, later emigrated to Boston where she met and married Thomas Fitzgerald in 1857. Their son John Francis Fitzgerald later became Mayor of Boston. When his daughter, Rose, married Joe Kennedy, one of the most important political dynasties of the age was initiated.

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Rosanna Fitzgerald's Timeline