Question

Is Deegan-160 the mother of Notable Margaret Sanger?

Margaret Louise (Higgins) Sanger, Higgins-2946, is  Notable.  Her (sourced) marriage license names her mother, Anna Purcell, place of birth, Corning, New York. 

Anna Purcell died at age 50, after giving birth to eleven children and enduring seven miscarriages, according to this website:  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-margaret-sanger-1879-1966/#:~:text=Margaret%20Sanger%20devoted%20her%20life,law%20was%20to%20break%20it.

Let's connect Margaret to her maternal line.

Answer 1

It would appear to me that Anna Purcell, the mother of Margaret (Higgins) Sanger, is a different Anna Purcell than Deegan-160.

In the 1880 census (as listed on Margareet Sanger's profile) Margaret was living with her parents Michael (age 34) and Anna Higgins (age 32) in Corning, NY. According to the same census (as listed on Deegan-160), that Anna Purcell (age 23) was living with husband Tobias Purcell (age 33) in Corning, NY.

Comments

I concur.  I am satisfied that there is no profile for Annie Purcell Higgins in wiki yet, so I will start one.  It seems she was born in Ireland about 1848, and that should mean that she and her family escaped the famine by coming to North America, as her husband did.  Annie's story is why Margaret became an advocate for birth control.  I am honored to add her to the wikitree world family tree.

Answer 2

Take a look at the new profile, Purcell-1606.   I have not found the death record but know it is possible to find.  It is found in a secondary source in her husband's obit.  Improvement would be appreciated.

Annie and Michael were children in Ireland during the famine, and Irish Catholic.  Annie would have some 18 pregnancies and die at 50.  Poverty, pestilence, overpopulation.   What a page of history for Margaret Sanger to try to rewrite.

Comments

Thank you for sharing your research.