I am named after my father, Pierce Doyle Graham, born Nanaimo, BC, Canada, 1908, to Thomas Graham and Ellen (Nell) Doyle. He was born in Dalmellington by Ayre, Scotland, in July 1867, she in Joliet, Illinois, in 1884 to Pierce Doyle, from Wexford, Ireland, and his wife who was a widow named Mary Shanks, from England. I have not followed her line, but I understand they had several sons, one of whom became prominent in the mid-west Catholic church hierarchy, and another who was involved in the founding of the Ryder Truck industry. Ellen Doyle (Gran, as we called her) left home in her early teens, and travelled in a covered wagon to Montana, with friends named Eadie, and became a live-in house-maid in a boarding house. That is where she met my grandfather Thomas Graham, recent immigrant from the coal mines of Scotland, who was earning his mining engineer papers. They lived in Montana for a while, then moved to the central Rockies area of Canada, then Vancouver Island, again in coal mining.
They eventually moved to Cumberland, on Vancouver Island, where he became Inspector of Mines for the Province of British Columbia, and survived a very rocky political and mine-safety regime, finally settling as Superintendent of Mines for the B.C. giant, Canadian Collieries, Limited, Dunsmuir (Scottish immigrant) from the same home-town in Scotland) He served as president of the north American mining engineers association, and was in Washington, D.C., when he had a heart attack which led to retirement. He died in Comox, BC, 1943.
All I know of Pierce Doyle is that there is a long line of them in North America, and in Carlow and Wexford, Ireland.
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Nell is 22 degrees from Herbert Adair, 22 degrees from Richard Adams, 27 degrees from Mel Blanc, 28 degrees from Dick Bruna, 26 degrees from Bunny DeBarge, 31 degrees from Peter Dinklage, 28 degrees from Sam Edwards, 26 degrees from Ginnifer Goodwin, 27 degrees from Marty Krofft, 23 degrees from Junius Matthews, 23 degrees from Rachel Mellon and 26 degrees from Harold Warstler on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.