Disentangling Two Dennis Buggys

 I did it. I conflated two men named Dennis Buggy. I skipped the reasonably exhaustive research and made the assumption that two marriages of men with the same name, in the same place, but two years apart and with two different women, were for the same man. Reader Tara Lulich tactfully commented in 2014 that this might be the case, but I spun a narrative that supported my one-man proposition. Tara was right.

Recently researcher Jim Buggie of South Carolina focused his work on Alice Buggie, who appears in the 1900 census in Ansonia, Connecticut. If Alice was living in 1900, she certainly did not die, as I had proposed, between her marriage in 1854 and the 1856 marriage of Dennis Buggy to Catherine Phelan. Jim identified two Dennis Buggys, contemporaries who lived in the same area. With his help, I've corrected my blog. Here's the story of Dennis Burglee (also known as Buggy, Burges, Burgin, and Burke) of Ansonia and Derby, Connecticut, and Dennis Buggy (of this blog) of Naugatuck, Connecticut. 

Dennis Buggy, then of Oxford, Connecticut, married Alice Fagan in Derby on 23 September 1854. Two years later, also in Derby and by the same priest, Dennis Buggy of Naugatuck (Dennis of this blog) married Catherine Phelan. I assumed this was the same man who moved around a bit and remarried after his first wife died, a total mistake.

In his research on twenty-eight Buggy families, Jim found that widow Alice (Fagan) Buggie was living in 1900, still in Ansonia (near Derby), Connecticut, while Dennis Buggy, the subject of this blog, had migrated with his Phelan wife and family to Minnesota.

Further research identified Dennis Burglee, born in Ireland in 1830 and a resident of Derby and Ansonia, New Haven, Connecticut, from at least 1860 to his 1899 death. This Dennis and his wife had children as follows, all born in Derby: Julia (b. 1856), Nicholas (b. 1859), Mary (b. 1859 [sic]), John (b. 1864), Alice (b. 1868), Kate (b. 1869), Anna (b. 1870), and Charles Vincent (b. 1873).

Thanks to Jim, I've made corrections to this blog, both in the post about Dennis Buggy's marriages--here and in my conclusion--here.

For further information about Dennis Burglee and Alice Fagan, Jim's sources, and/or to discuss Buggy heritage, contact Jim Buggie at jbuggie@mindspring.com.