Excerpts from The Coyle Connection by Bernardine Lawler, self-published in c.1985:
...The Patriarch of the family, Bernard (pronounced Bern-nerd), was born on the 2nd of February in 1807, Knockaturly, County of Monaghan, Ireland. He emigrated to America from Ireland in 1831. The ship on which he sailed from Ireland arrived at Rochester, Monroe County, New York on the 17th or 18th of November in 1831. In 1834 he was in Canandaigua, New York working as a "house-keeper".
...Bernard Coyle was married (circa) 1835 to Jane Dunnigan, who was born in Ireland between 1808 and 1815. Bernard and Jane farmed in the Canandaigua, New York area. Jane died about 1848 as was written up in the summary of her son, Father Bernard W. Coyle (a priest) who wrote in the 1882 Clayton County Iowa History. Bernard lost little time in insuring for his (then) six little children and for himself, the services of another good and loyal woman.
...Bernard's second wife, Ellen McNally, was married to him on the 17th of March in 1848. Besides the six children Bernard had when they married, Ellen bore ten more children. There certainly must have been much want and hardship, but also care and concern and love and faith in that family that grew to be eighteen in number.
...In 1852, Bernard and second wife Ellen, plus the children, migrated from Canandaigua (no doubt by wagon train) to Dane County, Wisconsin, near Madison. Here they again farmed in the vicinity of Cottage Grove. At this address the last eight children were born to Bernard and Ellen. They lived at this address until 1868. Surely Bernard Coyle had a true pioneer spirit, for he decided to take his family on west where it was rumored opportunities were greater. So in 1868 they moved by ox team and covered wagon to Beaver Township in Boone County, Iowa. At that time the farm they bought was in Union Township but the boundaries were later changed. Not all of the family were included in the last move as some of the older children were already on their own.
...Three years later, Bernard Coyle, died at his farm home three miles south and two and a half miles west of Ogden, in Boone County, Iowa. He is buried in the Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery just west of Boone, Iowa. His second wife, Ellen C. (McNally) Coyle, died on April 22, 1909 and is buried beside him.
Bernard Coyle married (1st) bet. 1830-1832 to Jane Dunnigan
Their children:
1. Girl Coyle 1835-1841
2. Mary Jane Coyle 1837-1872
3. Charles Thomas Coyle 1838-1911
4. Rev. Bernard W. Coyle 1840-1901
5. Eliza Ann Coyle 1842-1871
6. Margaret Alice (Coyle) Barnes 1843-1894
7. Ellen Sherman (Coyle) McMahon 1845-1911
note: this is the last child born before the mother, Jane, died in c.1848. Ellen either didn't know her own birthyear or reported herself much younger than her husband...she was not born in 1851 as carved in her stone, she is reported on the 1850 census as 5 years old.
Bernard married Ellen McNally in 1848 and they had the following children together:
8. Patrick Henry Coyle 1850-1899
9. Catharine Lydia (Coyle) Hannigan 1851-1922
10.Edward Francis Coyle 1852-1920
11. James Edward Coyle 1854-1915
12. "Fi" Bridget Fidelis (Coyle) Lawler 1856-1927
13. Annie M. (Coyle) McElroy 1857-1941
14. Thomas Coyle 1859-1922
15. "Frank" Francis Joseph Coyle 1864-1906
16. "Bert" Albert John Coyle 1867-1910
17. Alice Jane (twin to Albert) Coyle 1867-1938