www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West RE: Western Rite Orthodoxy

Tracing families in Ireland back to before 1800 can be difficult, but is not necessarily impossible. Catholic Church registers could not be kept during the persecution, but other documents were sometimes kept. One oddity is helpful - families who had been dispossessed of their land would nevertheless leave the claim, by will, in writing, through many generations.

Ultimately, of course, much also depends on family memory (remember Kunta Kinte?).

Fr. Serge

Bless, Fr. Serge,

Sorry, I've never had the pleasure!

Some years ago, my father's siblings travelled to where their grandfather was from, Inisbuffin Island. They met someone on the ferry from Clifton (where the main parish Church was) who knew of my grandfather's father, Martin McDonou(a)gh. They saw the house where he had lived, met some other descendants, but ran into the problem that the Church records from Clifton covering the period before about 1880 were lost when the place they were stored in burnt down.

On my father's mother's side, the Haggarty's, it seems they can be traced to about 1842 in Ireland. John married Margaret O'Neil, emigrated to Pennsylvania, and they had their first child on Jan 1, 1862. Later that afternoon John was impressed by the Federal Govt into service in the Mississippi Navy under Admiral Porter aboard the gunship, Carondolet. One of their children was my great-grandfather.

Other known names were Lavelle, Scuffle, Malley and Heaney. I think most were from the west of Ireland. They all emigrated to the Western PA area, chiefly Fayette county.

Best,
Michael

Alex,
Sorry that my reply took a few days, this weekend was my birthday and so I decided to treat my self to hiking and vistiing the Greel Orthodox Catherdral of the Assumption in Denver, Colorado largest and maybe most beautiful Orthodox temple!. As far as I know, those Western Rite folks who to honor King Charles do so in their private devotions. I do not, simply because I havent had the time to, but would like to seeing that his life seems to reflect much an Orthodox Christian can admire. -Adrien

Thank you Alice for you warm reply, I very much look forward to hopefully contributing what little knowledge I have-Adrien

Joe, thanks for your reply. Are you a member of any Western Rite parish?-Adrien

Dear Michael,

The Blessing of the Lord!

Don't give up yet. From what you mention, it appears that the parish records from Clifden were destroyed in the Customs House fire in Dublin - but, amazing as it may seem, it is often possible to reconstruct information.

Concerning the Hegarty - O'Neill marriage: this also could be a rich source. The immigrant ships kept records, and so did the American authorities keep records of who came in to the USA on what boat. So it becomes a matter of finding those records (by no means impossible) and then trying to match them with those in Ireland. The Navy will have records of who served when on the Carondolet, and often has records of what happened to the veterans. Key point: having done a tour in the US armed forces, JOhn would have been entitled to US citizenship, and there are American records to indicate this; you have only to dig them up.

Don't forget the Mormons - they have incredible quantities of genealogical information; some of it can even be accessed on computer.

Inisboffin? It might - I only say "might" - be possible to find something there with some digging; I have a contact or two in the Irish government with the department of the islands. But to dig for informaiton on Inisboffin, you first need to get every scrap of information available on your side of the Atlantic, and then visit here. Time-consuming but fun.

The O'Neils are one of the most important clans in Ireland, so it's possible that may prove to be a well-stocked lode.

Fr. Serge

Dear Father,

On my mother's side is a Thomas Daniel O'Neal, from Hugh Thomas, from Hugh, I believe, and they were in Cork for time before catching a ferry to the Other Side.

Do you have any idea whether or not the O'Neal might have been spelt O'Neal in Cork? or was that something that happened when they got here?

Thomas Daniel told my mother that his paternal ancestors left family lands, in Tyrone, in the hands of the English, and a familial head on the wall, and fled to Cork. Would the name "change" have happened then?

Mary

Dear Mary,

The "true O'Neill's" are all descended through the matriarchal line, as I understand.

Alex

Is this meant to answer my question for Father?

I am not quite sure what you are telling me, but I am truly dents when it comes to following the progress of the Pea. Nearly failed biology...once. That cured me but I am not a good one to be examining the jean pool.

M.

Dear Fr. Serge,

Thank you very much.

If you don't mind I'd like to email your response to my relatives, and let them see if they may have overlooked something.

Michael

P.S. In fact, I have examined military records of the Haggarty-O'Neil union, and we have a tiny obituary on her death in 1923. I've not heard that they approached shipping companies, and that might be a fruitful vein.

Must check the telephone book. But one way or the other, the spelling change will have occurred when somebody was forcibly anglicized.

Tyrone is a likely place to find the O'Neils - not the only place, but a likely one.

Cork? Hmmm. Again, I must check the telephone book and see what sort of O'Neil presence is currently in Cork. I'm mildly surprise.

Hugh, incidentally, is a traditional Christian name in the O'Neil clan, in memory of Red Hugh (no, he wasn't a Communist!).

with every blessing,

Fr. Serge

That makes sense.



I wish I knew more but I don't. Thomas Daniel was gone before I arrived. He was a tall man. Lost a whole leg late in life to adult onset diabetes. The only photo I have of him is diving into a pool on one leg. He wrote of feeling ghost pain from the leg but he was not externally bowed by the experience and was an active man till the day he died.

He lived in Johnstown, PA and survived the flood of 1889 by climbing to the roof of a fire station, being rescued from there and then helping others. He married a Welsh woman named Laura Jones who left him when he drank a tad to much. He stopped drinking for the rest of his life and when he went to get his beloved and their daughters, he doffed his cap to Laura, and butterflies flew out.

Pa Jones put all his daughters through college, and there were a considerable number of them. Seven I think. He educated his five sons as well, don't get me wrong.

Laura was the only daughter who married. Pa never let anyone come to the house to court the girls, but Thomas Daniel was not deterred. The other women all were private secretaries to great men, and politically active women of the day, and one was a research librarian. I look like her. She was a bit more plain than her sisters, who were truly gorgeous. She fell in love with a French priest-scholar and wrote a long essay about all of his finer points and the value of his research. I say that she fell in love with him because her heart lies between the lines and she cried when he finally left to return to France, after many years here.

My father's side of the family were O'Connors, Rankins and Doughertys. They were duller by half. Not stupid mind you. Just boring by comparison and not as interested in larnin'.

Isn't that awful to say about yer own kin? But its true.



I don't mind if you do check, thank you. But I have little to go on here.




Hugh is actually my favorite name, then Albert, then Harold, then Adrian, then Eli.

Harold?...yes...Harold. I named my cat Harry, after my spiritual father whose name dare never be Harry, but I like the name...so...there.


Thank you, and also with prayers and good will,

Mary

Fr Serge,

If I may be so bold, Red Hugh was an O'Donnell (The O'Donnell as it happens), not an O'Neill.

That's so. Hugh the Great was an Earl of Tyrone.

An O'Neill I fogot to say.

M.

All the geneology is somewhat confusing to those with East European roots. More than confusing, hard to make sense of! Maybe the thread name should be modified?