John Mooney and his family

 

The recent discovery of my great-great-great-granduncle, John Mooney (1800-1889), helped fill in a hole that didn’t make sense.  I had once read in a biography of one of his nephews that his Uncle John had emigrated from Ireland to Canada but later joined is older brother in Baltimore.  My great-great-great-grandfather, Patrick Mooney (1801-1886) was the only brother that came to Baltimore and that was in 1852.  John, however, likely emigrated in 1821 with his brothers Michael and Lawrence and he doesn’t show up in any Canadian records like his brothers did.  Either he left Canada long before Patrick came to Baltimore or he only emigrated from Ireland in the late 1840’s or early 1850’s.  He didn’t show up in any Irish records in the 1820s to 1850s.  Also, I found very few John Mooneys in Baltimore in the 1850s and 1860s and none of them looked like they were born in Ireland around 1800 or could be linked to Patrick.

Based on DNA and circumstantial evidence, I am almost completely certain that my great-great-great-granduncle, John Mooney is the John Mooney who likely immigrated with his brothers in 1821 to Quebec.  Before the 1830 US census, John moved to the small town of Lorraine, Jefferson County, New York (1830 population - 1,727).  There is no marriage record for John and no birth locations available for his oldest three children but most likely, he came to Lorraine by at least 1824, met and married another Irish immigrant, Priscilla Cambell (~1805-1863) there and started having children in 1826.

John & Priscilla’s children were:

1)    Maria Judith Mooney (~1826-bef. 1855) – Maria married Henry Holley Whitcomb in 1847 and they had two daughters before her untimely death before the 1855 New York census.  There were only two descendants of Maria in my generation but at least one of them had five children.

2)    Elizabeth “Eliza” Mooney (~1826-18??) – Eliza married a man named Hawkins and other than her presence in the 1830 and 1840 census records, the only record I have proving she existed was John Mooney’s will which listed her as a daughter living at 401 West 23^rd Street in Manhattan in 1889.  Note that Eliza was not the Eliza married to David A Hawkins.  That Eliza’s maiden name was Flynn and she caused me a few hours of wasted work!

3)    Sallie H Mooney (1830-1850) – Sallie married Asa Dugan about 1849 and they settled in Lorraine.  They had one daughter, Harriet, sometime in July, 1850 then Sallie passed away on 31 July 1850.  It was a little confusing that on Harriet’s marriage certificate, she listed her Aunt Caroline Mooney Rowell and Caroline’s husband as her parents although I cannot find any record of Harriet ever living with that family. Harriet had only one son who died at 21 years old without a wife or heir.

4)    Caroline H “Carrie” Mooney (1831-1879) – Carrie was John’s first child that there is evidence that she was born in New York.  There was no evidence at all where the older sisters were born.  Carrie married Asa Rowell in in late 1850s and moved to Rome, Oneida County, New York.  There they had three children, William who died soon after his first birthday; Fred who I cannot locate after the 1880 census when he was 7 years old; and Emma who married Jerome Dillenbeck as his third wife.  I mention that because Emma Rowell is often confused with Emma Parmelee, Jerome’s first with.  That Emma was the mother of Jermoe’s only child named Parmelee Dillenbeck.  Young Parmelee was a high school football star but died in an auto accident just a few days before graduation.  He also died exactly one week after his estranged father died.

5)    John Edward Mooney (1833-1897) – John, the first born son, married Ann Elisa Fuller around 1857.  John and Ann had a son, Frank, in 1858 but he appears to have passed away by 1865 along with another child.  The couple moved from Lorraine to Tomah, Monroe Co., Wisconsin about 1866 and that changed their fortune.  A son, Fred Judson, was born in Tomah and lived long enough to have two daughters, a granddaughter, two great-grandsons and three more descendants in the next generation.  John did not participate in the Civil War and I can not find if he ever registered for the draft.

6)    Judson Wade Mooney (1835-1864) – Judson married Clarrisa “Clara” McDaniel by the time of the 1860 census where they were documented as living with Clara’s family.  In 1862, a daughter, Mabel Gertrude, was born. On 1 March 1864, perhaps to raise money for his own farm, Judson enlisted in the Union army and volunteered for the 20th New York Cavalry Regiment (“McClellan Cavalry”) for a $300 bounty.  The regiment spent the end of the war in eastern Virginia as an occupying force.  About ten percent of the regiment died in the final year of the war, mostly from disease.  Sadly, this is how Judson passed away, with typhoid, on 4 July 1864.  Clara married again in 1866 to a veteran of the 94^th New York Infantry, Hayden Strong, and she had two more daughters with Hayden.  The spouses of her three daughters is discussed below because of the uniqueness of the relationships.

7)    David Hawley Mooney (1839-1867) – David never married.  He enlisted in the 94^th New York Infantry on 28 December 1861. David mustered in on 28 February 1862 and during his three years in service, he saw a LOT of action and paid a heavy price.  Two of his more notable events during the war included being captured in Gettysburg on 1 July 1863.  Fortunately, he was paroled on 6 July 1863 when the Confederate Army retreated.  David rejoined the ranks and was later captured again on 5 Jun 1864 during the battle of Cold Harbor.  He survived the final year of the war in the notorious Andersonville Prison.  Sadly, life back in New York and the scars of war must have been very difficult for David.  He died just over two years after mustering out in Sackets Harbor, the location where he first enlisted.

8)    Trivillian Dayrass Mooney (1841-~1904) – I don’t have a clue where that name cam from but Travillian was the first of the Mooney brothers to enlist in the Civil War.  He joined the 94^th New York Infantry on 28 December 1861, three weeks before his brother, David.  Trivillian saw too much action for a twenty year old.  Like David, he was also captured in Gettysburg on 1 July 1863 and paroled five days later.  Cold Harbor, his brothers capture and the frequent other battles that the 94^th Infantry engaged in must have taken its toll on Trivillian.  In August 1864 he was given a furlough to visit his family in New York.  Instead of returning to the ranks, he fled to Canada where he stayed until the end of the war.  After the war, he went to Grant County, Wisconsin where he married Mary E Cook in 1876.  The couple never had children.  Mary passed away in 1903 and the last mention of Trivillian in documentation was in February 1904 in the tiny village of Patch Grove, Grant Co. Wisconsin.

9)    Priscilla Mooney (~1845-??) – I have not found what happened to Priscilla.  She showed up in 1850 and 1855, and possibly in the 1860 census but then fell off the map.

A special note about the daughters of Clarrisa “Clara” McDaniel, the widow of Judson Wade Mooney. Clara had three daughters, one with Judson (Mabel Gertrude Mooney) and two with Hayden Strong (Cora Adell Strong and Lillian Margaret Strong).

1)    Mabel Gertrude Mooney (1862-1941) – On 24 September 1880, Mabel married Joel Emerson Goodrich (1862-1924) from a respectable family originally from Ohio but relocated to Nebraska after the Civil War.  His parents were Joel Phares Goodrich and Mary C Elliott. They had four children.

2)    Cora Adell Strong (1867-1915) – On 3 July 1883, Cora married Henry Albert Goodrich (1855 -1913) from a respectable family originally from Ohio but relocated to Nebraska after the Civil War.  His parents were Joel Phares Goodrich and Mary C Elliott.  That may look familiar to you.

3)    Lillian Margaret Strong (1874-1958) – Thankfully, on 12 October 1892, Lillian married Albert Thomas Jones (1859-1934).  With only three sisters, they all couldn’t marry a Goodrich boy, right?  Lillian and Albert raised a family of five children before passed away at 75 years old.  Only then in 1937 did Lillian fulfill her true calling and she married Abner E Goodrich (1876-1952) whose parents were Joel Phares Goodrich and Mary C Elliott.  Tic-tac-toe!!!

Finding Another Mooney Brother

Usually, genealogy is a slow, difficult process.  Finding older generations and their missing siblings is almost always difficult.  Every now and then though, the genealogy gods smile on me and thrown me a bone with an easy ancestor.

I had spent hundreds of hours looking for the birth family of my great-great-grandfather, Laurence Mooney (1837-1900) and countless more hours documenting his parents and siblings as well as his Mooney grandparents and some of his aunts and uncles.  I had learned that Laurence’s grandparents were Richard Mooney and Margaret Mooney (yes, that’s also her maiden name), likely born abound 1770 in County Kildare.  Richard passed away before 1832 in Ireland.  I also learned the fate of several of their children:

1)    Lawrence (1799-1871) immigrated to Quebec around the 1820s, married Bridgit Byrne (1800-1885) and started to raise a family of seven children there.  Sometime in the 1850s Lawrence moved the family to Wisconsin.

2)    Michael (1803-1891) immigrated to Quebec in 1821, likely with his older brother, Lawrence.  There, he married Catherine McSweeny (1805-1862) and had two sons.  In 1836 he moved the family to Essex County in Ontario where Catherine gave birth to eight more children. 

3)    Patrick (~1801-1886) started his family in Monasterevan, County Kildare, after marrying Hannah Timmins (1807-1863).  In Monasterevan, Hannaah gave birth to at least 11 children although some died in infancy.    In January 1852, Hannah brough half of the surviving children to Baltimore.  Patrick likely brought the other children close to the same time but in a different voyage for safety concerns.  Patrick in my great-great-great-grandfather.

4)    Mary (1802-1863) never married and I know she came to Baltimore in the 1850s .  It is likely that she emigrated to Baltimore with her brother, Patrick.

5)    John – All that I had previously “learned” about John was that he “first settled in Canada but later joined his older brother in Baltimore” according to a biography written about Michael’s family.   The recent discovery of John’s fate is what prompted this post.

6)    Elizabeth – I am still looking for her.

7)    Bridget – I am still looking for her.

8)    Ellen – I am still looking for her.

So, how did I find out John’s fate and how easy was it?  I can tell you that it took less than five minutes and I was still laying in bed, early in the morning, when I found him.  I should, however, mention that I am only 99% certain that I have this John in the exactly correct spot on my family tree.  I am still looking for concrete proof but I am confident of his position.

As I often do when I wake up, one day last week I had a quick look at any new e-mails, messages and new Ancestry DNA matches.  That day, I had a new match who I will call JGG (to protect his identity).  JGG shared a hefty 24cM of DNA with me but he had no tree in Ancestry.  Normally, I would just skip over such a profile but two things stopped me.  First, I looked at JGG’s shared DNA matches he had with me and there were 20 matches, all on my father’s side.  Six of those 20 were known Mooney descendants who I had already documented.  Those were good signs.  The second reasons I decided to look closer into JGG’s connection was that his name was very unique.  In fact, I Googled his whole name and there was only one person in America that I could find with that name.  The top hit was his mother’s obituary that gave all her details including her father’s name, her mother’s maiden name and her full husband’s name, noting that all pre-deceased her.  After choosing where to start looking (by way of a quick “eeny meeny miny moe”), I searched Ancestry for her father’s name and quickly saw that his mother’s maiden name was Mabel Gertrude Mooney (1862-1941).  That looked like a good start!

Less than two minutes later, I saw that other Ancestry members had identified Mabel’s father as Judson W. Mooney (1835-1864) and her grandfather as John Mooney (1800-1889).  Was that really “my” John though?  It appeared so.  I saw documentation that he had immigrated to Canada first and sometime before 1830, he went to Jefferson County, New York.  I saw his will which identified “Mabel Goodrich [Mabel’s married name] of Cameron, Hall Co., Nebraska, the only child of Judson Mooney, a deceased son of the testator”.   Another source identified John as having been born in County Kildare.  Almost everything fits with what we know about the family.  “Almost” everything.

The only doubt in my mind is from the story about “John emigrating from Canada to join his older brother in Baltimore” has to be wrong.  John had settled his family in Essex County, New York before 1830 and lived there the rest of his life. He likely went to Quebec from Ireland in 1821 with his brothers Lawrence and Michael.  My ancestor, Patrick, only immigrated to Baltimore, direct from Ireland, in 1852 and was the only brother who came directly to the US.  Also, I have never been able to identify any John Mooney born around 1800 in Ireland and living in Baltimore between 1852 and 1890 that looked like he might be Patrick's brother.

With that doubt, why do I think that this John Mooney is placed in the right location in my family tree?  As stated, JGG and I have 20 shared DNA matches on Ancestry.  All 20 are on my father’s side where my Mooney cousins are.  Six of those 20 were known Mooney descendants who I had already documented.  If John Mooney is placed where I think they should be, a son of Richard and Margaret Mooney, that would make JGG my 5^th cousin. As JGG and I share 24cM of DNA, that is a more than typical for a fifth cousin.  Of the 67 5^th cousins I have identified on Ancestry, the range of shared DNA is 6cM – 69cM with the average being 19cM and the mean being 17cM.  By comparison, that same numbers for 4^th to 6^th cousins are:

            Number          Range            Average         Mean

4^th           47               9 – 62cM           23cM           20cM

5^th           67               6 – 69cM           19cM           17cM

6^th           133              6 – 34cM           14cM           13cM

While it is possible that JGG is a sixth cousin, it is much more likely to be a 5^th cousin, or possibly a 4^th cousin.  I have ruled out a 4^th cousin though as I have looked at his entire ancestry (I built a tree for him) and I know 14 of his great-great-grandparents and 24 of his great-great-great grandparents and there is only one Mooney in the lot with no other names matching my father’s ancestors.

I am hoping that more of JGG’s closer cousins get tested on Ancestry which will help prove (or disprove) the relationship but I am not hopeful for that.  Despite John Mooney having nine children, those children and their heirs did not produce any other large families.  It appears that John had only nine grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.

In another post in the near future, I will give some details of John Mooney’s children and some of the more interesting stories from that branch of the Mooney family.

 

Our Spaghetti Family

My family is not Italian but sometimes our ancestral lines look a lot like a bowl of spaghetti.

Once upon a time, Eliza E. McMillen (1888-1954) was my Granddad Gentry’s fourth cousin in the Timberlake clan.  She married Aldine Joseph Brenneman (1883-1968) on 13 Sep1905 in Auglaize County, Ohio.  Life got complicated after that.

Aldine & Eliza were “blessed” with a dozen children, but the ninth one is the one who caught my eye.  Robert Dean Brenneman (1922-1999) went on to marry six and a half times.  The interesting part is who and how he married.

Wedding #1 was to Erma Jean Colley (1924-2000) on 26 July 1941.  This was a good start to Robert’s marriage career.  At 19 years old, he had a solid job at the local locomotive manufacturer in Lima, Ohio.  Erma was likely still in school at 16 years old but, you know, “young love”.  Well, young love doesn’t always work out.  Within six months Robert had filed for a divorce for “gross neglect of duties” which was granted in February,1942.  Erma must not have been doing her homework.

Wedding #1.5 is complicated.  I threw it in here because maybe there should have been a wedding.  On 1 April 1946, Robert became a father for the first and only time (that I know of).  The mother was Fontella Newland Downey (1927-1990).  Fontella was also from Lima, Ohio and she had been married to Gail C Downey since 1942 but, “for some reason”, they were divorced sometime after the birth of their son in April 1945 and before the birth of his daughter with his second wife in 1947.  Fontella’s maiden name had also looked familiar to me.  I had previously seen that although Robert and Fontella did not get married when they had a child, the event likely brought the two families closer together.  In 1948, Robert’s older brother, Albert Dale Brenneman (1917-1989), married Fontella’s younger sister, Anna Faye Newland (1930-1995).  Albert and Anna had 22-year marriage that produced six children, including one boy named for his Uncle Robert.  I mention that as it might just come up later.

Wedding #2 was to Josephine Mildred Long Curl (1922-2023) on 3 July 1946 in Montana.  I wonder if Montana was where Robert was hiding out, only three months after his daughter was born.  Both Josephine and Robert were living in the small village of Darby before their wedding.  Anyway, Josephine was also originally from Lima, Ohio and she was a war widow.  Her first husband, Harold Curl, had gone missing during WWII and was declared dead in September 1945.  This marriage lasted longer than Robert’s first one.  After no children were produced but by the time of the 1950 census in April of that year, the couple had separated, and the divorce was finalized in October 1950.  They could go on with their own lives.

Wedding #3 was to Josephine Mildred Long Curl Brenneman.  You might recognize that name.  Josephine and Robert apparently didn’t enjoy living separate lives.  They married again on 13 February 1951 in Lima.  I guess they couldn’t wait until St. Valentine’s Day but four months after their divorce was finalized, they were husband and wife again.  Until, at least, January 1952 when they filed for divorce again. 

Wedding #4 was a surprise to me.  Robert was obviously looking to settle down and raise a family.  On 30 April 1955, Robert tried again and married a woman who was raising a nine-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.  If you haven’t figured it out already, his new bride was Fontella Newland Downey, his brother’s sister-in-law and the mother of his child.  I think this is called the circle of life.  Robert, Fontella and their daughter must have been a happy family as this marriage lasted all the way to April 1962 when the next divorce was finalized.

Wedding #5 was not a surprise to me anymore.  Sometime in 1965, Robert married Fontella Newland Downey again.  This marriage lasted another six years until November 1971.  The only surprising part was that it was Robert who filed for divorce, and it was Fontella who was charged with gross neglect and extreme cruelty. 

Wedding #6 can only be addressed if you are sitting down.  Six weeks after Robert’s divorce from Fontella Newland, on 8 January 1972, Robert married Anna Faye Newland Brenneman.  That’s right, his double (triple?) ex-sister-in-law.  Remember, Anna was the sister of his two-time wife, Fontella, as well as the wife of his older brother. Albert.  Anna was fair game since she and Albert had divorced in September 1970 when Albert was charged with gross neglect of duty.  Somehow, someway, Robert finally found his soulmate.  This marriage lasted until Anna’s death in 1995.  It must have made family gatherings a bit awkward for both the Brenneman and Newland families, but it at least gave everyone something to talk about other than politics.

*** As a bonus twist - After Fontella and Robert were divorced the second time, Fontella married Maurice Bernard Fuerst (1932-2018) in May 1973.  Maurice had been married with eight children, but he married Fontella just ten weeks after his divorce to his first wife.  To come back full circle, a little over five years after Fontella died in 1990, Maurice re-married his first wife.  What a hopeless romantic.  Maurice's obituary did not address his 23-year lapse.  That's okay though; you would not believe what Robert Brenneman's obituary glossed over.