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.