Mortimer ("Morty") Moynahan (1833-1881)

Police arrived at the tenement house No. 445 Cherry Street in New York City in July 1874 and inside they discovered Mortimer Moynahan "in a dying state while the dead body of his wife lay in an adjoining apartment". 

The initial headlines of the day reported "Husband and Wife Commit Suicide As A Relief From Poverty"

Source: Clipped from Boston Post Boston, Massachusetts 14 Jul 1874, Tue  •  P

Something did not seem right to me about this story. As I dug deeper, and with the help of William Casey at the Skibbereen Historical Society, I came to learn that Mortimer Moynahan was a dominant leader in the Fenian Uprising in 1867.

Despite O’Donovan Rossa’s words, today Mortimer Moynahan is largely forgotten in all of the history books.  

I am so thankful that William Casey has examined Morty Moynahan's life and work in the hopes that it "will go a small way to redressing that ‘treason’" and I am happy to include Morty Moynahan's story in the Moynahan Scrapbook. section of my blog

The Minahan Titanic Story

I have collected A LOT of "Moynahan" stories  (and all spelling variants of the surname) over the years. The Moynahan/Minahan stories where I have not yet established a DNA or paper trail linking them to my Moynahan family roots are filed in my "Moynahan Scrapbook". 

This is the story of Dr. William Edward Minahan who decided in 1912 to take a six-month vacation with his wife and sister Daisy to their ancestral Ireland. While away, Dr. Minahan's sister Daisy was suddenly stricken with appendicitis while they were in Italy and Dr. Minahan rushed her to Paris to perform the operation.

Dr. William Edward Minahan

The family decided to cut their vacation short after visiting Killarney, Ireland and return to the port of New York to make their way home to Green Bay Wisconsin. They purchased tickets on the Titanic.

They were the only First Class passengers to board the Titanic at Queenstown (now called Cobh, Ireland). They paid £90 for their ticket and were assigned to cabin C-78

Part II: The Curds of Dover, England

My maternal grandmother Dorothy Claire (Moreland) Creighton (1909-2000) never really knew her mother Florence Mary (Curd) Moreland (1886-1915) because Florence died at the very young age of 28 years after suffering for two years with pulmonary tuberculosis.

Dorothy Claire (Moreland) Creighton (1909-2000) and her mother Florence Mary (Curd) Moreland (1886-1915)

What I love about the Curd family story is how loved and close Dorothy felt to her mother's sisters (Dorothy's three aunts: Frances, Alice and May) despite the fact that Dorothy's mother died when she was only six years old and Dorothy was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia and her aunts lived their entire lives in England.

Florence Mary (Curd) Moreland's sisters Frances, Alice and May Curd of Dover, England (Source: Chandler Family Archives)

An eBay Photograph Leads Me (Incorrectly) To Minehan DNA Matches

The Scene: It's Monday morning and I'm clearing my email inbox and I come across an eBay alert for Minahan's Wendell Inn at Crooked Lake, N.Y." dated 1914.

eBay Item: Antique Postcard: Minahan's Wendell Inn, Sand Lake,  New York, (note the Model T Car) ( $29.99 USD)

So naturally, I looked at all of the  Minahans in my family tree and ran some newspaper searches for the "Wendell Inn".

One thing led to another and, fast forward five hours later, this lovely 1914 photo had led me from New York to Massachusetts to Michigan to Texas and to several Ancestry DNA matches! I immediately created and posted a blog post in all of the excitement only to confirm hours later that the DNA match family tree had several significant errors

Below is the chronological description of my discovery, excitement and the reality check that all was NOT what it appeared.