Kerry Chronicles: Nohoval Cemetery

In 2019, our brother Patrick Moynahan sponsored our very first trip to Ireland so that we could walk in the footsteps of our ancestors. Back home in Canada, our research has continued and the stories we find are being shared under the banner "The Kerry Chronicles".

My brother Patrick at the Rathmore cemetery in Kerry, Ireland in spring of 2019

Our visit to three cemeteries in Kerry, Ireland was unplanned. Nohoval Cemetery was the third cemetery we visited, wildly overgrown and extremely difficult to walk through. 

 

The three cemeteries in Ireland that we visited in 2019

 

We found many more Moynihans / "Moynahans" on that 2019 visit.

Since then, I have learned some new facts that I wished that I would have known before our visit ... and that I want to share now.

My brother inspects the headstone of Daniel D. Moynihan of Shinnagh Aged 92 (1816-1908) and his beloved wife Annie (Buckley) Moynihan (1826-1900)

I have pulled from many sources to write this Nohoval cemetery blog post: photographs from our 2019 Ireland trip; the Casey Collection known as “O'Kief, Coshe Mang, Slieve Lougher and the Upper Blackwater"; The Irish National Folklore Collection; Ancestry Trees and information from paternal atDNA and Y-DNA  testing results.

The Thomas of Cork - Found At Last!

In 1900, eighty-seven year-old Timothy Moynahan (1813-1902) sat on his Mercer St. (Windsor, Essex, Ontario) porch for a Detroit Free Press photographer to take his photograph. Speaking with a "bit of the brogue - just enough of the rippling dialect of the Kerry man" Timothy described his journey from Ireland to the Americas when he "was 9 years of age" in the 1820s.

 Detroit Free Press Detroit, Michigan 25 Nov 1900, Sun  •  Page 37

I first located this news article in the 1980s in the Detroit Public Library - Burton Collection and I was delighted to learn of the details of the voyage,  

"The Thomas of Cork, Captain Bamfield , master, was the ship upon which we sailed. She was an old war remnant, as slow as molasses in January and the trip occupied six weeks and three days."

"A lonely voyage it would have been too if it had not been for the fact that there were sixty-two women, a flute player and a piper aboard. The women were wives of soldiers that were serving the crown in this country, and they were coming over to join their husbands."

"Between the women and the musicians, the time passed pleasantly. The piper was an untiring Highlander, and he succeeded in driving all the rats from the old schooner. The music of the Scotch bagpipes will do that same you know.” 

For over thirty years I have searched every emigrant index in the hope of finding the ship "The Thomas of Cork" or the Captain "Bamfield" to no avail until this week when I found this advertisement on "Find My Past - Irish Newspapers"

 

Ontario Township Papers For Matthew Moynahan (1770-1860)

Piecing together the story of our ancestors has become increasingly more convenient as many records are digitized and made available online.

The Archives of Ontario's most popular collections have been digitized by Family Search International and made available for free.

Thanks to the Kent Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society, when I reviewed the Ontario Township Papers for Sandwich, Ontario, I discovered 23 pages of correspondence dated 1835 to 1848 from my 4th Great Grandfather Matthew Moynahan (1770-1860)

COVID Lockdowns and Genealogy Gold!

In 2020, because of COVID lock-downs and staying at home, I finally tackled a storage closet on my third floor that had boxes that had not been touched in over a decade!

I read and sorted through over thirty years of genealogy notes and letters and a letter from my first cousin (2x), fellow artist and genealogist Evelyn (Lennon) Janice (1916-2009) is pure gold.

Evelyn (Lennon) Janice (1916-2009) (lower left) writes about her connection to Timothy Moynahan (1813-1902) (seated upper write)

Evelyn’s letter connects the Maidstone Moynahans to Timothy Moynahan (1813-1902) who lived at the corner of Mercer & Tuscarora (Windsor) and had a spare room for a grand niece (Catherine (Moynahan) Lennon) who needed a place to stay so that she could attend Windsor Collegiate (Goyeau and Elliott)

Dr. Albert Eugene Casey's Blackwater Irish in Ontario

When my brother, sister and I searched for our Moynahan roots in Ireland in 2019, the Kerry locals directed us to the Sliabh Luachra area on the Cork/Kerry border. "That's where the Moynahans are" said the owner of O'Carrolls Cove Restaurant (Kenmare Bay) and sure enough, we found three cemeteries and many, many Moynihan's/Moynahans there.

See blog post "Try Where the Old Chapel Was at Freemount” .

I researched the Sliabh Luachra area and learned that this area was also the ancestral grounds for a Dr. Albert E. Casey (1903-1982), an Alabama pathologist, who collected Irish records from this area obsessively through the 1900s and published them in a 16 volume collection called, "O'Kief, Coshe Mang, Slieve Lougher and the Upper Blackwater"

Fast forward to October 2020, the Essex Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society invited the Olde Sandwich South and Area Historical Society (OSSAHS) to give a presentation for their October 2020 meeting and I learned that some other Irish settlers in Sandwich South (Ontario) were from the same Blackwater area in Ireland as well!. 

Source:"Casey Aid" by Michael Patin http://sites.rootsweb.com/~irlker/pdf/caseyaid.pdf

The Memoirs of James Moynahan Published On Amazon

It gives me great delight to announce that the Memoirs of James Moynahan are now available in eBook AND paperback form on Amazon. 

I am SO delighted to see this work published and available to others. 

I have been aware of the existence of these memoirs since 2002 when I was corresponding with Lynn and Andrew Muras' aunt June Frances Woeber (1930-2014). I regrettably lost touch with June, and I often wondered what could have possibly happened to those papers? 

Searching for the Descendants of Matthew and Catherine (Carr) Minahan

When I started researching my Moynahan family history, I spent all of my time looking through the historical records for Essex county, Ontario. Later, in the 1980s, I struggled finding records in Kent county, Ontario where two brothers, Matthew and Timothy Moynahan, moved to Tilbury and married two sisters, Catherine and Julia Ann Carr.

Today's blog post is about the family of Matthew and Catherine (Carr) Moynahan. The idea to write about them was triggered last February when I noted that February 1877 must have been a particularly rough month for this family.

Source: Windsor Star: The Vault: showing Main St. in 1887 with Essex county on the left and Kent county on the right.

Telling My Ancestor's "Settler Stories"

I believe in the power of story and the importance of telling family stories for future generations. Family narratives can aid in building resilience in children especially the stories about the hard stuff endured by our ancestors (like "we came here with nothing"). Hearing about our ancestor's setbacks and losses (and how they got through them) can be a "secret super power" for our children when they have to overcome some inevitable obstacle in their life.

I have been struggling to find a way to write the story about our settler ancestors in the context of the first nations people. Our present day awareness and important ongoing dialogues flowing from the 2009 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. make this an important and necessary part to include with our family history narratives. I want to show how the first nations existed and interacted with our ancestors ..... But how to do that with pure intentions, honor and respect?

To start, I have collected settler stories from various Essex and Kent county pioneers during the same time period of our ancestor's first arrival in Ontario.

The Moynihan Hedge Schools and Irish Education

My Kerry ancestors arrived in Canada without having had the benefit of an education. This was in large part the result of the Penal Laws. My Irish ancestors could not read and write when they arrived in North America (which explains the variations in the spelling of our surname Moynahan/Moynihan/Minehan)

In the 1800s, my great-grandfather John Moynahan became a teacher (with his sister Nellie) in Essex Ontario and education became a very important part of our family history.

This blog post summarizes what I have learned about education in Ireland before our ancestors emigrated.

Blessings: Distant Cousins Find This Blog!

When I started this blog in 2014 , I did so because I wanted to share the photos and stories of the ancestors with my family. With my blog, I could give a little bit at a time. A picture here, a story there, in the hope that someone out there would enjoy and appreciate what I was sharing.

I never knew at the time that one day I would be writing about what my blog has given back to me!

Through the "Blogger Contact Form", this past summer I met three distant cousins for the very first time:

1. June 2019: A distant 2nd cousin from our Foreman family tree contacted me
2. July 2019: A distant 5th cousin from our Colorado Moynahan family tree contacted me
3. August 2019: A distant 4th cousin from our Tilbury Moynahan family tree contacted me

The Blogger Contact Form

Donald Moynahan: Born Under A Lucky Star

This is a news story about a Moynahan cousin from Tilbury who appeared in the news in 1964 having been the sole survivor of a car accident that claimed the lives of four other persons.

In the final paragraph of one of the many news stories about the accident, Donald Moynahan said,

"I must have been born under a lucky star. When I was just a kid, I was in a car with my grandfather and my brother and the car was in an accident. Both my grandfather and my brother were critically injured and were in the hospital for months. I didn't get a scratch.

I guess I better touch wood."

The Windsor Star (Windsor, Ontario, Canada)
22 Jan 1964, Wed · Page 1

OTD: August 26, 1885 Denis Moynahan Died in Detroit

My daily genealogy practice since 2017 has been to create monthly calendars using my Family Tree Maker 2017 program that lists all of the births, marriages and deaths for the 3,072 ancestors in my family tree.

Each day, I look at the ancestors listed on that particular day and I:

1. honour them by saying their name and then looking them up on my Ancestry Family Tree
2. review all of the information that I have for that ancestor on ancestry.ca
3. search for any new information on that ancestor that may have become available since the last time I checked

Denis Moynahan

 My 3rd great-grandfather Denis Moynahan died on August 26th, 1885 in Detroit Michigan.

Celebrating 3000 People !

Yesterday, I reached a new milestone in my family history research when my ancestry account recorded 3001 people in my family tree.

OTD August 3: In Loving Memory of Hannah Moynahan

My daily genealogy practice since 2017 has been to create monthly calendars using my Family Tree Maker 2017 program that lists all of the births, marriages and deaths for the 2,946 ancestors in my family tree.

Each day, I look at the ancestors listed on that particular day and I:

1. honour them by saying their name and then looking them up on my Ancestry Family Tree
2. review all of the information that I have for that ancestor on ancestry.ca
3. search for any new information on that ancestor (shaking "green leaves") that may have become available since the last time I checked

I had been wanting to write about the Warnock family for some time and what better occasion than on the anniversary of Hannah (Moynahan) Warnock's death on August 3, 1948.

Source: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79808496/hannah-warnock

Nellie Moynahan'sTrip to Ireland and Scotland in 1908

My second great-aunt Nellie Moynahan (1865-1940) from Windsor, Ontario has always fascinated me growing up and when I heard that Nellie traveled to Ireland, England and Italy in 1908, I wanted to know more.

I am planning a trip to Ireland in 2019 with my brother an sister and we know that our Brennan and Moynahan ancestors came from County Kerry but we haven't located the exact towns in County Kerry. Did Nellie go to county Kerry? Did she visit any family there?

Ellen ("Nellie") first born of Jeremiah and Mary (Brennan) Moynahan & her brother (my great-grandfather) John Moynanan

Finding Our Moynahan Ancestors In County Kerry, Ireland

This blog post is one of several that I hope will assist me in locating the townlands and parishes of my ancestors in Ireland. My brother, sister and I will be visiting Ireland and staying in Kerry in 2019.

Kerryman Matthew Moynahan

My 4th great grandfather Matthew Moynahan (1770-1860) emigrated from county Kerry in the 1820s with my 4th great grandmother Honora (O'Leary) Moynahan  (b. 1774) and Matthew died in Maidstone, Ontario in 1860. Matthew and Honora had six sons and three daughters in Ireland.

Burial record: 5 Feb 1860 (Maidstone, Ontario)
Source: Catholic Church Records, Drouin Collection (1747-1967)

Finding Our Broderick Ancestors in Co. Clare, Ireland

This blog post is the second of several that I hope will assist me in locating the townlands and parishes of my ancestors in Ireland. My brother, sister and I will be visiting Ireland and staying in Co. Clare in 2019.

My 3rd great grandparents Michael and Margaret (McNally) Broderick emigrated from county Clare, Ireland in 1843 with my 2nd great grandfather Martin Broderick (born 1831).

2018 - My Top 5 Family History Discoveries

Photo taken at Mt. Hope Cemetery in Toronto, final resting place of Timothy Moynahan (1861-1941)

Patrolman Timothy Moynahan Robbed

I love reading old newspapers. I regularly buy a monthly subscription at newspapers.com and run queries for one month on surnames in my family tree.

A LOT of my greatest finds come from newspapers available for free online! (See my links below).

I was curious about this article about Special Officer Timothy Moynahan who was robbed in Detroit in 1911 while delivering the payroll to Detroit city garbage workers.

Source: The Amherstburg Echo, December 29, 1911

The article ends by saying that "Moynahan is a native of Maidstone township" which puts Timothy squarely into my Moynahan research files in Essex, Ontario.\

I found a photograph of Officer Moynahan with additional details on the robbery.

Source: Detroit Free Press; Thursday, December 28, 1911

Source: Detroit Free Press; Thursday, December 28, 1911

Moynahan On The Police Force More Than 30 Years

The Detroit Free Press article states that:
"With one eye gashed and completely closed, and his right nostril cut badly, Moynahan was taken after the robbery to his home 685 Seventeenth St in the police patrol. Moynahan was on the Police force more than 30 years...."

 "Every Wednesday for nearly five years Moynahan has carried the pay envelopes of these garbage wagon drivers to the station at at twenty Fourth St and the river. Three weeks ago it was moved to Eighteenth St."

Source: Detroit Free Press; Thursday, December 28, 1911

1884 Prevented Suicide

Patrolman Moynahan was written up in the newspapers again in 184 after he happened across a distraught woman on a Saturday night

Source: Detroit Free Press, Dec 15, 1884

Source: Detroit Free Press, Dec 15, 1884

1903 Timothy's Wife Committed Suicide

Unfortunately, Patrolman Timoth's wife Catherine (Murphy) Moynahan who struggled with mental health issues, died in 1903

On Catherine (Murphy) Moynahan's death certificate it indicates that the couple had seven children of which five were living in 1903.

Source: Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics; Lansing, Michigan; Death Records

On the 1880 census, there are three children: Cornelius, Felix and Frank. I believe that this may mean that Timothy's father's name was Cornelius.

Timothy and his family lived many, many years at 685 17th Street, Detroit Michigan and there were many other Moynahans in Corktown as well but I was unable to connect Patrolman Timothy Moynahan with our Maidstone Moynahans as reported in the Amherstburg Echo in 1911.

685 17th Street, Detroit Michigan

Timothy and Catherine (Murphy) Moynahan and family

Windsor, Ontario FREE Newspapers Links

(Windsor) Western Herald (Sandwich, Windsor) 1838-1842

From Google Newspapers

(Windsor) Windsor Herald 1855-1856

From Google Newspapers

(Windsor) The Evening Record 1893-1967

From Google Newspapers

(Windsor) The Windsor Record 1917-1918

From Google Newspapers

(Windsor) The Border Cities Star 1918-1952

From Google Newspapers

(Windsor) Border Cities Chrysler News 1925

From Google Newspapers

(Windsor) The Windsor Daily Star 1935-1959

From Google Newspapers

(Windsor) The Windsor Star 1959-1986

From Google Newspapers

(Windsor) The Saturday Windsor Star 1981-1986

From Google Newspapers

Miscellaneous Newspapers Links

• Newspaper: Detroit Free Press ($)
• Newspapers: Canadian Historical
• Newspapers: Detroit Indexes
• Newspapers: Google archive
• Newspapers: Michigan
• Newspapers: NY Searchable
• Newspapers: NY State
• Newspapers: Ontario
• Newspapers: Pennsylvania
• Newspapers: TorStar ($)

52 Ancestors: Week 6: Names

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks was created by Amy Johnson Crow and is a series of weekly blogging prompts to inspire genealogists and family historians to write about an ancestor and then share it online. The theme for Week 6 is "Names".

Today's blog post is about the old Irish name "Honora" which was the name of my 4th great-grandmother Honora (O'Leary) Moynahan.

 

The Old Irish Name: Honora

The name "Honora" was once common in Ireland.

Source: Photocopy of Irish Names

Source: Photocopy of Irish Names

Gaelic Names and Their Anglicized Versions

Census records, passenger lists, and parish records were either written in English or Latin (or in the case of Detroit and Essex county, Ontario, parish records were written in french). Never in Irish. The surname ALWAYS retains the English/French/Latin spelling. And so you see Honora written as Nora, Norah, Hannah, Anna ( even Jane, Jean, Joan!)

My 4th great-grandmother Honora (O'Leary) Moynahan on the 1851 census for Sandwich, Ontario (C-11720)

 Honora (O'Leary) Moynahan is found on the following records with many variations for her name:

• 1833: Detroit marriage record for her son Denis Moynahan she is recorded as "Nory Lery" "Nancy Leary"
• 1851: On the census for Sandwich Township (C-11720) she is recorded as "Honora"
• 1860:  Matthew Moynahan's 1860 Will #915 she is recorded as "Honora"
• 1861:On the census with her son Timothy she is recorded as a "Widow" named "Ann"

Name Variations and Nicknames:

From Old Irish Names: Varieties and synonymes of surnames and christian names in Ireland

From Irelandxo, here are some additional name variants for Honora:

• Hannah, Hanna  =  Honora, Johanna, Anna
• Honor, Honny, Onny, Noey, Norah  =  Honora, Honoria
• Noey, Norah, Onny  =  Honora, Honoria

An Irish ancestor’s first name might be the magic key to unlock the family’s story: their religion, economic status, place of origin in Ireland.

My 4th great-grandmother is my only ancestor with the name "Honora". It is a beautiful name and I hope to learn more about her life in Ireland at some point in the future.

 More LINKS About Irish Names

• Old Irish Names: Varieties and synonymes of surnames and christian names in Ireland. For the guidance of registration officers and the public in searching the indexes of births, deaths, and marriages by Matheson, Robert E. (Robert Edwin), Sir, 1845-1926 
• Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary M-Z  by Harrison, Henry, d. 1921; Harrison, Gyda Pulling, d. 1917
• http://www.irishgenealogical.org/sites/irishgenealogical.org/files/memsepts/2006274.pdf
• Hanora Moynihan - A poem by Francis Duggan https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hanora-moynihan/