Category: Mooney

Can you believe it’s been ten years since I discovered the connection of our family to the Irish Mooney name?  It still seems like new information to me.  But I wrote a blog post about it ten years ago and it included the same photo that I’m posting today.  It’s a photo of Mary Ann McGrath Bucklin, who was the daughter of Maria Ettadosia Mooney McGrath.  Mary Ann was my great great grandmother and Maria Ettadosia was one generation back.

I had known about Mary Ann for a long time.  My mom had her name and the name of her husband Edward McGrath.  Edward and Maria Ettadosia brought their family from Ireland around 1850 and settled in Palmer, Massachusetts.  I’ve never been able to figure out the exact year that they immigrated.  I thought that I would figure it out sooner, but that bit of information has eluded me.

The 1900 Census has three columns relating to that information.  It asks for year of immigration, number of years in the US, and date of naturalization.  Sadly, Mary Ann died in April of 1900 and the Census wasn’t taken until June or July of that year.  Most of her siblings died before then also.  It doesn’t help that Mary and Edward are common names for McGraths from that time period.  Maria Ettadosia and Edward both died in 1878, so they weren’t on the 1900 Census either.

I’ve also looked for more information about the Mooney family.  When Maria Ettadosia died in 1878, her death record shows that her parents were Arthur and Catherine Mooney.  I haven’t been able to go much further with that either.  I don’t know when or where they lived and died.  I’m sure they were born in Ireland and lived most of their life there, but I have no idea if they came to America or not.  I’ve seen a few Mooney people who were associated with Maria Ettadosia and Mary Ann, but I don’t know what the connection is.  They are likely family members, but it’s not certain.

I do know the names of all of the children of Edward and Maria Ettadosia.  That information came from the family line that told me about the name Maria Ettadosia Mooney.  The first child of Edward and Maria Ettadosia was Arthur.  There is no record of him ever marrying.  He died in New York.  The next child was a son named James.  He had a daughter name Mary Ann McGrath, who married James McMahon.  Mary Ann McGrath McMahon is the one that started writing down the McGrath/Mooney family history that was shared with me.

I have most of my family history information on computer.  I sometimes think it’s odd that people keep their information on paper using a pencil or pen.  It’s definitely old fashioned.  But when I see hand-written information like this about my family, I think it is beautiful!!  Not that it’s tidy and easy to read, of course.  But these pages show the names of the children and included in that list is my great great grandparents Mary Ann McGrath and James Bucklin.  Even after ten years, I find it a bit exciting.

Page 1 introduces Edward and Maria Ettadosia, and then lists their children Arthur, James, and Daniel.  If you look closely at it, there is a line that says, “Came to America 18__.”  Even Mary Ann McGrath McMahon didn’t know the date of immigration!  She was born in1861 and died in 1947.  I don’t know when she wrote this information, but she was born about 100 years before me.  She was much closer to the time of it all happening.  Of course, now we have access to more information.  Hopefully that date is somewhere to be found.

Page 2 of the info shows the rest of the children: John, Margaret, Mary Ann, and Catherine.  All of Mary Ann’s siblings married other Irish immigrants.  Mary Ann married an American with family lines that had been in the United States for five or six generations.  From what I can tell, they were predominantly from England.  Mary Ann and James’s son Louis Bucklin married Addie May Hine, whose ancestry brought some German to the mix.  Louis and Addie’s son Fred married Myrtle Phenice, who added some more English and Irish.  Their daughter was my mom – Betty Lou Bucklin.  She married Bob Landry who was pretty much all French.  Most of that came from Acadian ancestry which originated in France.

When I have a DNA match from Louisiana or Canada, they’re usually from my dad’s side.  With all of the cousins marrying each other through the years, there’s no way to tell how the different DNA segments travelled down to me.  If the match has a history that includes Pennsylvania, I’m pretty sure they will match through my mom’s Phenice line.  Those with history of Indiana are usually through the Hine family line.  If they are from Massachusetts, I can be assured that it is a Bucklin match.

I like to see the different connections to the various families.  But I really enjoy when it is an Irish connection.  Particularly when I can say, “Did you know that our great great great grandmother’s name was Maria Ettadosia Mooney McGrath?”  I love that name.  Erin go bragh.