Great-Great-Grandfather Timothy P. Moriarty

For me, my genealogical research is a matter of two pursuits that are really the same in many ways: Who were my ancestors?

In the basic sense, that means their names, where they were from, the dates of the births and deaths, their spouses, and their children, and their parents. However, this is simply not enough. I also want to know WHO my ancestors were. What did they do for a living? What did they look like? How did they die?

We are, after all, not simply abstract numbers. We're people with all kinds of emotions, interests, flaws, skills and abilities, personality traits, and so much more. This is why one of my favorite primary source records is the obituary. Often, they prove to be a treasure trove of little details and tidbits that help to paint a picture of who these people were.

Though not a recent find, one of my favorite records is an obituary of my great-great-grandfather, Timothy P. Moriarty. The basic version of who he was is the son of Patrick & Mary (Sullivan) Moriarty, born in the village of Alohart in Beautfort, County Kerry, Ireland, on Wednesday, February 11, 1824. He married Catherine Murphy in 1857 or 1858, in Ireland, came to the United States in 1884, and passed away in Southbridge, Massachusetts on Friday, May 13, 1892. However, that doesn't tell me WHO he was.

He was born the day after Simon Bolivar was proclaimed dictator of Peru, several weeks before Tallahassee, Florida, was settled and constructed, and several months before John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson in the U.S. Presidential election, with a little help from Henry Clay's "Corrupt Bargain." He was born a few days before Civil War Union General Winfield Scott Hancock.

Timothy was raised about 25 miles northeast of Cahersiveen, the hometown of famed Irish freedom fighter Daniel O'Connell. It was in Timothy's youth that O'Connell took his fight to Parliament after moving to Dublin. At the time, rural farmers — such as the Moriarty family — were quite dependent on the potato. With grain costly and Catholic Ireland struggling under punitive actions of the British, many rural Irish would have potato as a major part of two or three meals each and every day.

Thus far in my research, Timothy was the first-born, with six siblings born over the next 18 years. In his pre-teen years, southern Ireland struggles under laws that require the poor to pay noticeably more, leading to what became known as a Tithe War. When Timothy is 14, the British Poor Law is enacted in Ireland, installing Dickensian workhouses that essentially took the poor from their land and split up families.

As Timothy reached adulthood, many of the more revolutionary Irish began to view O'Connell — the famed emancipator and liberator — as a sell-out who had become part of the machinery. As the Young Ireland movement took hold, soon something far more dramatic also took hold — phytophthora infestans, the mold that led to a potato blight and, ultimately, the Great Hunger or Potato Famine. County Kerry was among the hardest hit during the potato famine, so presumably Timothy experienced some dire times.

During the famine, an estimated 1 million Irish died, while another million boarded ships heading to the golden shores of the United States. In all, as much as one-quarter of Ireland's population was gone — either due to death or migration. Timothy survived and remained.

In his early 30s, Timothy married Catherine Murphy, 16 years his junior. She had been born in Ireland in 1840 to John & Julia (McGillicuddy) Murphy. Together, they would have eight children from 1859 through 1880. The children were all born in County Kerry, with some listed as coming into the world in Alohart, and others in Killorglin. Alohart and Killorglin are less than 10 miles apart, with the latter being home to the famed Puck Festival. That, perhaps, is a story for another day.

The Moriarty family remained on their farm in Alohart until 1884, when they boarded the S.S. Cephalonia to come to America. It was Saturday, June 21, 1884, that the ship — including the entire Moriarty family — arrived in the Port of Boston. They came to a country that wouldn't so much as see the cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty being laid until later that summer, and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer had yet to be published.

Arriving in Boston, the family settled in the town of Southbridge, just about 60 miles southwest of the city. There were already a small Moriarty presence in town. Now, 134 years later, a number of descendants still call Southbridge home.

Timothy called Southbridge home for just eight years, though he has been buried here for more than 125 years. He died on Friday, May 13, 1892, at the age of 68. An anonymous relative penned an obituary that survives to this day.

"Timothy Moriarty, who died at his home on Pleasant Street on Friday of last week, had been a resident of Southbridge eight years. During that time he cultivated a wide acquaintance and made a host of friends. His sickness dates from April 1, when he had an attack of the grip, which finally developed into pneumonia, from which he died. He was born in Kerry, Ireland, in 1822, and spent his life, until coming to Southbridge in his native place. He was married 34 years ago. He reared a family of seven sons and two daughters, all of whom are living, and who are highly respected members of the community. Mr. Moriarty was a thrifty and industrious man who, as the head of a dutiful and respectful household, surrounded himself with the comforts of a prosperous home. He bought the William Boak place on Pleasant street soon after coming home, and immediately proceeded to improve and beautify it, laying out several hundred dollars for that purpose. By the united assistance of his family, he accumulated other valuable property. He took an interest in the welfare of the town and was always pleased to see improvements going on. The large number of people who attended his funeral, which was held at 2:30 p.m. on last Sunday, attested the high regard in which he was held. Six sons acted as pall bearers. Among those who were present from out of town were: Jeremiah Gallivan and Misses Mary, Nellie and Honora Gallivan, John Sullivan, James Grady, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Sweeney, Daniel Sweeney and Miss Kate Sweeney, all of Holyoke; Daniel Fogarty and Miss Kate Fogarty, James Hartnett and Miss Nellie Hartnett, of Three Rivers; Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Lyons and Miss Nellie Coffey of Thorndike; the Misses Sullivan of Northampton; Timothy Sullivan and Miss Bridget Sullivan of Boston; Philip Scully of Worcester."

Timothy's widow, Catherine, survived another quarter-century, passing in Southbridge on April 19, 1916 — just less than one week before the famed Easter Rising back in her native country of Ireland.

Great-Uncle Philip unlocked by AncestryDNA connection

AncestryDNA rest results have paid some dividends pretty quickly after enabling me to contact a previously unknown second cousin, and learn of the man she only knew as "Grandpa Far Away."

My grandfather, James Mahoney, was one of five children born and raised by Thomas Mahoney Jr., and Agnes St. John in Worcester. All five were born during the Roaring 20s and raised in the Great Depression. My grandfather was the youngest of the litter, born 25 June 1929 — some four months before the Wall Street Crash that officially began the Great Depression. I've had some information regarding some of his siblings, but two have largely remained enigmas: Thomas (born 1924) and Philip (born 1926). All I had for either of these guys was their dates of birth, first name of their spouses, and when they died. No maiden names for their wives, no idea on who their children were, no idea where they passed away, what they did for a living, or anything else.

Through one particular AncestryDNA match, I was able to connect with Jennifer, my great-uncle Philip's granddaughter. She has been able to fill me in a bit with the maiden name of Philip's wife, Pauline, and the dates of her birth and death. From there, I quickly found her obituary, which gave me a good deal of brand new information. Through this cousin, I was also able to learn of Philip and Pauline's four children, further confirmed through Pauline's obituary.

In Pauline's obituary, Philip is not mentioned whatsoever. Instead, it mentions a second husband who had passed in 1997. Turns out that soon after their fourth and final child was born, Philip had decided he was not happy with the family he had carved out for himself. He drained the family bank accounts, took up with a neighbor, and left the family flat. He moved to Arizona at some point, probably as part of this seemingly abrupt abandonment of his wife and kids, and, my newfound cousin asserts, was later known only through cards as "Grandpa Far Away." Through the U.S. Public Records Index, I was able to confirm Philip living in three different cities in Arizona. In 1978, he's in Phoenix, and then he's in Glendale and Peoria in the 1990s. I was also able to confirm what was assumed, that he died while in Arizona.

In the early 1980s, Pauline would marry a man who had seven children through a previous marriage. Between them, that would be 11 children, and eventually many grandchildren. Pauline passed away in 2012, at the age of 82.

Buoyed by this wave of new information, I spent a little more time with public records searches and city directories, and so forth. I found that in the 1950s, Philip was working at Wyman-Gordon in Worcester, residing with Pauline on Tower Street. I uncovered his social security number.

Most exciting of all, I found his school yearbook photo from 1944. Beneath Philip's name is open white space, which seems quite vacuous when compared to the classmate next to him, who was a multi-sport athlete, a member of the Student Council, Chairman of the Ring & Pin Committee, and a member of the group U.S.N.R.

The AncestryDNA results are in...

This morning, I opened up my e-mail inbox and was pleased to see an e-mail from Ancestry.com: "Your AncestryDNA results are in!"

I write this as I begin to explore the results and data, and have not previewed the information. This posting is sort of a real-time cursory exploration. I will take a deep dive after this is published, with no idea how soon I'll be coming up for air in the process. There's a good chance I become entirely immersed in the information and data.

I was not exactly surprised by the first thing I saw, which is my "DNA Story," which provides an "ethnicity estimate." According to AncestryDNA, I am 81% Irish/Scottish/Welsh, 7% British, with "low confidence" results showing 6% Eastern European, 3% Scandinavian, 2% from the Iberian Peninsula, and less than 1% Central Asian. More specifically, the results suggest County Kerry, Ireland to be first among specific regions where my family might have lived. This is not news as I've long-known the Moriarty family to have originated in County Kerry, more specifically the village of Alohart.

Within the "Ethnicity Estimate" is that ancestors, in the first half of the 18th century, were among the "Lonely Settlers in New France" that were the Saint Lawrence River French Settlers. This, presumably, has its origins in my maternal lines that include my maternal grandmother's family having roots in that part of Canada.

After the cursory look at the "Ethnicity Estimate," I turned to the DNA matches, of which there are apparently 362 people who are listed as 4th cousins or closer.

In viewing the matches, I come across my half-brother Jeff, who has previously done the AncestryDNA test. They mark him down as "Close Family" with "extremely high" confidence in the match. They're correct there.

It offers one first cousin, a Sullivan that I do not currently know. There are a number of Sullivans within my family tree, so this makes sense. There's a second cousin with the surname Greene, who appears to be related on my mother's side as my brother Jeff is listed as a shared match with Ms. Greene.

There are 13 third cousins matched, including my late cousin Barb Jones. Each of these matches are listed as "extremely high" confidence level matches, by AncestryDNA. There seems to be a slight edge in matches on my paternal side over my maternal side here, but not by much.

The balance of the matches are fourth cousins, more than 300 of them. Certainly this will take a good deal of time to go through all of them.

Time to get to work...

Great-Great-Grandmother's line in Lancashire

In Lancashire, England, sits the town of Accrington, about 20 miles north of Manchester. According to the 2011 United Kingdom Census, "Accy" is home to 35,456 Brits — and the hometown of musician Andy Kanavan, formerly of the Dire Straits. Accrington is also, as it turns out, the home of my great-great-grandmother.

Elizabeth Ann Hodgson was born in Accrington on 12 July 1862 to Adam Hodgson and his wife. Mrs. Hodgson is still a bit of a enigma for me at this point, having seen her listed as being named Ann and as Elizabeth. I assume, like her daughter, she is probably bearing both names. There are Ancestry.com family trees that assert one name or another, but I have not yet independently verified this information.

The Hodgson line was not something I had previously been aware of in my initial genealogical work on the maternal side of my family. That original work, conducted years ago and much more reliant on the trees created by other amateur genealogists, proved to be plagued with errors and has been part of a targeted overhaul and correction on my part. It was through that overhaul that I came across my great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth.

She came to the United States in 1869, aged 7, according to the 1900 U.S. Census. At some point, she met Frank M. Ellis, my great-great-grandfather. Frank had been born in central Massachusetts, in the town of Oxford, in November 1852. Current research indicates he was one of eight children bore to George and Caroline Ellis between 1849 and 1865.

Elizabeth and Frank were married in Worcester, Massachusetts, 11 December 1883. She was 21-years-old while he was 31. Together, they had six children in the 1880s and 1890s, raising them in Worcester. Their first-born was Frank Lucy Ellis, born 21 November 1884. He was followed by Frederick W. (1888), William H. (1890), Charles Cleveland (1891), Elizabeth (1893), and Esther (date of birth currently unknown).

In the 1900 U.S. Census, the family was residing at 106 Lafayette Street, Worcester, just a few blocks north of Crompton Park. It wasn't long before they moved about a half-mile north to Beacon Street, where my grandfather, Charles Cleveland Ellis, and his lineage lived for several decades.

Elizabeth was just 45-years-old when she passed away at the Worcester City Hospital, due to pulmonary tuberculosis. She died on 24 January 1908, leaving behind teenage children and some who were in their early 20's. Currently, Frank's date of death has not yet been uncovered. He was still alive when Elizabeth passed away, but has not yet been positively identified in the 1910 U.S. Census or beyond.