Uncovering Thomas J. Mahoney: The Long Road to My 3rd Great-Grandfather

For quite awhile now, my 3rd great-grandfather Thomas J. Mahoney was little more than a handful of vague facts on my family tree. He was an Irish immigrant who showed up in Connecticut by 1860, raised a large family, worked every job he could to keep them afloat, and died in Worcester in 1920. I knew the broad strokes, but not the story. Not the man.

And definitely not the names of the parents he left behind in Ireland ... unless they came with him to the United States back in the 1850s.

Like so many Irish lines, the Mahoneys were swallowed up in the great silence left by missing parish books, burned civil records, and the chaos of the mid-19th century. I've searched on and off trying to figure out where in Ireland Thomas was born, and who his parents were. The answers always felt one document out of reach, and might be one of those things I'll have to leave to a professional genealogist in Ireland.

All the same, I keep digging.

My nights for the past few weeks have been spent buried in newspaper archives, cross-checking every mention of a Mahoney in the Norwich and Worcester areas. I flipped through U.S. Census pages line by line, zooming in on faint handwriting. I combed through street listings, vital records, burial notices — anything that might help link one stubborn Mahoney to another.

And finally, the last couple days, things began to click.

Pinning Down the Dates, the Moves, the Man

Census data had always given me the rough outline.

• Born May 1842 in Ireland.
• In the U.S. by 1855 or 1859 — census reports conflict here.
• In Norwich, Connecticut by 1860, a teenage laborer just starting his life in America.

But today, thanks to finally finding his death certificate, that vague birth month finally became a real date: May 2, 1842.

The obituary has added even more color. It describes Thomas as one of the strongest men in Norwich during his younger years, working as a steamer driver who handled the horses for the Wauregan engine company during fires. This wasn’t just a man who lived through the 19th century. This was a man who ran toward burning buildings.

From Norwich, the family probably followed work wherever the mills needed labor.

• 1870 Census – Thomas and his wife Bridget O’Sullivan are in Norwich with their early children. Thomas is a laborer; Bridget is “keeping house.”
• 1880 Census – They’ve moved to Richmond, Rhode Island, where Thomas, and sons John and William, all work in a woolen mill.
• 1900 Census – The family is now in Worcester, living at 140 Cambridge Street. This is where things get confusing, because Thomas’s son — also named Thomas — is head of household, and his own son named Thomas. But everyone fits: my 2nd great-grandfather Thomas (1871–1958), his wife Nora, their three young children, and the older generation of Mahoney brothers all working woolen-mill jobs.
• 1910 Census – Thomas, now widowed, is living with his son William at 80 Temple Street.
• 1920 Census – He appears as a patient at the Worcester State Hospital, likely during the final decline of his long illness.

On August 27, 1920, he died at the home of his son Daniel at 212 Franklin Street. His obituary said simply: after a long illness. His death certificate listed arteriosclerosis with broncho-pneumonia as a contributing factor.

After all those years in Connecticut and Massachusetts, he made one final journey back to Norwich, where he was buried beside his wife, Bridget.

Bridget O’Sullivan: A Brief, Bright Thread

Bridget was born in Ireland in 1844, the daughter of Eugene O’Sullivan. Her mother’s name remains one of the lingering mysteries. She and Thomas married sometime before 1864, most likely in Connecticut. She died of pneumonia on March 24, 1900, just 56 years old.

Her funeral notice describes a woman deeply loved. Dozens of floral tributes: “Dear Mother,” “Mother,” “Mother.” Four sons carrying her casket. Her body returned to Norwich — the place where the Mahoney's American story began.

The Breakthrough: Finding Thomas’s Parents

Today, after cross-matching death records, burial entries, and likely family clusters, I was finally able to identify the parents of Thomas J. Mahoney: 

• Father: yet another Thomas Mahoney, born in Ireland
• Mother: (first name unknown) Leonard, born in Ireland

For a line whose origins had been a black hole for so long, even these two names are monumental. And the Leonard surname, which is strongly associated with County Cork, reinforces the growing theory that Cork is the homeland of this Mahoney branch.

No townland yet. No parish. But a county and two parental surnames are more than I had even this morning.

Genealogy is often described as solving a puzzle, but it rarely feels that neat. It’s more like pulling threads out of dust, hoping one leads somewhere. Today, finally, a thread did. Now I continue digging to see where this latest thread will lead.

I’m actively researching both sides of my family tree and writing full family histories so these stories aren’t lost to time. Much of my ancestry leads back to Ireland, where records become difficult to trace without the help of professional Irish genealogists. Any contributions go directly toward funding this research, obtaining hard-to-access records, and preserving our history for future generations.

If you’d like to support the project, you can contribute via Venmo at: @ShaunMoriarty. Thank you for helping make this work possible.