Clare Past Forum

I am trying to find information about an ancestor of mine, James Moroney, who was born in 1816 in Co. Clare. Unfortunately, I have no idea which townland or parish. He married Anne Coughlin and had children Martin (who apparently died young), Bridget, James and John before coming to America around 1851. He may have had brothers or other male relatives Michael (b. ~1810), Patrick and Peter.

From this rather limited information, how would I go about finding more information on James or his wife, esp. their parents or whether the possible brothers are related? It seems that records from this era are very sketchy to nonexistent.

-Mike Moroney

Hi
1901 census shows 364 moroneys in Clare
Please give more details if you can.


As I live in East, Clare Retired , have much time to Check Files etc.

This is about all I know of them:

James Moroney (b. 1816 d. 6/15/1882)
Wife: Anna Catherine Coughlin or Anna Elizabeth Coughlin (b. 1822 d. 5/28/1882)

Their birth dates are from their gravestones and match US census records.

Children:

Martin (b. Jan 31 1845)
Bridget (b. Jan 26 1846 d. 1908)
James (b. Dec 25 1848 d. Jun 15 1920)
John (b. 1850 d. 1908)
Catherine (b. Oct 1857 in the US)

Emigrated to the US (Auburn NY area). I have a record of Anne Maroney arriving with James Jr. and John in New York on Nov 8, 1853, the listed ages match the birth dates. James Sr. and Bridget must have traveled separately (was this common for family members to emigrate separately?) but they all did arrive in the US where I have evidence of them.

Possible brothers/male relatives:

Michael (b. around 1808-1810, d. Oct 29 1886, 5 sons, at least 4 daughters) I believe his wife's first name was Mary, born abt. 1824.
Patrick (b. ~1820)
Peter (b. ~1822)

The only evidence I have that they are related is the common last name and the fact that they all lived close to each other in the US, at least initially.

I know there were/are many Moroneys in Co. Clare, which makes searching more difficult.

Thanks in advance for anything you find about any of them.

Mike,

If you have no idea of the locality they came from you have to do a lot of detective work.

Since the children were born in and after the time of the Tithe applotments (roughly 1820-1838), and since spouses tended to come from the same or adjacent townlands in those days (the so-called 5-mile rule), you can try the following. Go to the Surnames list of the Clare Tithe Applotments at http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... tithes.htm and list all the Moroneys/Moronys and Coughlans/Coghlins etc. Then, using the maps of the Clare parishes and townlands on the Clare Library site at www.clarelibrary.ie see if you can identify Moroney/Coughlan pairs from single localities. That might pin you down to a small number of candidate parishes. Once you have those you can see whether baptismal records are extant for those parishes and, if so, whether your ancestors are listed.

Paddy

Thank you, Paddy, that's the kind of answer I was hoping for, how to research this. From background research, it appears the counties are divided into parishes, and the parishes into townlands. I'll get started on this now. Assuming I get lucky and I find a match and there are baptismal records for the parish (do you mean a church parish or the civil parish?), are these online anywhere?

-Mike

moroney146 wrote:Assuming I get lucky and I find a match and there are baptismal records for the parish (do you mean a church parish or the civil parish?), are these online anywhere?

-Mike

Mike,

As the records relate to baptisms they were generated by the church parish.

There is no single online source of Clare baptism records at the moment. Some parish records have been transcribed by individuals and the Clare Library site at www.clarelibrary.ie hosts them. Otherwise you can go to the LDS site at https://www.familysearch.org/ to locate the microfilms for the parish you are interested in and then ask that those films be sent to the LDS Family History centre nearest to you for your perusal.

Paddy

I figured it had to be church parishes but with the lack of separation of church and state then I was unsure, perhaps the civil government recorded such things.

After a quick look, I have found a few matches with the same parish. The townlands are troublesome, some don't show up on the townlands locater map I found (http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... owser.html), others are spelled differently. Also I haven't found a map of parishes yet. A project for this weekend.

I am also going to search for another pair of ancestors (Madden & Wall) as well, since I see several of each in the surnames list. I don't actually know which county they came from.

Mike,
map of Civil Parishes of County Clare:
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... es_map.htm

and another map using MapBrowser
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... 1E560DslT0

Clare Admin

This is not going to be the kind of reply sought but the information I have on hand may help at some point, particularly when constructing a family chart. Since I collect data on various Carberry families in the U.S., particularly in New York (where I grew up), I happen to know that William and Patrick Carberry of Tipperary were living in Cayuga County at the same time as your James Moroney. I was provided their naturalization information by someone who had gone to an Erie County facility and found it there. Naturalization papers, even in this early time period, can be of some help. Here is the Carberry info:
Oath of Allegiance Books, Erie County Hall, Buffalo, NY
Wm. J. Carberry, arrived 1848, granted 10-26-1867, age 29, witnessed John Walsh & Wm. F. Foster
Pat'k. Carberry, naturalized 10-24-1867, witnessed John Walsh & Pat'k Kadden

It gets a bit more interesting, as apparently Patrick married a Moroney. Here is that info:
St. Joseph's Cemetery, Lake Avenue, Auburn, NY
CARBERRY:
Patrick d. 9/30/1887 b. Ireland 6,17,1-SW Montezuma, N.Y. Kidney disease
Mary d. 6/30/1897 b. Ireland 6,17,2-SW Montezuma, N.Y. Cancer, Heart failure

REGISTER OF DEATHS IN THE TOWN OF MONTEZUMA
Carbery, Mary d. June 30, 1897 age 86-0-12 b. Ireland Father: Moroney Mother: Moroney
Carbery, Patrick Sep 30, 1887 70 Ireland Thomas Carbery Alice Carbery
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nycayuga/modeath.htm

Weekly Auburnian 21 Oct 1887 screenshot - widow Mary Carberry going to live with Mrs. M. Maroney
news article available at:
http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

I believe Mrs. M. Maroney to be Mary, the widow of Michael Maroney, whose large family provides a catalog of first names for the Moroneys of Cayuga County. Michael lived in Montezuma. There is an apparent brother William who lived in Baldwinville but his obituary (see two attached screenshots) shows that he had a connection to Port Byron, a part of Montezuma. Michael Maroney with a wife by the name of Margaret, and young children arrived in April, 1849, on a ship out of Limerick into NYC. Margaret as listed for the wife and daughter on that trip seems to have morphed into Mary for the wife and Catherine for the child, as this family matches the censuses of the Montezuma family. Michael may have been the first Moroney over to Cayuga County, as your James's son Irish-born son James repeatedly listed either 1849 or 1850 for his own arrival year.

I am typing this rapidly. If this information interests you, I can provide more information on these Carberrys of Cayuga County. The newspaper site "fulton history" allows searching with an exact phrase such as a person's full name, so you can get to the Auburn articles easily, and there are many on various Moroney family members. I have viewed obituaries and death notices (except for Ann Moroney, whom I couldn't find) on the Irish-born ones of Cayuga county, with no mention of even an Irish county. So, ultimately U.S. civil records may not be useful for narrowing the search for a Clare parish or townland. Sometimes military enrollment or pension files provide good clues but that is beyond my search today.
I'll display some additional obituaries/death notices in a follow-up reply to this posting.

The Carberrys of Cayuga County are not related to me so far as I know.

Sharon Carberry
USA

Additional obituaries for the Cayuga County group.

re Clare Admin:

Thanks for the links. I had found the second map but not the first. The first is good for finding the parishes and what I need.

re Sharon:

Thanks for all the great info you posted. The Michael Moroney of Montezuma/Mentz is the possible brother of my James Moroney that I mentioned in my original query. I have no proof he was other than the fact that Moroney being a somewhat rare name (in the US), it would be an odd coincidence for 4 unrelated Moroney families to be living near each other. Michael did have a large family. (Peter and Patrick were there for a while but they moved/disappeared)

I was not aware of William Moroney. I think I did see mention of a Moroney or two in Syracuse, perhaps his sons.

I discovered fultonhistory.com about a year ago. The site has been a gold mine for me since my ancestors all lived in the general of Fulton and Auburn NY. I was using it to follow several stories about Michael Moroney and his family to try to find a link to James Moroney, or a mention of an area of Ireland for either, without success. I even recognized Carberry from some of the info I found.

I did find a very short death notice for Ann Moroney. What's odd is we have several documents where her name was Anna or Ann Catherine Moroney and others where she's Anna or Ann Elizabeth Moroney. Her gravestone reads "Anna E".

Dr. John Moroney was my GG-uncle and son of the James Moroney I am asking about. I've seen a few ads for him in the Oswego newspapers.

In going through some old info, there is a reference to them coming from a place called Shallee. There is a Shallee townland in Kilnamona Parish. According to the Tithe Applotment list there is one John Morony in Kilnamona (in Lougheen townland) and no Coughlans. I've also found three townlands with Shallee in their names in Co. Tipperary (Shallee Coughlan, Shallee White and Shallee Upper and Lower), all in either Ballynahinch or Killoscully Parish (appears to be a name change). The first being named "Shallee Coughlan" is intriguing, would the "Coughlan" part of the name come from a family that lived there? But the county is wrong for these three.

In case anyone is interested, I found that my James Moroney lived in one of three Shallee townlands in Ballinahinch, Co. Tipperary, as three of his children were baptized in the parish there. However, I have not found his marriage record nor his own baptism, nor very much other evidence of Moroneys in the immediate area. It appears he came there from somewhere else... but where? Since Co. Clare is 10 km away at the closest, it is still a possibility. I found another possibility elsewhere in Co. Tipperary but some 75 km away. This was two brothers, James and Michael. Michael's baptism matches the Michael Moroney mentioned earlier in this topic, however James's baptism is at least 3 years off (1812, while his grave marker and 3 census records would have him born in either 1816, 1815, 1818, or 1820. Guess he didn't know his exact age).

Therefore I haven't really found info except where they lived for a while and where the children were born. My goal is to find his parents. I still suspect he came from Co. Clare as it is really the ancestral home of the Moroneys and is nearby. There is a nice online records search at http://www.rootsireland.ie/, unfortunately Co. Clare does not have its records available there. (Is there an equivalent for Co. Clare?)