You may think of migration as the movement of your ancestors from Ireland to the United States or Canada, but it may be much more than that. Based on a DNA connection this week, I began searching an individual identified at 23andme as a likely 2nd cousin 1x removed. 23andme had placed him in my family tree as a descendant of my great grandparents William Beighton and Elizabeth Wilkinson. His grandmother was from Allegheny, Pennsylvania which would fit, but I had the descendants of that family well documented and I couldn’t fit him in. I checked the other DNA sites to see if he had a tree elsewhere, without luck. A census search, found him in the 1950 census in Versailles, Fayette, Pennsylvania, age 3 with his parents, Michael and Dorothy. Dorothy was in my database…my half first cousin 1x removed and was descended from my great grandmother’s first marriage. 23andme had him connected in the wrong place. In the 1950 census, the father was born in Illinois and all of the rest of the household was born in Pennsylvania. Now that I knew that my DNA match was my half second cousin I looked to see if there was an Irish connection. I moved back to the 1930 census when Michael was about 16 living in the household of his father Patrick, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. In 1920, Michael appeared in Illinois in the household of Patrick (born in Ireland) and Mary (born in Scotland). Also in the household was Mary’s father, Hugh McEvoy born in Ireland, and his son James, born in Scotland. The marriage record in Scotland of Patrick and Mary gave the name of both sets of parents, including the maiden names of the mothers (I love Scottish records!). Using each of the census records you can see the migration of this family…from Ireland to Scotland to Illinois to Pennsylvania. Looking at the birth locations we see that some of the children were born in Scotland, the rest in Illinois which narrows down the migration dates. When attempting to find family members of your Irish ancestors, keep an open mind and find them in every census for which they were living.
My Moag family from County Down dispersed to multiple locations. I found some early migrants to Canada and my great grandfather, one of 11 children migrated to Pennsylvania. All but two of his siblings migrated to the United States, initially to Pennsylvania and then some moved to Upstate New York. Two of the siblings remained in Ireland. Going back to a previous generation, a half 4x great uncle went off to South Africa. I’m sure I’ll find additional migrations in this family as they tended to have large families. Remember to search all of the family members, not just your immediate ancestor. You never know who might have left the information you are looking for.
The migration of the Moughty family took a different route…to Argentina. In the mid to late 1800s there was a significant migration from the Longford-Westmeath area to Argentina. I discovered this when I was looking at colleges with my daughter in Boston. We stopped at Faneuil Hall and there was a heritage cart…you know, the ones that would print out your family name history and crest. We stopped to look at the binder of names, and there was Moughty…the first time I’d ever seen it. For kicks, I purchased it and the attendant advised me it was in Spanish. No, I said, it’s an Irish name. He told me whoever requested it, asked for it in Spanish. On my next visit to Salt Lake City I spent some time on the International Floor and found a book, Los Irlandeses en La Argentina by Eduardo A Coghlan which documented the members of the Moughty family who migrated to Argentina. Taking on the Spanish naming pattern I found Moughty y Feeney, two second cousins marrying (two Moughty sisters marrying two Feeney brothers).
Always consider the possibility that the migration was a short one, to England or Scotland. Up until 1922 it was the same country for all of Ireland, and for today’s Northern Ireland, it still is! Many of our ancestors “commuted” between England/Scotland and Ireland to find work in the off-season and to send the money back to Ireland. Some ended up staying there, others spent some time there and then continued their migration to North America or possibly on to Australia. (If you haven't read it, get a copy of The Killing Snows by Charles Egan. It is about the Famine in County Mayo. The other two books in the trilogy, The Exile Breed and Cold is the Dawn are about family members that migrated to England and to America. Here’s a blog I wrote in 2023 about ancestors who migrated to England or Scotland.
Happy Hunting!
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