I had been married about 20 years when I began my genealogical journey. The journey was really my daughter, Sarah’s as a capstone project for a gifted program she had been in since kindergarten. She decided she wanted to find out about the Moughty family. At this point she was in 9th grade, the last year of middle school and she complained that no one could pronounce her name, and she didn’t know anyone else with the name of Moughty (pronounced Mooty). We started asking questions of our immediate family. My husband’s one sister was 10 years older and she had 2 children, a son and daughter who were 17 and 14 years older than Sarah. Even so, we were a close family with Sunday dinner each week either at my sister-in-law’s or at our house.
When the project started, at Sunday dinner, my sister-in-law brought out a box of items that had belonged to her grandfather, the immigrant from Ireland. In it, was a tag that we discovered had been pinned to his coat at Ellis Island when he arrived in 1907. That eventually led us to the ship’s manifest. My father-in-law had passed by this time, but my mother-in-law was able to fill in some details. Her father, Michael Daly was from Irishtown in Ireland, however she had no idea where this Irishtown was located. (There are 26 Irishtowns listed in the Alphabetical Index to Townlands in 13 Counties and many more that are smaller villages or hamlets). Luckily, she knew that Patrick Moughty was from Mullingar in Westmeath though it turned out he was from a Townland called Aghnabohy 22 km (about 13.5 miles from Mullingar). Mullingar was the closest large town and it wasn’t unusual for our ancestors to mention that as their location. Even I will say I live in Sarasota as it’s a place people will recognize rather than Lakewood Ranch. Confusion in finding records can definitely ensue. If you’re not familiar with Irish Jurisdictions, here’s a blog to help you understand them.
My daughter got an A on her project and immediately forgot about it. I, on the other hand, got hooked! I began working as a professional genealogist in the early 2000’s and my first job was researching missing heirs. One of the benefits of living in Connecticut, was genealogists who are members of a genealogy society, registered with the State, have access to all Vital Records. I would make an appointment at the Department of Health in Hartford where I could use their computer system to reconstruct a family…finding a death certificate of an individual, then their marriage record, then identifying all of the children born from that marriage. One day, after completing my assigned research, I had some time left, so I decided to check some primary sources for my personal research. I had the date of marriage for my in-laws but had never gotten a copy of the marriage certificate. To my surprise, there was no marriage record in Connecticut.
My mother-in-law had passed by this time, so at Sunday dinner I brought up the missing marriage record. My husband’s aunt and my sister-in-law looked at each other. I joked, you know I’m going to find out, so why don’t you just tell me. It seems that they eloped (even my husband didn’t know this) however no one was sure to where. They did know that it had to be close by since they returned, both to their parents’ homes the same day and lived apart until they were married by a Catholic priest in his office (since they were already married, it couldn’t happen in the Church). I began searching the surrounding area…we were in Stamford, Connecticut, so the likely place would have been New York. I eventually found the marriage record at the Westchester, New York Archive…they were married in Pound Ridge, New York on 30 Jun 1934. The date my mother-in-law had given me, was the Church date of 28 July 1934. Since they were already married, so marriage record appeared in Connecticut.
Throughout my research I’ve found multiple instances of “premature” babies. On my first trip to Ireland, I was able to obtain a copy of my grandmother’s birth record. My grandmother was not a great source of information…each of her records contained contradictory dates. Her birth was 12 Dec 1892, registered in the District of Ballyshannon.
My next step was to find her parents’ marriage. This was before online records, so I went back 10 months (I knew she was the oldest child) and started working back through the index books. When I reached 2 years with no record I came forward and found the marriage on the 14 July 1892. It appears that my grandmother was a six month premie.😀
My husband’s grandparents also had an early birth of their first child. The date that had been given to me was for their marriage was April in 1910, however when I found the marriage record it was for 20 June 1910 and their first child, Christine was born on Christmas Day in 1910.
Question all of the dates given by the family (even if they were written in the Family Bible) and verify if possible with an original record. Remember the old adage, the first child can come anytime, the second takes 9 months!
Happy Hunting!
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