A Revolutionary War soldier’s DNA links him to living relatives – I know many have already seen this, but wanted to share for those who might not have tripped across it yet. Very cool! #GeneticGenealogy #genealogy

O Horizon – Official Trailer – Well, that didn’t take long. There’s already a movie about a young woman who brings her deceased dad back in her life through “new technology” (has to be AI), and how that plays out for her. Reminds me of the bring-back-your-ancestors offering I shared no so long ago. #genealogy

Photo by Suraj Tomer on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, June 24 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

The Quest for Annie Moore of Ellis Island – Whoever MysteryPoodle is, I can’t thank you enough for your thoughtful and generous review of “Annie Moore of Ellis Island.” This is everything I had hoped for when I set out to share her story.

The post Genealogy Roundup, June 17 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

It was a damp morning in late February 2008 when the phone rang. Harvard scholar and PBS host Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. was calling with one of his random genealogical requests. He was going to be on The Colbert Report later that day. Did I, by any chance, know anything about Stephen Colbert’s roots? Luckily for him, I had two hundred years of family history at the ready.

Unnaturally obsessed with the ancestry of my fellow Irish Americans, I had already snooped into Stephen Tyrone Colbert’s past and discovered that he was about as Hibernian as they come. 15 of his 16 great-great-grandparents were either born in Ireland or of Irish heritage, and rather remarkably, their descendants continued to marry only with other Irish Americans for three generations until Stephen himself slightly disrupted the flow when he wed Evelyn “Evie” McGee. In his own words, “I have broken the pattern, and am in a mixed race marriage. I’m Irish, and my wife is Scots-Irish. Somehow we make it work.”

Several weeks after that call, my nosiness was rewarded when I woke up to the best St. Patrick’s Day gift possible — an email from Stephen thanking me and remarking that he was “thrilled to hear we are pretty much pure Irish.” Fortunately for all of us, this should-be poster child for Irish Americans assumed the throne of David Letterman’s Late Show in 2015, and has made the show well and truly his own – an anchor many of us watch to laugh away our worries. Though many mourned the loss of The Colbert Report, we now get to mellow out each evening to the man himself, rather than the character he portrayed for a decade. And as anyone who’s ever met Colbert will attest, the real man is brilliant, quick-witted, multi-talented, family-oriented, devout, and kind.

Family resemblance? (from left to right): Stephen T. Colbert, father James W. Colbert, uncle Andrew E. Tuck, grandfather Andrew E. Tuck, great-grandfather John C. Fee, and great-great-grandfather Patrick Connolly

An Ancestral Tour

So what sort of family tree produces a Stephen Colbert? Geographically concentrated in New York and Illinois upon arrival in America (in some instances, after a brief interval in Canada), the opposite is true in Ireland where all four provinces can lay claim to a piece of Stephen’s past. So dense and deep is his Irishness that I have little choice but to share it in digest form in order to give a short, yet fairly comprehensive tour of his ancestral map. To that end, I’ll focus on the immigrant generation, whomostly emigrated between the 1820s and 1860s, and provide a brief sketch of each pair of his great-great-grandparents. As you peruse these eight clusters, don’t be surprised if you notice some family patterns.

Colbert/Fletcher

Since we usually have the greatest interest in the surname we start out with, it’s a Murphy’s Law corollary that Colbert is the most mysterious branch in Stephen’s pedigree. It’salso a geographic exception with a third great-grandfather named Anthony, born in the 1790s, who settled in Shepherdstown in what was then Virginia. His descendants would swiftly scatter to Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, and California with Stephen’s line opting for the Land of Lincoln.

marriage license recording George W. Colbert’s race as Irish

Though stories have floated down through the generations of a possible French origin for the Colbert name, the few paper trail indications that exist all point to Ireland, including the marriage record ofStephen’s future great-grandfather, George William Colbert, that notes his race as Irish.

Family lore also holds that George converted to Catholicism for his marriage to Angeline Garin, an event which is said to have provoked a cross-burning in their yard. The tale relates that George calmed his new bride saying, “Let it burn. It sheds a lovely light.” While it’s not been possible to verify the incident, the dual-religion aspect rings true as George’s parents were married in the Lutheran church — perhaps because of his mother, Susan Ann Fletcher, who introduced the only non-Irish ancestry into the mix, a combination of German and English.

Garin/Caffery

George Colbert’s bride, Angeline Garin, was born in Carrollton, Illinois to immigrants Michael Garin and Bridget Caffery. Given that both Michael and Bridget, along with some of their parents and siblings, had crossed the Atlantic in the 1850s, the Famine was undoubtedly a driving factor in their decision to emigrate. The couple married around 1868 and settled amidst a cluster of family members in the Illinois counties of Greene and Macoupin.

The Garin name was a simplified version of one that that was spelled variously as Gearon and Guerin in earlier days, and a search of available church registries revealed that Michael’s parents, Michael Gearon and Johanna Nicholson, had married on January 29, 1834 in Limerick. Regrettably, the picture is hazier for Michael’s wife, Bridget Caffery, as documents pertaining to her family contradict themselves and mention both Dublin and Belfast.

Tormey/Manning

Yet another pair of great-great-grandparents who decided to keep their secrets to themselves is John Tormey and Honora Manning. In fact, the few traces they left make it unclear whether they were born in Ireland or New York. All that is reasonably certain is that they had a son, Henry John Tormey, bornbetween 1862 and 1866 in Staten Island. A couple that may be them appears in Castleton, New York in the 1860 census, but then the trail fades. It might have helped if their son had stayed put, but working as a railroad conductor, he bounced around from Staten Island to Port Jervis to Jersey City and finally to the Bronx. It’s lucky for Stephen that Henry was a wanderer, though, because it was in Port Jervis that he met his future wife, Maggie McCrory.

Baptism (in Latin) of daughter of John and Margaret Tormey that shows her parents’ birth places of Staten Island and Hibernia

McCrory/McCreash

Margaret Ann McCrory was the daughter of Henry McCrory and Margaret McCreash, and it’s the McCrory branch that indirectly contributed Stephen’s middle name of Tyrone. According to him, “The McCrorys were O’Neills way back, and the story was that one of the O’Neills had been the Earl of Tyrone, and so they named me Tyrone after him.”

While it’s conceivable that there’s a Tyrone connection back in the mists of time, the more immediate link is to Belfast where Henry “McRory” and Margaret “McReesh” were considerate enough to leave a critical clue for future generations by marrying in the Catholic Parish of St. Patrick, which has sacramental registers dating back to 1798. The McCrory-McCreash nuptials took place on October 8, 1842.

 
1842 marriage of Henry McCrory and Margaret McCreash (St. Patrick, Belfast)

Tuck/Dunn

Shifting gears from Stephen’s paternal ancestry to his mother’s side, more is known about the Tuck portion of his family tree than any other thanks to memoirs left by his great-grandfather, Andrew Tuck (1833–1917). Andrew wrote at length about the challenging start to his parents’ North American experience.

John Tuck and Judith (aka Julia) Dunn married in 1817 in what was then Queen’s County and is now Laois. More specifically, John was from Ballyhora(ha)n and Judith from nearby Camross. In the 1820s, John journeyed to Canada while Judith stayed behind with several children. The intention was for him to save money and return to Ireland to bring his wife and children back with him, but he made the mistake of turning over his earnings to his employer for safe-keeping. When the employer got into financial difficulties, John was left empty-handed and separated from his family.

After a number of years apart, Judith took matters into her own hands and traveled to Canada with their by-then, only surviving child, John Jr., and surprised her husband by showing up at the quarry where he worked one day in 1832. Shortly thereafter, the reunited family moved across the border to Lisbon, New York, where Andrew was born as he put it, “about the 9th of November, 1833 — I had no exact date of my birth — but the consensus of those who ought to be good authority is that it was about the 9th of November.”

Andrew Tuck’s memoirs go on to share details about walking to school (seven fences to cross if you took the short-cut and snow that caked up under your heels, crowding your feet out of your shoes), his family (including the birth of each child and the loss of a son to typhoid fever), his land purchases and building endeavors over the years (transaction by transaction, and decisions as minute as opting for a railing on a back stairway), his politics (“I was something of a political curiosity — an Irishman, a Republican”), his views on slavery and pride in voting for Lincoln (“It required courage, confidence and firmness”), and just about everything a curious descendant might hope for.

One of several obituaries for Andrew Tuck, Potsdam Courier Freeman, February 28, 1917

Lynch/Rowan

Andrew Tuck was fortunate enough to marry a woman he greatly admired named Maria Lynch. Maria was one of at least seven children of Thomas Lynch and Bridget Rowan, and like the Tuck-Dunns, her family had back-doored into upstate New York through Canada. From Smiths Falls, Ontario, they had moved to Ogdensburg and later Lisbon, New York.

The family made steady appearances in local records from the 1850s into the 1880s, but with the exception of a sister of Maria’s named Julia, vanished. Julia became a Grey Nun, assuming the name Sister Scholastica, a fitting choice as she would spend decades teaching. Her 1943 obituary offered a little insight into her personality and standards, commenting that, “It would have been difficult for a pupil to appear before her after shirking his duty.”

Extensive digging eventually turned up an article in a local newspaper that provided a vital clue in the disappearance of Maria’s parents. On April 23, 1886, their house burned down. Wasting no words, the piece stated, “Nothing was saved. No insurance.”

Succinct April 1886 article about the Lynch house fire

It was this event thatled the now-elderly Lynch immigrants to make one last move to Illinois where they would spend their twilight years with several of their children who were living in the Chicago area. And it was the death certificate of one of their sons that would furnish the only hint of their origins in Ireland — a frustratingly vague designation of Connaught.

Fee/McMahon

The Fee line is another one that left a generous paper trail, mainly because of their business interests. Owen Fee, who would marry Margaret McMahon in the late-1830s, was originally from County Monaghan, where tithe applotment booksinclude a man of his name in the townland of Drumaconvern about a decade earlier. His bride is believed to have been from Cootehill in the neighboring county of Cavan.

Owen emigrated in March 1835 and filed his intent to become a citizen in Rochester, New York in 1837. He worked as a butcher there, but passed away unexpectedly in 1855, leaving his widow Margaret with five children, the youngest of whom was only four. Margaret continued to run the family business as a grocery until her oldest son converted it to a saloon and deli in the early 1860s. Assessment lists from 1863 show Margaret being taxed as a “retail liquor dealer,” but it was that same year that her sons formally launched Fee Brothers which is still operating — and owned by cousins of Stephen’s — today.

The company evolved over time, adapting to circumstances as necessary. During Prohibition, for instance, it became a supplier of sacramental, “standard altar” wines which seems appropriate since two of the founding brothers, including Stephen’s great-grandfather, John C. Fee, were among the first altar boys when St. Bridget’s Church wasestablished in Rochester in 1854. Today Fee Brothers offers a variety of cocktail mixes, bitters and cordial syrups, and sports a logo which portrays the four brothers along with the slogan, “Don’t squeeze, use Fee’s.”

Connolly/Maloy

Rounding out Stephen’s eight pairs of great-great-grandparents are Patrick Connolly and Elizabeth Maloy. When Patrick made his way as a teenager from Knockaturly in County Monaghan to Rochester, New York in 1834, he was taking the first step toward building a new life as a successful merchant — initially in candles with his brother, James, and later specializing in “lace and fancy goods.” About the same year he crossed the ocean, his future wife was born in Rochester to Charles and Margaret Maloy who had emigrated from Kings County (now Offaly) in the 1820s.

Patrick and Margaret had one son and eight daughters. Two daughters died young and two dedicated themselves to the Sisters of Charity, serving in hospitals and orphanages. Their third child, Carolina, would eventually marry John C. Fee, joining two prosperous, Rochester families. It says something of the Connollys that when Patrick passed away, school books were among the first possessions specified in his estate papers to be held in reserve for his family.

Cherish the Ladies

All of this sprawling heritage was funneled to Stephen by way of his mostly second-generation great-grandparents, striving grandparents, and over-achieving parents. His father, in particular, was a man of singular accomplishment. Having acquired his medical training and skills at Columbia and Yale, James William Colbert, Jr., M.D., served with the U.S. Army’s Medical Corps and as Assistant Dean of the Yale University School of Medicine, before becoming at age 32, the youngest person to hold the deanship of a medical school (at St. Louis). He later moved on to NIH, and finally to the Medical University of South Carolina. Along the way, he still found time to serve on a number of health and medical boards, and as Co-Chairman of Doctors for Kennedy during the 1960 Presidential campaign.

John F. Kennedy and James W. Colbert, Jr., M.D. in 1960 (JFK Library, www.jfklibrary.org/)

And then there’s his mother, Lorna Elizabeth (Tuck) Colbert, who bore and raised 11 children, the youngest of whom was Stephen. Tragically losing her only brother in the immediate aftermath of World War II and then her husband and two sons, Paul and Peter, in a plane crash in 1974, Lorna was able to do far more than persevere. As Stephen explained at the time of her passing, “Her love for her family and her faith in God somehow gave her the strength not only to go on, but to love life without bitterness, and to instill in all of us a gratitude for every day we have together.” Giving us a sense of her spirit and joie de vivre, he continued, “I know that it may sound greedy to want more days with a person who lived so long, but the fact that my mother was 92 does not diminish. It only magnifies the enormity of the room whose door has now quietly shut.”

Listening to these words again after having just steeped myself in Stephen’s family history, I realized that they carried some echoes from the past. As we’ve already seen, Stephen’s extended family features nuns who ran schools, hospitals and orphanages. His great-great-grandmother, Judith (Dunn) Tuck, had ventured to North America in 1832 to reunite the long-separated pieces of her family. Another second great-grandmother, Margaret (McMahon) Fee, had taken over her husband’s business when he died and mortgaged her home to enable her oldest son to establish Fee Brothers in 1863. When his great-grandmother, Maria (Lynch) Tuck passed, her obituary noted that she “was of a splendid type of ostentatious Christian womanhood, a sacrificing helpmeet and a devoted mother.” And in his last letter home before his loss in a vehicle accident in Austria, Stephen’s uncle had written home, “Mother, how can a man be better while in a shower of your love and understanding?”

The remarkable women of Stephen Colbert’s family tree: wife Evelyn McGee-Colbert, mother Lorna (Tuck) Colbert, grandmothers Marie (Fee) Tuck and Mary (Tormey) Colbert, great-grandmother Carolina (Connolly) Fee, and great-great-grandmother Elizabeth (Maloy) Connolly

Ruminating on the topic of marriage, Andrew Tuck, the ancestor who left such thoughtful memoirs, reminisced that his future wife first made an impression on him with the way she acquitted herself when called on in geography class. He recalled a minister who preached that, “when a man married, he raised or lowered himself a step,” and referred to this sentiment as “an absolute truth.” Clearly regarding himself as having coming out ahead in the bargain, he went on to say of his own marriage, “Ours was the case of the unknown wife of the fairly well known husband, and when the latter left home, he often left more brains at home than he took with him, where often most needed, and with better results.”

Andrew was spelling out what had gradually dawned on me. The secret sauce of Stephen Colbert’s family tree is one of amazing women and the men who were smart enough to find and marry them. Stephen might jokingly claim that he broke the family pattern by entering into a “mixed marriage” with a Scots-Irish woman, but with his wise choice of Evie McGee, he’s keeping alive the tradition that matters most.

Similar articles: Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Pharrell, Rachel Maddow

Note: An earlier version of this appeared in Irish America.

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Radio programme tells the story of French couple who were left fearing they were half-siblings because of DNA test ban – I’ve long been curious about the state of #geneticgenealogy in France given its ban. Interesting read or listen.

Photo by John Maldonado on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, June 10 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

National Genealogy Hall of Fame – Just learned this from National Genealogical Society’s newsletter. So well deserved for everything Donn Devine did for the genealogical community! I well remember him being one of the first pros who recognized the potential in genetic genealogy, and even that was just a sliver of all he contributed.

Also delighted to see Randy Seaver (Geneaholic) receive an award for his pioneering and enduring blog that covers every genealogical topic imaginable!

Image: screenshot of Historic Irish counties (johngrenham.com)

The post Genealogy Roundup, June 3 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Understanding Reclaim the Records – An Interview with Brooke Schreier-Ganz and Alec Ferretti – Podcast for those who want to learn more about Reclaim the Records, a #genealogy hero!

Honored to have researched 1776 heroes’ families as of the 250th anniversary of America, the country they gave their lives to defend. These are the men who have been identified since last Memorial Day. #NoManLeftBehind

Photo Credits: rychlepozicky.com under Creative Commons license and University of Michigan SEAS under Creative Commons license

The post Genealogy Roundup, May 27 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

In the critically acclaimed series Mad Men, Don Draper’s true origins were something of a mystery until he was revealed to be Richard “Dick” Whitman, a fellow who had assumed the identity of an officer he had served with in the Korean War. The origins of Jon Hamm, who portrayed Draper (and now Andrew “Coop” Cooper in Your Friends & Neighbors), are less mysterious, but there’s little floating in the google-sphere beyond his Missouri birth.

St. Louis, it turns out, has played a central role in his family history with several generations parked there, but there’s more to the story, including strong women, immigrant struggles, and Mormonism.

• As you might expect for someone with solid St. Louis roots, Jon Hamm has German heritage.Roughly three-eighths of his family tree traces back to the fatherland, but he’s equally English and one-quarter Irish.

• Among Hamm’s ancestral surnames are Burch, Garner, Flynn, Gutmann, Hall, Hamilton, Hartley, Hines, Kohlhaas, Kolb, Lockett, Magner, Murphy, Quinn, Sargent, Schmidt, Sullivan, and Taschner, so those sharing one or more of these names could be cousins of some sort.

• His German surname of Hamm was introduced into America by the 1858 arrival of a father and son, Julius and Joseph, who would eventually become his 2^nd and 3^rd great-grandfathers. Though there were some who came earlier as well as a few stragglers, 1849-1869 marks his immigration sweet-spot with over half of his family branches arriving during that period.

• While many of his ancestors called Missouri home, he also has roots in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah.Overseas, Berslem, Staffordshire and Wakefield, West Yorkshire in England and the Irish counties of Cork and Down can claim a piece of his past.

• It must have been quite a shock when one of his great-grandfathers died of carbon monoxide poisoning while working on a car in his garage. Though this ancestor’s life was tragically truncated, his widow would go on to live to the age of 101.

• Mention almost any type of employment and someone in Hamm’s family has done it.Among their occupations are butcher, seaman in the Navy, railroad engineer, potter, solicitor (drayage), packer in auto supply, driver, grocer, farmer, brick layer/stone mason, fireman on a steam railroad, paper carrier, and saloon keeper.

• About a quarter of Hamm’s immigrant ancestors came to America to follow the Mormon faith with some making their own Trip to Bountiful. This part of his heritage might have had a more profound effect on his life if his direct ancestors hadn’t already married and settled in St. Louis before most of their parents and siblings moved on to Utah.

• It’s a good thing that the Hartley was a sturdy ship because six of his future ancestors – two great-great-grandmothers named Sarah and their respective parents – all arrived in New Orleans after a seven week journey on it in 1849. The son of one Sarah would eventually marry the daughter of the other Sarah, linking these one-time shipmates as family forever.

• The women in Hamm’s family had to be strong, especially the three who were left widowed with children shortly after arriving from either England or Ireland. The most extreme case is that of a 3^rd great-grandmother named Hannah who, after having lost a child she gave birth to while at sea, made it to St. Louis with her husband and five surviving children, only to watch her husband succumb to disease several days later.

• My guess is that Irish ancestor, Michael Magner, exhibited some of the confidence and charm of Don Draper to win the hand of his future wife Abby, the only female in a household that included half a dozen unrelated men.

Originally published on HuffingtonPost, 08 April 2013.

The post 10 Things You Didn’t Know about Jon Hamm’s Roots appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Ancient DNA and 23andMe Are Rewriting the Story of Some of America’s Earliest Colonists – cool application of genetic genealogy

Why Rob McElhenney Changed His Name to ‘Rob Mac’ – Wrexham Owner’s Decision Explained – Oh, no! Wrexham partners with Ancestry and Rob McElhenney (aka Rob Mac) is still spreading the name-changed-at-Ellis-Island myth. Mind you, I love Wrexham, but c’mon!

Photo by Stephen Walker on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, May 20 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

These Rare Italian Surnames Are on the Verge of Extinction – I’ve always found the extinction of surnames fascinating, but please, someone rescue these Italian ones!

Old’aVista – Wanna time travel online? Check out Old’aVista.

Photo by A Perry on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, May 13 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Henry Johnson (World War I soldier) – So frustrating! I researched (William) Henry Johnson, a WWI hero, for his posthumous Medal of Honor award in 2015. Someone emailed today saying Ancestry told them they were a cousin. I checked. There are 25 trees for this man on Ancestry and ALL of them are wrong. ALL have an incorrect spouse and parents.

Marleka Identity Labs – I can’t believe that what I’m about to share is a thing, but there’s now a company focused specifically on analyzing *Rusyn* DNA! Yes, really!

Here’s a portion of my Dad’s results (and FYI – he’s got pan-Rusyn roots that include villages in present-day Slovakia, Ukraine and Poland).

They have an excellent website that explains everything you need to know (and will even offer some Rusyn merch soon ).

Photo by: PhilipRomanoPhoto, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The post Genealogy Roundup, May 6 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.