Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Are you a County Clare cousin - looking for connections in Moyriesk or Rathclooney?

Are your ancestors from County Clare in Ireland?  More specifically are they from the townlands of Moyriesk or Rathclooney, or perhaps nearby parishes of Doora, Clooney, Kilraghtis, Drumcliff, Quin, Tulla or Ruan?

If so, why not join our DNA project as we try and break through our brick wall pedigrees and get clues from DNA matching about our family connections.  Could we be related?

I've been researching my Clare ancestry for some time and you can read more about my known ancestors on my website genemonkey.com.  Known descendants can be viewed using the Wikitree.com links below.

  • My 2nd great grandmother Mary Sweeney was b1821, she was the first to emigrate to Australia in 1839 aboard the Roxburgh Castle, along with her brother Terence;
  • Her father John Sweeney was born some time before 1795 and can be traced to Rathclooney, County Clare where he lived with his MacNamara cousins;
  • Mary's grandfather was Daniel Sweeney and his wife was believed to be a MacNamara;
  • John's grandfather, Roe Sweeney died in 1800, but is believed to have lived in Moyriesk, County Clare.  He was a gentleman and his children married into distinguished families, including the O'Connell's.


Sweeney Homestead, Rathclooney 2017


Let's see if we are related!  Please join the Moyriesk and Rathclooney FTDNA project!

The key surnames of interest in this project include McNamara/MacNamara, Sweeney, Hanrahan, Enright, Hehir, O'Connell, O'Donnell, McInerney and McMahon/Mahon.  


Uploading your DNA results to the FTDNA project

If you have tested your autosomal DNA at a different company than FamilyTreeDNA, you can upload your results for free - refer to the Autosomal-DNA-Transfers-Guide.  If you tested at AncestryDNA or another DNA site you might find this blog post by Louise Coakley Genie 1 useful, she explains it better than I could!

Wikitree

As part of the project we are documenting and trying to connect our ancestors on Wikitree.com - a one world tree AND a free family tree site.  The FTDNA project administrators will add the oldest known ancestor to Wikitree and we encourage members to add more of their known County Clare ancestors to the tree.  


You can find other people who have connections to our townlands of interest on Wikitree:-

We are particularly keen to connect with people who have ancestors identified in one of the following sources for these key townlands:-

  • Ireland, Tithe Applotment Books, 1805-1927
  • Griffith's Valuation, Moyriesk, Parish of Doora;
  • Griffith's Valuation, Moyriesk, Parish of Clooney;
  • Griffith's Valuation, Rathclooney, Parish of Clooney;
  • 1901 Ireland Census, Townlands of Moyriesk and Rathclooney;
  • 1911 Ireland Census, Townlands of Moyriesk and Rathclooney.

  • More help
    If you need help joining the FTDNA project, or with Wikitree, please do not hesitate to contact me via the contact form on this blog, or by private message at Wikitree.