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- My great-great-grandfather was Owen McMenamin,
probably born around 1800 in Donegal. His son John, my great grandfather, sailed from
Londonderry in 1847 on the "Marion," was shown as McMenomin on the passenger
list, and arrived April 12th at New York City. Listed with John, ‘age 18,
laborer’ were Susan, ‘age19, spinster,’ and a John, ‘age 01,
child.’ Listed separately was Mary Gallagher, ‘age 51,spinster,’ who
records later show was John and Susan’s mother.
- The John,
"age 01, child," whom my great grandfather John
brought to New York City in April 1847 on the "Marion," was almost certainly the
John McMenamin on the birth registry of St. Patrick's Church at "The
Crossroads" in Donaghmore Parish, Co. Donegal, one mile south of Killygordon.
The child John was born on the 26th of June or July in 1846, in Belalt townland,
about 3 miles south of Killygordon. His father was
Patrick McMenamin, 30, his mother was Jane McLynchy, and it was their
first child. By 1858, they had their sixth child and had at least two more later.
Some of the other children's names were Hugh, Catherine, Anna Joanne, Mary, Patrick
and Thomas. It was unlikely that the child John was the son of my great grandfather
or his sister Susan, since they were both single in 1847. We believe that they were
delivering little John for Patrick and Jane to relatives in America. Giving children
to relatives to raise was a common practice in Donegal up to as recently as the 1940's,
1847 was the first severe year of the famine and, by April, Jane was probably pregnant
with her second child. My great grandfather was probably related to Patrick but they
were not brothers (see bank record below). Patrick was listed in the Tithe
Applotment Books (1831) for Belalt and in Griffith's Valuations (1857) for Belalt.
The 1901 Census showed Patrick, then about 84, living with his son Hugh in Belalt
although he still owned his own home. The census also showed that Patrick had a
brother Edward, 4 years older than he. Hugh had a son Thomas and I think his mother
Jane had a brother Thomas.
My great grandfather John opened an
account in March 1853 at the Emigrant Industrial Bank (founded by the
Irish Emigrant Society) in New York. The entry shows him as John McMenomy, (McMenomey in
later entries), "umbrella maker, native of Duisk, 7 miles from Killygordon, Co.
Donegal...arr. NYC 1847 per the ‘Mary Ann,’ (see above) from Derry, fa(ther) dead Owen, mo(ther) in NY Mary Gallagher, no
Bros., 4 Sisters, Bridget, Ann and Mary in NY and Susan in Penn. Is Single."
- It seems certain that John was a McMenamin leaving
Ireland. His name got transposed to McMenomy on or soon after his
arrival in NYC and he was later shown on marriage and census records as McMenomey, as were
his wife and children. In Donegal, when a wife used her maiden name after marriage it
meant that she came from the same local area as her husband. That could explain
John’s mother being listed on the "Marion," and on the NYC bank records, as
Mary Gallagher.
- Later records showed that John could not
write and probably spoke heavily accented English or possibly only Irish.
In the Tithe Applotment Books for 1824-37, I found an Owen McMenamin Sr. and an Owen McMenamin Jr. in Belalt (Bealalt).
Both had properties with houses and barns on them. An Owen McMenamin also had land,
without house or barns, in Corraffrinn, a townland just east of Trusk - I don’t know
whether this Owen is Sr., Jr. or another. A John McMenamin had land with house and barns
in Belalt but I don’t know if he was
related to the Owens or how close any of these properties were to each other.
Neither "Donegal Ancestry," nor I, have found any Owens listed in Trusk
or Dooish in that period and I have found none in Roosky. Finally, I am aware
that for a number of reasons, applotment books were not always complete listings of the
landowners in those areas.
Here is all that I know about my great
grandfather John McMenomey and his descendants in the New York City area.
He married a Mary (I don't know her maiden name). According to the headstone
on the family gravesite in Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn, Mary also came from Donegal.
They had four children who died between the ages of 1 and 9 and my grandfather John
Francis, who was born in 1859/60 and lived to be 84. John died Feb. 24, 1877 and
Mary on Oct. 25, 1894. On Oct. 25, 1886 at the Church of St. Paul in Brooklyn, John
Francis married Bridget (she later preferred Delia) McGlinchey from the Glenfin in
Donegal. Their children were Peter, born 1894 and died 1952, Anna (my mother), born
1895 and died 1925, Joseph, born 1898 and died 1956, and Margaret, born 1903 and died
1903. At least by the time of the children's birth, John Francis and Bridget were
living at 96 Hull Ave. in Maspeth, Queens (later redesignated as 64-11 56th Ave. after a
Maspeth street reorganization; the house was torn down sometime after Bridget's death in
1944). Their parish church was St. Stanislaus Kostka in Maspeth. The 1898
census listed John Francis as a machinist and Bridget as a cook. The 1920 census
listed Peter as a machinist in a shipyard, Joseph as a laborer on the railroad, and Anna
as a boarder at 15 Charles St. in Maspeth with a family named Yuengst (sp?). The
mother of a Mary Connolly was Anna's first cousin (on the McGlinchey side) and best
friend. In the 1934 census, Peter and Joseph were still living at the Hull Ave.
house (by then 64-11 56th Ave.), Peter as a city fireman but no occupation listed for
Joseph. When Bridget wrote her will in 1943, Peter was living in Callicoon Center
(on the New York side of the Delaware River about 45 miles west of New Paltz) and Joseph
in Astoria, Long Island. From the early 1900's until his death in 1943, John Francis
was a patient in a State hospital at Romulus in Seneca County, NY. Bridget
died in 1944 in Maspeth.
Questions/Comments let me know at
rjcollins1@earthlinkt.net
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