Waking the Tree
If my people are your people too, welcome!
This is a collection of translations, transcriptions and histories that I’ve generated over many years of research. The people I write about are little people, working people, often women – the ones you wouldn’t read about in school.
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Elizabeth Irene Wiggans
My grandmother, Elizabeth Irene Wiggans was born on the 16th of April, 1916, in the back bedroom of 290 Peshine Ave, Newark, NJ. She was named ‘Elizabeth’ after her mother but to her father, she would always be ‘Lovey’. Everyone else called her Irene.
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Did we have a farm in Ireland?
As a kid, I remember thinking that my grandfather’s family owned a farm called ‘Moyaver’ in a place called ‘Armoy’ – – but none of that turns out to be true. Here’s what’s true…
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Rooneys of Chorley
Elizabeth Rooney, my great-grandmother, was born in Chorley, Lancashire on the 7th of October, 1883 to John Rooney – an Irish immigrant to England who worked all his life as a farm labourer.
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The Shoemaker’s Cottage
My 2nd great-grandfather, Daniel O’Mullan, moved to Moyaver from Mount Hamilton around the time he married Isabella Scally. They lived in a cottage on the Limepark Estate.
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New England Heretics
Six of my ancestors emmigrated to the Puritan colony of Massachusetts Bay in 1633. Within 5 years, all of them would be exiled for heresy.
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Patrick Scally’s Farm
My 3rd great-grandfather, Patrick Scally, was born in Moyaver around 1791. Though his life largely predates Catholic parish registers, we can piece a lot of it together from census and […]