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Mara Family

Killea (Tipperary)

My ancestor Patrick Mara was boan/baptized at Killea 31 July 1814, son of John Mara and Catherine Carroll. On 20 Februry he married Johannah Drake in tha Parish of Knocklong & Glenbrohane.

I have not found an immigrtion record, but Patrick and Johannah had 2 children in America: John, about 1840, Massachusetts and Catherine, about 1841, New Jersey.

Patrick died at Quebec, Canada 18 August 1849 (possibly in a cholera epidemic). His widow and children first appear in Troy, New York in 1857 and our family lived there until 1952 when we moved to a nearby suburb. The family used Marr as a name here in New York state.

Attached is an image of a cenotaph monument to Patrick and Johannah in St. Mary's RC Cemetery in Troy, erected in 1877 by their daughter Catherine Marr Hickey.

I reaalize that these events are a long time ago, but it is my hope that I may find someone with a connection to my family.

Dennis Francis Michael Marr

Troy, NY

Dennis Marr

10 replies

Dennis:

I can't read the monument to your ancestors so I'm not sure what info is shown.

The Patrick Mara/Meara who married Johanna Drake in 1832 in Knocklong Co. Limerick appear to have a child named Ellen in May 1843 in Ballylanders RC parish which borders Knocklong parish. They also had a Johanna baptized September 8 1833. These records were found on the subscription site Roots Ireland.

Have you considered a DNA test? You may get matches on your Mara/Drake line and your matches may have more info on the family origins in Ireland.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Roger McDonnell

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Mr. McDonnell:

Many thanks for your thoughtful reply...it look slike I have more work to do on this family.

Here's the Marr inscription on the monument:

On the north face of this monument is the following inscription:

              Erected by Catherine Hickey August 1887
                          in Memory of her Father
              Patrick Marr Who Died At Montréal, Canada
                                 1848  Aged 35
                                    Cenotaph
              Also her Mother Johanna Marr Died at Troy, NY
                          May 22, 1877 Aged 60

I have taken both the Ancestry.con autosomal DNA test as well as FamilyTreeDNA's Big Y YDNA test. I',m part of their Marr et. al.Haplogroup. When they did the BigY test (38,000 markers) it revealed 13 Novel Variants, markers that would not be expected in that Haplogroup...one other person, adopted but father's name Flanigan, shares 11 Novel Variants with me. This was extraordinary enough that they put the 2 of us in our own Haplogroup. Our ancestors were in Ireland well before the Celts. The connection is too distant to be of genealogical help.

I had searched the Irish Catholic Parish Registers at Ancestry.com and had noticed the birth of the child Joanna in 1833...could not determine when she might have died.

I never expected such a prompt reply to my query.

Thank you for the help. I may be back to you in the future.

 

Dennis

Dennis Marr

Mr. McDonnell:

Many thanks for your thoughtful reply...it look slike I have more work to do on this family.

Here's the Marr inscription on the monument:

On the north face of this monument is the following inscription:

              Erected by Catherine Hickey August 1887
                          in Memory of her Father
              Patrick Marr Who Died At Montréal, Canada
                                 1848  Aged 35
                                    Cenotaph
              Also her Mother Johanna Marr Died at Troy, NY
                          May 22, 1877 Aged 60

I have taken both the Ancestry.con autosomal DNA test as well as FamilyTreeDNA's Big Y YDNA test. I',m part of their Marr et. al.Haplogroup. When they did the BigY test (38,000 markers) it revealed 13 Novel Variants, markers that would not be expected in that Haplogroup...one other person, adopted but father's name Flanigan, shares 11 Novel Variants with me. This was extraordinary enough that they put the 2 of us in our own Haplogroup. Our ancestors were in Ireland well before the Celts. The connection is too distant to be of genealogical help.

I had searched the Irish Catholic Parish Registers at Ancestry.com and had noticed the birth of the child Joanna in 1833...could not determine when she might have died.

I never expected such a prompt reply to my query.

Thank you for the help. I may be back to you in the future.

 

Dennis

Dennis Marr

Mr. McDonnell:

Many thanks for your thoughtful reply...it look slike I have more work to do on this family.

Here's the Marr inscription on the monument:

On the north face of this monument is the following inscription:

              Erected by Catherine Hickey August 1887
                          in Memory of her Father
              Patrick Marr Who Died At Montréal, Canada
                                 1848  Aged 35
                                    Cenotaph
              Also her Mother Johanna Marr Died at Troy, NY
                          May 22, 1877 Aged 60

I have taken both the Ancestry.con autosomal DNA test as well as FamilyTreeDNA's Big Y YDNA test. I',m part of their Marr et. al.Haplogroup. When they did the BigY test (38,000 markers) it revealed 13 Novel Variants, markers that would not be expected in that Haplogroup...one other person, adopted but father's name Flanigan, shares 11 Novel Variants with me. This was extraordinary enough that they put the 2 of us in our own Haplogroup. Our ancestors were in Ireland well before the Celts. The connection is too distant to be of genealogical help.

I had searched the Irish Catholic Parish Registers at Ancestry.com and had noticed the birth of the child Joanna in 1833...could not determine when she might have died.

I never expected such a prompt reply to my query.

Thank you for the help. I may be back to you in the future.

 

Dennis

Dennis Marr

Mr. McDonnell:

Many thanks for your thoughtful reply...it look slike I have more work to do on this family.

Here's the Marr inscription on the monument:

On the north face of this monument is the following inscription:

              Erected by Catherine Hickey August 1887
                          in Memory of her Father
              Patrick Marr Who Died At Montréal, Canada
                                 1848  Aged 35
                                    Cenotaph
              Also her Mother Johanna Marr Died at Troy, NY
                          May 22, 1877 Aged 60

I have taken both the Ancestry.con autosomal DNA test as well as FamilyTreeDNA's Big Y YDNA test. I',m part of their Marr et. al.Haplogroup. When they did the BigY test (38,000 markers) it revealed 13 Novel Variants, markers that would not be expected in that Haplogroup...one other person, adopted but father's name Flanigan, shares 11 Novel Variants with me. This was extraordinary enough that they put the 2 of us in our own Haplogroup. Our ancestors were in Ireland well before the Celts. The connection is too distant to be of genealogical help.

I had searched the Irish Catholic Parish Registers at Ancestry.com and had noticed the birth of the child Joanna in 1833...could not determine when she might have died.

I never expected such a prompt reply to my query.

Thank you for the help. I may be back to you in the future.

 

Dennis

Dennis Marr

Mr. McDonnell:

Many thanks for your thoughtful reply...it look slike I have more work to do on this family.

Here's the Marr inscription on the monument:

On the north face of this monument is the following inscription:

              Erected by Catherine Hickey August 1887
                          in Memory of her Father
              Patrick Marr Who Died At Montréal, Canada
                                 1848  Aged 35
                                    Cenotaph
              Also her Mother Johanna Marr Died at Troy, NY
                          May 22, 1877 Aged 60

I have taken both the Ancestry.con autosomal DNA test as well as FamilyTreeDNA's Big Y YDNA test. I',m part of their Marr et. al.Haplogroup. When they did the BigY test (38,000 markers) it revealed 13 Novel Variants, markers that would not be expected in that Haplogroup...one other person, adopted but father's name Flanigan, shares 11 Novel Variants with me. This was extraordinary enough that they put the 2 of us in our own Haplogroup. Our ancestors were in Ireland well before the Celts. The connection is too distant to be of genealogical help.

I had searched the Irish Catholic Parish Registers at Ancestry.com and had noticed the birth of the child Joanna in 1833...could not determine when she might have died.

I never expected such a prompt reply to my query.

Thank you for the help. I may be back to you in the future.

 

Dennis

Dennis Marr

Hi Dennis!

Our system response time has been slow at times so your response was posted four times.

We have a number of volunteers who monitor the message board and try to respond to the messages that are posted. Most of the volunteers are in Ireland but a few like myself live in the States or another country.

I've tested with Ancestry and have taken the Y-DNA test up to 111 markers but I was underwhelmed with the results so I've not taken the plunge with the Big Y test.

I have to be honest when I read the story about one child born in Massachusetts in 1840 and the next child born in New Jersey in 1841 and Patrick dying in Quebec in 1849, I was a little skeptical. Maybe Patrick's occupation required him to move around a lot.

Let me know if I can help further.

Roger

 

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Roger..

I could not find Ellen's birth on Ancestry's Irish Parish records...likely an indexxing issue. I'm going to subscribe to Roots Ireland foe a month ond poke aroundthere.

Dennis

Dennis Marr

Dennis:

A little more background. The parish register for Ballylanders on the NLI site is here https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0244 ; and you will note that baptismal records start in 1849. Ancestry used the NLI parish registers to transcribe their records and upload them to their data base which would explain not finding a record for Ellen on Ancestry.

The NLI parish registers were microfilmed in the 1950s. I can only presume that the parish located some earlier records (1842-1848) which were available when the Co. Limerick Heritage group working under the Roots Ireland umbrella transcribed the Ballylanders records.

Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Thanks for this, Roger.

 

Dennis

Dennis Marr

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