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Sweeney and Helferty families

Donegal

Greetings and thank you in advance for your help. Ancestry DNA tells me,my Donegal ancestors may have been fromInishowen. I am verysure this is my Sweeney ancestors.

I am in search of information about John Sweeney and Julia Helferty; I believe they are my2X great grandparents. Parents of my Great Grandfather William Sweeney. They are listedas parents of Julia Sweeney (born abt 1859; died in Philadelphia, PA on 25 Nov 1919) on herdeathcertificate.

I believe Julia Sweeney is my Great Grandfather's sister since Willaim Sweeneymy Great Grandfather purchased the 'familyplot' right after Julia died and shewas the first person buried in the plot. Also, William and his wife Margaret Monahan named their first daughter Julia. Unfortunately,family history does not tell me anything other than William was from Donegal, possibly Letterkenny.

Williamwas born abt 1867 Ireland and died June 1923. I have not been able to find his PA death certificate; I am sure it will give me more information.

Any help you can give me to find more information about William, John, Julia Sweeney, and Julia Helferty is much appreciated.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!irinn go Brch

ME Miller

10 replies

ME Miller:

I was unable to find a church baptismal record for William. (Co. Donegal RC parish records generally start late). Also, I searched on the free site www.irishgenealogy.ie and looked for civil birth records in Co. Donegal from 1864-1870 (civil registration started in 1864) and did not find a record for your William.

I went to Ancestry.com and the 1900 census shows that William was listed as 39 making his year of birth around 1861. He does make himself younger in the 1910 and 1920 censuses. (By the way, I also have Co. Donegal ancestors who went to South Philadelphia). I also did not find his Pennsylvania death record. 

I will keep looking for clues. Any other siblings who came to Philadelphia?

Roger McDonnell

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

ME Miller:

I went back to Roots Ireland and searched for any Sweeney Baptismal records with father John and mother with surname Helferty. An 1860 record came up in Letterkenny RC parish for an Edward Sweeney and the mothers name was Giles Hilferty. Giley or Jiley would be the nickname for a female named Giles and I'm wondering if Giley became Julia?

Any possibility William had a brother Edward?

Roger

Name:Edward SweeneyDate of Birth:
Date of Baptism:06-Sep-1860Address:
Parish/District:LETTERKENNYGender:MaleCountyCo. Donegal
Denomination:Roman Catholic
Father:John SweeneyMother:Giles HilfertyOccupation:
Sponsor 1 /
Informant 1:Hugh Sweeney Sponsor 2 /
Informant 2:Sarah Crossan 

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Roger

Thank you so much for this information. Anything is possible at this point.

ME Miller

I just joined the site today.  I am searching for as much information I can get on the Hilferty family. 

My name is Thomas Hilferty, born in Philadelphia in 1955. I'm trying to track down how Hugh Hilferty Sr. from Letterkenny, my great grandfather, is related to the other Hilferty's from this area.

In my search for the Hilferty family, I found some information about John Hilferty who married Margery Sweeney in Letterkenny. 

They had 8 children (2 died at birth and one was 2 years old).  They five remaining were Edward 1891, James 1894, Many Anne 1895, Catherine 1900 and Rosina 1906.

You may already know this information, but I thought I would mention it just in case you did not.

If you have any more information about the Hilferty family, I would appreciate it.

 

 

 

 

Tom Hilferty

Tom 

Hello, My name is Ellen Miller and I was also born in Philadelphia, a few years after you :). 

I am sure others are having the same issue as I am with their Irish branches of my tree, they are my brick walls. 

I have not been able to find any more information regarding my Sweeney/Hilferty side in several years.  I am still not 100% sure Julia Helferty and John Sweeney are my 2X Great Grandparents.  I am only guessing since Julia Sweeney was the first person to be buried in 'the family plot' my great grandfather bought at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, PA, in 1919.

Do you have a family tree online anywhere (Ancestory.com, MyHeritage.com,...)? my tree is on Ancestry called Past, Present, and Future my ID is mem112234

Have you done your DNA?  I have with Ancestory and so have a number of my Sweeney cousins (1st and 2nd).  I have found that DNA has helped connect some branches of my tree that I was not 100% sure of. 

Good luck on your hunt!

ME Miller

Hello Ellen,

I do not have a family tree online anywhere.  I have not done DNA but plan to soon.  I should have started this process a while ago, but... So far, with help from this site and Griffith's Valuation and the Irish Genealogy site and my niece Mollie, I've been able to identify my great grandfather Hugh Helferty Sr. and his father John Helferty.  John is in the 1858 Griffith's Valuation in Skerry township, with a farm on the south side of Lake Keel.  There are other Helferty's in Griffith's in the immediate area.  Edward, Owen and John have farms in Tirkillan (just adjacent to the De Exeter House), Mary has a farm just south of the Termon National School in Gortnalargh, Daniel has property just east of Ramelton, very close to Oakwell Holiday Village and James is in Breaghy (Ramelton) at a Flax Mill. 

All of these properties are within a few miles of Letterkenny.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to understand all or any of these family relationships without more information.  I am satisfied that I've been able to identify John as my great great grandfather and the location of the farm, which I plan to visit as soon as conditions improve, but I am curious now to fill in some of the missing pieces of this puzzle.  I also have my son, and my nieces and nephew interested and ready to visit Ireland, which is a good thing. :-)

 

Tom Hilferty

hi Ellen,

I now have a family tree, Thomas Hilferty family tree, on Ancestry.com. Please let me know if you have any trouble accessing it.  I tried to send you a message today on ancestry.com but got an alert saying "mem112234 is not accepting messages".  If you want to compare DNA matches, I think I can add you as a collaborator in the Sharing Preferences section of Settings. Please let me know if you are interested in that. Perhaps we can obtain some additional information by viewing our DNA matches.

Regards

Tom Hilferty

 

 

 

Tom Hilferty

 

Good evening Tom, it's good to hear from you. I hope you and your family are doing well in these crazy times. I am hunkered down here in Bucks County, PA.

I did find your tree on Ancestry, I clicked on Daniel Francis, who I believe is your grandfather and then looked at the 1940 census.  What did I notice they lived at 4127 Paul Street.  My father grew up at 4272 Paul St. he ended up actually owning it for a bit of time before I was born. 
 

Have you done any DNA testing yet? I have my brothers DNA that I manage on AncestryDNA.  Several of my second cousins Sweeney side have done DNA on ancestry.com also, hopefully you'll match one of us.

I think we start communicating outside of this website and boer bulletin boards, my email address is MEM 1122@me.com,  Send me an email and I will make you a guest on my tree.

Take care Ellen

ME Miller

This message is directed to Tom Hilferty 2020. My name is Brian Black. My mother was Mary Anne Hilferty born in Letterkenny 1895. She married James Black from Larne Co Antrim. I was born in Armagh in 1940. If any of this info is of interest please contact me.

Saike

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