Moran/Brogan/Coyne and McHale

Hello again,

I appreciate the help of the message board on my many false starts looking for Morans from Mayo. So having spent much of the last year looking for clues for my family origin I have turned to the North Mayo Family History Center who sent me the following information. My question to users of the message board is do any of you have connection with a Moran family with given names James, Patrick, Peter, Cormac, John, and Bridgetto name a few? likely parents in 1840s were John Moran and Bridget Brogan (listed on one son's death certificate) or Bridget Coyne (listed on a daughter's). I found a Cormac Moran in the Tilthe records for 1847 for Fallgrave (Foulgarrif?) but that is all I have found: James married Sarah Jane McHale and they all ended up in Dunmore, PA. Thanks all! Looking forward to next August in Ireland!

From North Mayo Centre: "

The pattern of the research you have outlined, whereby the surnames are Moran and Borgan, the family members emigrate to Dunmore in Pennsylvania, and Bridget Moran married a man from the parish of Backs/Knockmore, indicates that this family originated in the area around Ballina. Many of the Roman Catholic parishes (including the native parish of Anthony F. Duffy) were keeping records of baptisms and marriages in the 1840s. The absence of any matching records suggests that your ancestors came from one of the parishes surrounding Ballina which was not keeping such records at the time. There are two other factors which are relevant in our attempt to identify this parish. The first is the surname 'Brogan' which has a fairly limited distribution, and is mostly found in the parishes of Backs/Knockmore and inMoygownagh.

However, the fact that one of the children or potential children of John Moran was named Cormac is crucially important. Cormac was not a common name in the 19th century in Co. Mayo. Cormac is however, associated with the parish of Moygownagh,and the Roman Catholic church building is named after St. Cormac.

Therefore, we are confronted with a situation whereby there are no direct factual records of births and baptism which can link your ancestors to a particular parish. However, the circumstantial evidence, namely the surname Brogan, the pattern of emigration, and the occurrence of the name Cormac point towards the parish of Moygownagh, which did not have a register of baptisms at the time when John Moran and Bridget Brogan were having issue (1840s-1850s).