While I had
extra time at home during Covid lockdowns, I researched more into my Malone
family in Ballinadrideen, Co Cork, Ireland, descended from Jeremiah Malone and
Margaret Riordan. I made a blog post summarising what I had learned about the
children of the family, who were siblings of my grandmother Margaret Malone. I was aware that there was an ‘earlier’ Malone family in the same parish, but
I didn’t have any evidence we were connected, so I never followed them up.
I couldn’t find a
baptism for my Jeremiah, and didn’t have any other evidence about who his parents
were, but using Irish naming patterns, I surmised that his father’s name might
be John, and that perhaps his mother’s name was Mary. The father of the ‘earlier’
family was named John Malone. I wondered if he might be Jeremiah’s father.
Imagine
my surprise on 1 August 2026, 5+ years later, when I got a blog comment from someone
descended from the ‘other’ Malone family. He had a theory about how the
families might be connected. He thought that Maurice Malone who took over the
farm in Ballinadrideen following Jeremiah’s death, might well be a first cousin
to a Maurice Malone of Imphrick, not too distant from Ballinadrideen, who was the
eldest son of John Malone, of the ‘earlier’ Malone family in Ballyhea Parish. It
was time to do some more research, this time into the ‘older’ Malone family.
I
knew from his death registration that my great-grandfather Jeremiah Malone must
have been born about 1826, as he was said to be 80 years old when he died in
1906. Then I discovered a couple of headstones in Ballyhay Old Cemetery that
were key. John Malone of Ballinadrideen had erected a headstone in memory of
his father John Malone who died 26 October 1861, aged 74 years, meaning he was
born around 1787. A second headstone was for John’s mother Mary Malone née Ryan
who died 1st May 1870 aged 80 years, so she was born around 1790. This
headstone also named Honora whose married name was Ryan, who was the sister of
John Malone who erected the headstone. She was 52 when she died in 1887, so
must have been born around 1835.
I
also found the death registration for the son John who had erected these
headstones, on 30 April 1893, aged 80 years. He died in Ballinadrideen, and
must have been born around 1813.
Given
these dates, I made some hypotheses about how Jeremiah (b1826) John (b1813) John
(b1787), and Honora (b1835) might be connected.
I thought that the older John
was probably the father of both Jeremiah and the younger John, as well as of
Honora. This is of course just a theory, and given the lack of many records in
Ireland in the early 1800s, I am unlikely to find much further documentary proof
of these relationships.
However,
I decided to research more into the family of John Malone and Mary White, the ‘earlier’
family in Ballinadrideen, to see if I could find any DNA connections with their
descendants. And indeed, I do have such connections, from several lines of the
descendants. (Cautionary tale, I am largely using ThruLines and other people’s
family trees at this stage, so my conclusions are reliant on the trees others
have put together.) I
have set up a private tree to record my findings, so others won’t be blindly
copying what are my theories. The links are with people who are around the third cousin
once removed, or fourth cousin kind of level, which is what you would expect.
I
won’t use full names here, as I don’t want to compromise anyone’s privacy, but
here are a few indications of some matches. From Honora Ryan née Malone, ThruLines
shows two matches via her daughters Kate (b1867) and Marie (b1866) Ryan. From
John Malone (1813) there is a ThruLines connection via his daughter Margaret
Galvin née Malone.
Next,
I did some surname searches using married names of some of the Malone daughters.
With the Blake name I turned up someone with 21 matches, many of whom I had
previously identified as Malone line matches. I have messaged someone with a
tree showing his Blake descent, who has put many photos etc up on Ancestry, and
hope he might reply to me soon. Similarly with the Galvin name.
Clearly
there is a lot of research to be done before I can be certain that my initial
theory that John (b 1813) and Jeremiah (b 1826) are siblings rather than just cousins,
but there are enough DNA connections at this stage for me to be confident that
the two Malone families in Ballinadrideen are related.
This map shows how initially, several of the married Malone daughters lived not too distant from Ballinadrideen. Mary, who married Denis Callaghan, lived in Farthingville; Margaret, who married Robert Galvin, lived in Ballinadrideen (though her husband and sons later moved to New York); and Hanora, who married Thomas Blake, lived in Boherascrub, Buttevant.
Margaret
Riordan
2 October 2016
