The First Clues

So, I had made my vow to answer my children's question about where our ancestors were from in Ireland, but I didn't have any idea of how to go about finding the answer.  My father knew almost nothing about the Mahoney family ancestry, and he had no historical family documents.

My first break came when my father's sister, Virginia, died, and one of my cousins found a shoebox of family memorabilia among her belongings.  It wasn't much:  a few old photos, a few newspaper death notices, some holy cards from funerals, and some old letters.  My cousin, bless his soul, digitized the whole collection and made it available to other family members.  I eagerly requested my copy.

The pictures mostly of my Father's and Grandfather's generation. Several of them were of my Uncle Pete, who was killed during WW2:

There was one picture of my Grandfather's unit from WW1 (Grandpa is fifth from the left in the back row):

There was one picture, however, older than the rest, with two people I had never seen before:

These were my great-grandparents.  Also among the documents in this cache was a duplicate copy of the baptismal certificate for my Grandfather:

Peter Mahoney, child of Jeremiah Mahoney and Mary A Lanigan.  I now had the names of the two people in that old photograph, my great-grandparents.

I tried googling both of the names,  to no real avail.  This did lead me to the website Ancestry.com, which promised me access to all kinds of historical data if I were willing to pay their fees.  I was willing.

I started searching through census data from the late 1800s and early 1900s for any evidence of my family.  I found plenty.  From the 1892 NY State Census, I got ages for Jeremiah and Mary, as well as brothers and sisters for my Grandfather, Peter.  I got that Jeremiah was a police officer.  I got what was probably a brother for Mary, Lawrence. There was also a mystery woman, Ellen Cronin, who was also living with them:

The 1915 NY State Census shows that two sisters were born after Peter, that Jeremiah was now working in the surrogate courts, and that Mary's brother, Lawrence, was still living with them.  It also shows that the family lived at 315 Clinton Street in Brooklyn:

The 1920 US Census shows all but two of the children have moved out, that Mary's brother Lawrence had been joined in the household by Mary's sister Margaret, and that the family had moved to 312 Clinton Street.  Most importantly, it shows Mary as the head of the household, meaning that Jeremiah had probably died between 1915 and 1920:

The next step in my search would need to be a trip to the New York City Archives, to try to locate the death certificate for Jeremiah.