Surname Saturday - Malone

Ah yes, yet another one of my Irish surnames that just magically appeared in America; this one in Ohio. From what I've gathered, my ancestor, Richard Malone (1790-1841) was somewhat of a frontiersman, which possibly explains why the records trail ends with him. But that's a story for another day.

About the surname Malone itself... there are many places on the web where the origins of the Malone name is explained.

Ó Maoileoin, literally grandson (or descendant) of the follower of John (possibly Saint John), is the original Irish form of this name and though originally anglicised as O Malone, we have here a name which is never found with its Gaelic prefix, the form Malone being the exclusive modern form of the name. The sept is a branch of the royal O Connors of Connacht who derive their name from Conchobhar (died 971), King of Connacht. The original Maoileoin from whom the clan takes its name was said to be a nephew of Roderic O Connor, the last Celtic monarch of Ireland. The main family of Malone was for centuries associated with the Abbey of Clonmacnoise, to which they furnished many abbots and bishops, for Clonmacnoise was for a time an independent See before being united with Ardagh. In the early Middle Ages, Clonmacnoise was the great centre of Christian scholarship by the River Shannon, south of Athlone.

You can read more about the Malone surname here .

On last year's glorious trip to Ireland, I found some Malones in Wicklow...



...and also in Clifden...

Follow Friday - 13 tips...

When I first started blogging a couple of months back, I started following another blogger, mainly because they were digging into Irish genealogy. Today, she shared a great post that I'd like to give props to for Follow Friday. You can read the post, "13 Tips +1 for conducting research in Ireland", on her blog, "On a Flesh and Bone Foundation: An Irish History"

Thanks for a great post, Irish Eyes.

My Workman Line - An Overview

My paternal grandmother is Nellie Joyce Tomblin Cummons. Her parents were Ebb Tomblin and Mary Workman. Mamaw Mary was the sweetest, most generous, hardworking woman I've ever known. She was a farm wife, working hard on the family's dairy farm in southern Ohio. I know everyone has had one of those grandmother's who can read minds, and Mamaw Mary was no exeception: "Put a sweater on. You're freezing!" "Eat another helping of (insert food item cooked in lard), you're still hungry!"
Much of my vocabulary was learned from Mamaw Mary. When a cool autumn breeze gave a sudden chill, Mamaw would say, "Boozy!" You never wore your farm clothes into town, because you didn't want to look "Jakey". And if you needed to be somewhere, but were running a bit behind, you'd be there "D'reckly".
In 1990, our family lost Mamaw Mary, and we couldn't imagine life without her. I was just 16 at the time, and it's only now, twenty years later, that I've began to wonder about Mary Workman Tomblin before she was a sweet, grey-haired old lady. So my search has started. Hopefully over the next few posts, I'll be able to share some of the history I've learned about Mamaw, and also her mother, Inez Dempsey. But for now, here's a look at the Workman line, as discovered through ancestry.com:

Wordless Wednesday: Cottage at Bunratty Castle and Folk Village, Ireland

Monday Madness - More Computer Misery!

Oh, the joys of technology! Just when I was getting used to being without my regular laptop, and had consoled myself because I had the forethought to save a lot of my files to the jumpdrive...*sigh*

I pull out the jump drive to access some genealogy files for Monday Madness... but there's no genealogy folder!!! Are you kidding me?

I mean, it's not like I'd cut my family tree down to a stump, but still, what an inconvenience! Fortunately the muster rolls I had just discovered on my Civil War grandfather has already been posted on the blog here, so I can retrieve them (a lesser quality than what I'd had saved, but at least they're here.) And a lot of files I can pull up again on ancestry, but the biggest frustration are the stories I had recently transcribed from my grandfather and great aunt. I wrote those up fresh, just hours after we had sat reminiscing. I'm sure I can still recount the tales they told, but they will no doubt lack the magic of the moment the original documents held.

I don't know what happened. I am 100% certain the genealogy folder was on the jump drive before the laptop crashed. Why or when would I have taken it off? Grrrr....

So today, my first foray into Monday Madness has me pulling my hair out, not over an elusive ancestor, or an unreadable census record. And it doesn't have me sharing any secrets of mental instability in my family's past (I'm sure I'll get to that in time!) I am simply driven mad today by that little thing we can't do without...TECHNOLOGY!

Matrilineal Mother's Day

I saw this challenge on Bill West's Blog - West in New England, and thought it would be a fun little exercise on Mother's Day. I'll admit, I tend to pay more attention to the male lines in my research, my father's Cummons line, and my maternal grandfather's Malone line in particular, and sometimes those wonderful women who contributed to my DNA are left behind. Bill's blog gave this challenge:

"Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:
1) List your matrilineal line - your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!

2) Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.

3) Post your responses on your own blog post, in Comments to this blog post, or in a Note or status line on Facebook."

I have never had the DNA testing done, although I would love to, but here is my matrilineal line, at least as far as I've been able to uncover it on ancestry.com

Beginning with my mother:
Carolyn Y. Malone (1955- present) m. Robert A Cummons
Margaret Y. Evans (1928? - present) m. Eugene G Malone
Nannie Carroll (1895-1980) m. Harvey Evans
Phoebe Ellen Smith (1870-1957) m. John Morgan Carroll
Martha Osborn (1845 - ?) m. Peter Smith
Phebe Lewis (1811 - ??) m. Lewis Osborn
Rachel Henson (1783-1987) m. John Lewis
Mary Polly Lewis (1796-1880) m. James Henson
Winetry Winnie Henson (1760-1824) m. James Theophilus Lewis
Elizabeth (?) (1738_?) m. Paul Henson

This trail of ladies began in North Carolina, moved into Kentucky, and later to Ohio. What a celebration of mothers!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Mom. Where would I be without her? For the majority of my childhood years it was just the two of us. My dad died when he was 20. Mom was still 19. I was 14 months old. I believe those circumstances gave us an even closer bond than most mothers and daughters. She was, and still is, my best friend. There were no years of teenage angst, when I couldn't stand my mother. There's never been a time when I wasn't 100% certain that she knew more about life than I did. Without her influence, there's no way I could be the woman that I am today. I love you Carolyn Yvonne Barnes!

Crashed!

It finally happened. I knew it would probably be sooner than later, but still it took me by surprise. It was no more than three, maybe four years old, but had been having issues for some time now. Then, a couple of months ago, I read a report on the net that said Acer was one of the top three worst computers to buy, and that their laptops generally had a life expectancy of three years. Well, I am here to confirm that report. I was busy making a worksheet for my Sunday School class last Wednesday, when out of nowhere the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH appears. It wouldn't restart, or even allow me to put in the installation disk.
The next day, my husband, Rob, took the laptop to work to have their tech guy look at it, but so far he's had no luck with it. So here I am, thankful this little dinosaur of a dell still works, but wishing I had my wide screen back. And my sd card reader. And my photoshop cs (this one DOES have photoshop 7, but it's not the same!)
The good news is, I had recently backed up most of my digiscrap kits, brushes, etc onto a dvd, and I've been keeping all my genealogy stuff on my jump drive, so my two favorite hobbies are safe. Unfortunately, if the tech guy can't salvage anything, I may have lost an entire year's worth of preschool pictures, right when I was getting ready to put together the kid's end of the year albums. But such is life. If anyone loves me enough to buy me a Mac, or even a really nice PC, let me know... I'll give you my shipping address! But in the mean time, back to genealogy...