THOMAS NICHOLAS MURPHY - #3 52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS

In January 2014, Amy Johnson Crow of the Ancestry blog issued the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.

The premise: write once a week about a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, a research problem — any that focuses on that one ancestor. The next week, write about a different ancestor. In 52 weeks, you’ll have taken a closer look at 52 people in your family tree… and maybe learned a little bit more about them in the process.

I have taken the challenge and this week I am talking about my Father-in-Law, Thomas N. Murphy. 

Tom Murphy was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1909 to Thomas Murphy and Florence McDonald. He was the second of four children, John born in 1906, Virginia in 1911 and Eileen in 1913.

He originally worked for the NY Parks Department but when World War 2 came he started working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  He was not eligible for service because he was blind in one eye. 

He married Mary Glessoff also of Brooklyn in 1935.  They had one son.

In his early 20's he participated in the Golden Gloves in Brooklyn.  It was a great organization for young men.  They had competitions all over the New York City area.

Tom was a very social person; he loved to get people together for a party.  He, after moving to Hicksville with his family, became the founder of the Millwood Gate Civic Association.

Another love he had was coaching Little League Baseball.  His team of neighborhood boys had several winning years.   Tom also had an unusual gift for math.

While living in Hicksville he was a truck driver for Tidewater Oil Company.  He worked nights delivering to many of the gas stations on Long Island. 

He was  a truly great person. We lost him too early at 51 years old.

MAMIE MC GUIGAN - REMEMBERING GRANDMA

In January 2014, Amy Johnson Crow of the Ancestry blog issued the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. The premise: write once a week about a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, a research problem — any that focuses on that one ancestor. The next week, write about a different ancestor. In 52 weeks, you’ll have taken a closer look at 52 people in your family tree… and maybe learned a little bit more about them in the process.

I have taken the challenge and started with Martha Anderson Moore last week.  This week I am talking about my paternal grandmother, Mamie McGuigan Mathews. 

Mamie McGuigan was born in 1875 in Middletown, Armagh, Ireland.  In 1897 she and her sister Alice McGuigan travelled to America and began a new and exciting life in New York City.

They really had no skills just as so many immigrates before them, but they got jobs in the Hotel industry.  They cleaned the rooms and had a very social life with all the other immigrants.

They left a very crowded home in Ireland.  Their mother, Ann Mallon McGuigan, died in 1883 and their father, Thomas McGuigan, remarried in 1886 to Catherine McNaughton.  In 1888 they had a son, Thomas who joined the family of 4 girls and 1 boy.  They lived in a very common house in the townland of Crossdall.  The photo below of the McGuigan farm and house was taken in the early 1900’s.

In 1909 Mamie married William J. Mathews.  They had met while working in a hotel, she was a cleaning maid and he was a hall boy.  The photo of Mamie below was taken around the time they were married.

Mamie and her husband, William (Willy) Mathews had 4 children, Thomas, Catherine, William and James (my father).  They lived in Manhattan, New York until 1933 when they moved to Richmond Hill, New York.  William died in 1943 and Mamie began to live with her children, ending up living most of the time with Catherine (Kay) Mathews Hurley. She died in May 1959 in Richmond Hill, New York.

Mamie only lived with us for a short while and I remember how she loved the soap operas on radio that she listened to faithfully while doing the ironing. 

Mamie very seldom spoke of her life in Ireland but did keep in touch with relatives there. One of her other sisters (Elizabeth McGugian Catior) came from Ireland a couple of years after Mamie.  I know of one niece who immigrated to America and stayed.  Most of the rest of the family stayed in Ireland.  Her half brother Thomas married in 1913 and had 10 children.  Peter McGugian, a grandchild of Thomas lives in the McGuigan house in Crossdall now.

MARTHA ANDERSON - #1 - 52 ANCESTORS IN 52

In January 2014, Amy Johnson Crow  of Ancestry started the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. The premise: write once a week about a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, a research problem — any that focuses on that one ancestor. The next week, write about a different ancestor. In 52 weeks, you’ll have taken a closer look at 52 people in your family tree… and maybe learned a little bit more about them in the process. 



Martha Anderson came to Massachusetts in 1718.  She married William Moore but I don't know if they married in Ireland or in Massachusetts. 


A book by Elliott Moore in 1898 ((Memorial of the Loyalist Families of William Moore, Josiah Hitchings, and Robert Livingstone) does a genealogy of the William Moore family in Moore's Mill, New Brunswick, Canada.  In this listing of families it starts with William Moor/Moore and his wife Martha. They had 7 children, George, Thomas, Allen, William, Jane, Elizabeth, and Mary.  I am the 4th great granddaughter of the son William)


I haven't been able to find anything more on her, she is not mentioned on the tombstone for William Moor but could be buried with him.  I have checked many records in the area they lived, Londonderry, New Hampshire, but have found no mention of her.  That is very common at that time period, women could not own land so would not be mentioned in court records.


Several articles have been written about William Moore and they all believe that his wife's maiden name was Anderson.


She is mentioned just as his wife Martha in his will in 1739. Two men named Allen and Samuel Anderson were the executors of William Moore's will dated 6 November 1739 in Londonderry, New Hampshire.


 In the will of Allen Anderson, Martha Moore is mentioned as his sister.


She was a brave women who left her home in Ireland and made the journey to a new world in the early 1700's and started a wonderful family in New Hampshire.  That family has spread out through the years to Canada and then back to the United States.