Did I solve it?

Ancestry. Ireland, Catholic Parish Records. 18 May 1824.

The image above from 18 May 1824 shows Bridget (Brigidam in the Catholic naming), daughter of Daniel Gannon and Maria Hanley in the diocese of Elphin, County Roscommon, Ireland. Sponsors were listed as Thomas Hanley and Margrette Kelly. If I am correct, this entry shows my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget as she's brought before the church with her parents. If I have this right, Thomas would have been Bridget's uncle, and I've looked at him before, as Bridget lived next door to Thomas in the 1850 US Census in La Salle County, Illinois. This would also mean Timothy Hanley, the other neighbor in the 1850 US Census, the soldier sent to India via South Africa, was also her uncle.

There's a lot of "ifs" still to cover, but so far, the DNA is lining up with this hypothesis.

I examined this family back in June 2024, but it has taken a while for the DNA analysis to catch up to the paper trail. At the time I followed a hunch that Bridget was likely from a town near her first husband Patrick Dooner, who lived near Termonbarry, Roscommon, Ireland. It is unclear where Bridget and Patrick were married. So far I have not found a marriage record for them in Roscommon or Longford. It's possible they just eloped, or married elsewhere, even in England before arriving in America.

Using HD, an ungrouped 44 cM match in common with my Dad, I looked at both his shared matches of matches, and his own tree, to connect back to his great-grandfather Edward Gannon, born in Kilbarry, Roscommon in 1849.

Another generation back from Daniel Gannon, his father Thomas Gannon, born about 1770, was from Longford, Ireland.

Maria as a sister of Thomas and Timothy Hanley makes so much sense. This is why Bridget would have been living next door to them in 1850 with her infant Michael Dooner. There's also the group of matches connected to Philip Hanley, descending from Martin Hanley Sr (1810-1873). Martin Hanley was also from Roscommon. Philip is a 39 cM match with EWM, a 1C1R with my Dad, descending from his uncle Lowell O'Brien. My Dad and Philip have 23 cM in common, along with 17 cM in common with his sister.

If the hypothesis holds, Bridget's parents were Daniel Gannon and Maria Hanley, my 4th-great-grandparents. It also means I likely have the names of my 5th-great-grandparents, Thomas Hanley and Anne. These people were listed together in the Griffiths Valuation entry for Kilbarry, Parish of Termonbarry, County Roscommon. The family names Gannon, Farrell, Hanley, Cox, and Igo/Egan, show up repeatedly in DNA matches. I previously described about how Anna Maria might have been a name of Bridget's mother, based on Irish naming patterns and her children. If the hypothesis is correct, her first child with John O'Brien combined the names of her grandmother Anne and mother Maria.

I have a block of Hanley DNA matches connected to Philip who went to Australia and tested at MyHeritage. There's another group closely connected to the Hanleys who descend from Finnerans and Egans (Igo) in Roscommon. Another group of DNA matches align with the surnames Casey, Farrell and Greeley in Longford. There's more to do to validate the theory, but it is looking strong based on the combined DNA mapping, chromosome triangulation, and the paper trail.

I've run the hypothesis through several tools from YDG, to Claude and Google Gemini. These are all supporting the current theory.

In walking distance

Google Maps. Kilbarry to Termonbarry.

In my previous post, I looked at an ungrouped match with 44 cM in common with my Dad. This match, HD, had a great-grandfather born in Kilbarry, County Roscommon. On the map, this location is 6.7 km from Termonbarry, the home of Bridget's first husband Patrick Dooner. In fact, I looked at the family of this match back in June 2024, noting the names in the neighborhood - Gannon, Hanley, Cox, Farrell, Igo. This grouping deserves closer scrutiny.

Patterns developing

This has been a slower month for family history blogging, but in the background the activity continues. I'm currently in the DNA Skills Workshop with YourDNAGuide. Earlier in the month I shared a list of research questions, but for Skills I've focused almost entirely on trying to breakthrough on my the families of my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget and the mystery O'Briens who went to Pennsylvania.

Since starting with YDG two years ago, I've been trying to develop the knowledge and skills to work with DNA matches. I think I've come a long way, building clusters, and learning how to apply various tools. It has certainly been a challenge with an absence of matches to Bridget's line. I might have been looking at the matches in the wrong way, and without additional elements necessary to find the right patterns.

In July I started to notice clusters of Australian matches on my Dad's results on MyHeritage. While some of these people have Irish ancestry and connections to other branches on my Dad's maternal line, it has been tough to distinguish whether a few of them trace back to the O'Brien side or Bridget's side. I tried a new approach where I used matches in common between my Dad and O'Brien descendant EWM on MyHeritage. He shares 228 cM, and as of earlier in the month, they had 210 matches in common. I created a spreadsheet, and listed the name of every match, amount of shared cMs, amount of longest block, and other notes such as country or the name of the branch where I suspected they fit on my tree. Essentially I was creating and separating the network of matches.

When that exercise was done, there were clear groupings:

• Matches also in common with the Pennsylvania O'Briens
• Lee, Lambert, and Brown-Welsh descendants, not connected to the lines of John O'Brien and Bridget
• Mystery cluster in Australia/New Zealand and Suriname
• A group connected to a descendant of the Hanleys of La Salle County, Illinois, pointing back to Roscommon, Ireland
• An Irish group with links to Roscommon/Longford, Ireland

I was able to separate 85 people from the 210 who seem to be O'Brien/Bridget and worth exploring further to see how they are related to each other. Then I went back to my groups of matches on Ancestry, checking these MyHeritage matches to see who showed up in both places, and repeated the steps with FamilyTreeDNA and 23&Me.

In the meantime, this month Ancestry introduced in ProTools the ability to filter matches by ancestral region. Using this feature on my Dad's matches and the groups I had already created for O'Brien/Lamon and O'Brien/Bridget, with Leinster, Ireland as the region focus, I was able to see matches who had Roscommon and Longford connections. There were a few matches that I had not placed in the earlier groups, including one match with 44 cM. Looking at this person's shared matches of matches, I could then see a cluster of Australians and some of these people were also on MyHeritage, the earlier chart I created from EWM's matches, and at 23&Me. This feels like a breakthrough.

Two years ago I had an absence of matches pointing to Bridget's side of the tree, now I have a growing spreadsheet of very real leads across the different DNA testing platforms. In some cases, for those who tested at MyHeritage, FTDNA, 23&Me, or loaded kits to Gedmatch, I can see chromosome segments in common with me and my Dad's results. This has also helped narrow in on potential Bridget matches.

It makes sense that some descendants of Bridget's family lines left Central Ireland for better opportunity across the ocean in Australia, New Zealand and America. My next step is to see how these people match to each other, build out some floating trees, and see who has lines connecting back to Roscommon and Longford. 

Closer to the end of summer than the beginning

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Ai Weiwei at LACMA. 9 Aug 2026.

While the calendar says mid-August, kids in the neighborhood are beginning their journeys off to college. Our senior's last year of high school kicks off in a week. This is probably the earliest it has felt like the end of summer is approaching. Soon I'll be driving Sophia north for Year 3. It's going to be an exciting period over the next six months. 

We have a few more weeks before calendar summer comes to a close, but we're entering the part of the year that seems to speed up.

Filter by region now on AncestryDNA

AncestryDNA Filters.

Ancestry has added the ability to filter DNA matches by ancestral region. Using my Mom's results as an example, when I click into regions as shown above, I get a drop down menu for all of her ancestral regions. Then I can click further to filter by matches in common from those regions. This is a significant improvement to the filter by journeys feature that Ancestry launched last year.

When I run this on my Dad's results and filter by Central Ireland, I can now see several bubble groups with ties to Roscommon, Ireland. This is really promising for finding potential connections to the family of my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget.