Eugene the Blackguard & the Lynches of Moveen West

Genetic Genealogy Ireland 2020 Belfast

2:30p.m. Saturday 15 February 2020

International Convention Centre at the Waterfront Hall

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TBA

The Lynches of Moveen West

Geography

Moveen West is a townland on the Loop Head peninsula in County Clare
The Hills of Moveen have become the Cliffs of Dooneen in a popular song - see Wikipedia.
Two Lynch brothers are remembered in the oral tradition as having lived across the road from each other in Moveen West:

Pádraig Máire Neans (b. Abt 1826/9, d. 1907, m. Corry/Curry)
Tomás Máire Neans (b. Abt 1838/41, d. 1921, m. Keane)

They may have had three more siblings:

certainly Daniel Lynch (b. Abt 1837/41, d. 1903, m. Quealy)
on the basis of the DNA evidence below, Mary Lynch (b. Abt 1824/33, d. 1913, m. Corry/Curry)
possibly Michael Lynch (b. Abt 1824/5, d. 1888 in a drowning tragedy with four others at Doonlicka/Dunlicky Castle which stood on his land, m. Keane)

The Moveen diaspora have no need to visit the inferior Cliffs of Moher.
It is not known whether the two Corry/Curry spouses were related, and no marriage record survives for either.
Tomás and his wife married by dispensation (3rd & 4th degree), but no dispensation is recorded for Michael and his wife, suggesting that either the two Lynch husbands or the two Keane wives were not closely related.
Daniel went to Connecticut, where his death certificate confirms his parents' full names:
Daniel Lynch, Newtown, Aug 4, 62, male, married, County Clare, Ireland, Newtown Conn, Paralysis Caused by fall, Farmer, W, Michael Lynch, Mary O'Day, Albert L Schuyler MD
[3rd last line on each page]
Daniel is buried in St. Rose's Cemetery in Sandy Hook near Newtown, Connecticut, where the tombstone inscription confirms his birthplace.
The Lynches' mother Máire Neans is remembered as one of two sisters between whom an O'Dea farm was divided - Mrs Lynch and Mrs O'Connell.
As Tony Hennessy wrote recently, sometimes a patronymic or matronymic name becomes "a miniature family tree in itself", but sometimes it must be treated with caution.

E.g. I thought for many years that the Lynches' Moveen neighbour was Peatsaí Sheáin Cáite, until I received the annotated family history originally written by Séamus Mór Ó Gríobhtha (1870-1955):
Johnny Kennedy (d. 18 July 1888 aged 66?) ... was a very powerful man, pugnacious and given to drink. His only equal was a giant uncle of his [Seán A’Chatha(igh) McInnery] from Moveen. They battled many times. The mother used to be proud that her son was a match for her brother. She ruined him I fear ... Seán A'Chatha Mac Inerney, a splendid man, married on the home farm at Moveen, a very fine farm too. His son Patsh Sheán A’Chatha another fine man and clever, did not marry, and sold his farm before he died some years ago.

The five probable Lynch siblings all survived the Great Famine in Moveen.
In Griffith's Valuation in 1855, Mary Lynch (no. 9, apparently widowed) and Patrick Lynch (no. 24, her recently married son) are listed as occupiers.

DNA

20 June 2016: Donation to Clare Roots project "to go towards the test cost for a descendant of the Moveen West Lynch families", from Tom Kearney, a member of the Sandy Hook diaspora, descended from Michael Lynch's brother, who was followed to Newtown by his nephew Daniel.
17 August 2016: A visit to the butcher (grandson of Seanán Micheál Phaidi or Seanán Micheál Fada?).
That evening, I swabbed Claire from Moveen West, whose mother was a Lynch.
Around the same time, the Lynch siblings of Sacramento (all seven of them!) began to show up as autosomal DNA matches to "all the usual suspects" - people with roots on the Loop Head peninsula in West Clare:

one child has half of his or her parents' DNA
two siblings are expected to have 3/4 of their parents' DNA
three siblings are expected to have 7/8 of their parents' DNA
four siblings are expected to have 15/16 of their parents' DNA
five siblings are expected to have 31/32 of their parents' DNA
six siblings are expected to have 63/64 of their parents' DNA
seven siblings are expected to have 127/128 of their parents' DNA
seven siblings and their first cousin are expected to have 637/1024 of their shared grandparents' DNA (about 62%)

Eugene the Blackguard

What the Sacramento Lynches knew about their Irish-born grandfather before they started to swab and spit:
Because our grandfather, Eugene Lynch, is such a mystery to us we really don't know how to find him. All we have for certain is the 1910 census [lines 39-43]. It says he came over in 1887. The story is this: Eugene married my grandmother in San Jose in 1904 and they lived in Sacramento. He abandoned her and their children in 1909 [sic] when my grandmother was pregnant with my father. We didn't really know anything about him until we started doing this genealogy. We knew [sic] he died in San Francisco in 1917 but were surprised to discover that he was the captain of a schooner at the time.
Eugene's last known child was born five days after the census enumerator called.

The DNA story: Episode 1

6 October 2016: I uploaded Claire's data to GEDmatch.com and found this secure triangulation:

8 8,292,285 54,555,905 50.2 10692 Claire/Ed
8 17,609,398 38,378,638 27.4 5563 Ed/Michael
8 17,648,866 37,812,773 26.9 5499 Michael/Claire

Claire and Ed are fourth cousins, descended from Mrs Lynch and Mrs O'Connell respectively.
So their 50.2 centiMorgan half-identical region must contain an O'Dea segment.
Michael is Eugene Lynch's grandson, and must be related to Mr O'Dea (first name still unknown) or Mrs O'Dea (Neans) or descend from both.
Michael's surname is Lynch, so he and Eugene almost certainly descend from Michael Lynch and Mary O'Dea.
Eugene (41 in 1910, migrated 1887) is too young to be Michael and Mary's son (their known children have implied birth years 1824-1841).
Eugene's baptism is not in the parish registers, which survive from 1852.
Eugene's descendants share too much DNA with other descendants of Michael Lynch and Mary O'Dea for him to be their greatgrandson.
So he must be their grandson.
Even this implies a somewhat implausibly large 209.5cM shared between 3C1R - see Autosomal Matrix Comparison and Table of Probabilities.
Is it an outlier? Could we be making the mistake highlighted in Blaine Bettinger's blog?
23 October 2016: James O Dea from Kilkee approached me at the end of my GGI2016 talk and invited me to co-found the O'Dea/O'Day/Dee (DNA) Project - next O'Dea Clan reunion New Plymouth, New Zealand 20-22 March 2020.
15 November 2016: The Sacramento Lynches arrive in Moveen:
That day was the highlight of our trip to Ireland, and for me it was an unbelievable gift. I have been wondering and imagining for so long about my grandfather's (and thus my own) origins that I still quite can't believe I went there. It was a profound and moving experience for me. My sister Pat and I speak of it often ... It was magical to us. Both of my parents were from families who didn't stay connected with their homeland, and this journey has really fulfilled a need that I hadn't realized I had. I'll be forever grateful to Tom Kearney for introducing me to you, and to you for so generously sharing your expertise with us.
Reactions like this are why I like trying to help out as Ireland Reaching Out volunteer Parish Administrator for Moyarta civil parish, and help others who find me via DNA matching, DNA projects, and Facebook groups.
For over two years, we swabbed various descendants of four known sons of Michael Lynch and Mary O'Dea in search of closer matches and of further clues, but failed to identify Eugene Lynch's father.
Where was the fifth Lynch sibling (Eugene's parent) hiding from us?

Technological progress

Loop Head peninsula became an AncestryDNA Region.
The Lynches were given this Loop Head peninsula label.
July 2018: What Are The Odds (WATO) launched.

The DNA story: Episode 2

8 March 2019: The Sacramento Lynches return and visit a Lynch ancestral home in Moveen, where they are hosted by their cousin Thomas Lynch, a fellow poet/essayist.
After we all visited the Church of the Little Ark in Moneen, I had an epiphany on the road to Kilkee - a new hypothesis to be tested:
Could Eugene have taken his mother's surname?
Next morning, I could find no sign of a Eugene Lynch born to a single mother in the local workhouse in Kilrush or elsewhere.
We have analysed autosomal DNA matches extensively, but did we ever check Michael Lynch's Y-DNA STR matches?

The Y-DNA and the surname both follow the male line, unless there is a surname/DNA switch.
Not a Lynch to be seen in Michael's matches
Two Currys out of nine Y-DNA111 matches.
Four more Coreys or Currys (including an adoptee), none of whom has bought Y-DNA111, in his top 12 Y-DNA67 matches.

Surname spellings also mutate, independently of DNA mutations.
Corey, Corry, Curry, O'Curry, Ó Comhraí should all have the same Y-DNA signature; likewise Lynch, Lindsey, Lynskey, Lynchahaun, Lynchaghaun, etc.
Could Eugene Lynch really be another Eugene O'Curry? The earlier Eugene's work on the Ordnance Survey Name Books and Letters Collection is familiar to many genealogists.
Not the parent expected? (NPE)
The DNA evidence often fills gaps in the traditional evidence, but sometimes refutes it.
His famous namesake reputedly descends from the O'Currys of Lisluinaghan (see partly evaporated Rootsweb post - takeover done to Ancestry standards).
Tracking down the author of the Rootsweb post was another adventure!
The Mary Lynch who married Thomas Corry/Curry of Lisluinaghan appears to have been a daughter of Michael Lynch and Mary O'Dea:

98.5 centiMorgans shared between a descendant of Daniel Lynch and a descendant of Mary Curry, who could be no closer than 3C1R;
Pat Corry from Lisluinaghan witnessed the shotgun wedding of Michael Lynch of Moveen in 1882 - were they first cousins? Or even double first cousins?

Thomas Curry and Mary Lynch had a youngest son called Eugene/Owen:

(unmicrofilmed) baptism record in Kilkee parish on 10 Apr 1866;
1887 copy book;
photographed in Danbury, CT;
"this ancestor has been very elusive" (per above Rootsweb post);
he had "previous";
no sign of Eugene Curry in 1900;
his wife Ellen Curry née Kelly (a neighbour from home) was a live-in servant in Brooklyn (line 48);
Ellen's sister Mrs Margaret Blomberg was taking care of Eugene and Ellen's 4yo daughter Margaret Curry in Brooklyn also (line 93);
Eugene's brother Simon Corey was taking care of Eugene and Ellen's 5yo daughter Elsie Corey in Newtown, CT (line 96);
the family lore passed down has always been that "Eugene Curry `went west' to find his fame and fortune and would send for his family at a later date. He was never heard from again" (until 2019!)

That fateful phone call, Thomas Lynch's donkeys and Facebook post
"The idea of the two Eugenes being one is a bit staggering and mind-boggling" for his descendants, and even for me.
The Curry/Kelly descendant remains sceptical, both about using DNA and about her ancestor's double life.
There is another ancestral home to visit in Lisluinaghan, about 10km from Moveen.

The Fallout

Further investigation of the DNA matches shared by known Lynch and Corry descendants in different DNA databases has left little doubt that Eugene Curry became Eugene Lynch. Other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle rapidly began to fall into place:

209.5cM shared between 2C1R makes a lot more sense than 209.5cM shared between 3C1R.
What Are The Odds (WATO) should help:

We would not have originally even thought of including Mrs. Corry as one of Eugene Lynch's possible parents.
We could use WATO in a number of different ways to test hypotheses as to which child of Michael Lynch and Mary O'Dea was Eugene's parent:

Each of the eight grandchildren of Eugene The Blackguard from whom we have DNA (seven siblings and their first cousin) could be the target in a separate WATO analysis, any of which might rule out some of our hypotheses.
We could construct an "average grandchild" to use as the target.
We could use Eugene himself as the target, recognising that he would be expected to share four times as much as a grandchild with each match.
We could try to construct a Lazarus kit for Eugene.
To save on re-entering data, WATO can Save a Duplicate tree, but does not yet import GEDCOM files.

The shared cM for the seven siblings are not independent, so the best estimate of the DNA shared by Eugene with the living DNA subjects is a weighted average with a weight of 1/14 on each sibling and a weight of 1/2 on their first cousin.
Different trees:

Different results:

The version based on one grandchild suggests searching for a fifth Lynch brother, as we did for a couple of years.
The version based on the "outlier" grandchild alone leaves no doubt that Mrs. Corry was Eugene's Lynch parent.
Likewise the version based on Eugene himself.
The version based on the average grandchild leaves some doubt.

Was moving the target back two generations a good idea?

A significant recent DNA match had a biggest estimated ethnicity percentage labelled "West African":

she eventually revealed one tiny clue, that one of her grandfathers came from Kilfearagh townland
Thomas Corry and Mary Lynch had one granddaughter who married into Kilfearagh
local enquiries elicited the information that her granddaughter in turn married a black man

Another significant DNA match asked to meet us in Dublin, and:

turned out to be an adoptee
had never met any blood relatives before the Lynches
had been given "non-identifying" information: his genetic father's first name and his paternal grandfather's occupation (teacher)
there was one obvious candidate for the genetic father, now deceased, among the many descendants of Thomas Corry and Mary Lynch, consistent with the DNA evidence
the adoptee's aunt had been waiting for 40 years for the phone call which resulted
the adoptee has been introducted to a half-sister, and the relationship confirmed by DNA comparison
this accidental corollary of the search for Eugene Lynch is yet more evidence that submitting your DNA to a database potentially has significant positive externalities for existing and future researchers.

Michael Lynch's Big Y-700 SNP results (N116962)
Thomas Lynch's Y-DNA37 STR results

Thomas's only match had waited patiently from 6 March 2012 until 17 April 2019 for his first match
He wrote:
We could trace our roots from the time [my great grandfather Thomas Lynch] landed in New York state in the early 1850s; before that, we have nothing solid. Family folklore has it that his parents were a Michael and Mary in Ireland. A bit of searching I tried to do while I was in Ireland some time ago led nowhere, so this news is encouraging.
This emigrant Thomas was a contemporary of his namesake Tomás Máire Neans who remained in Moveen, but their fathers, both believed to be Michaels, were possibly closely related.
He ordered Family Finder and Claire is his 15th closest match: they would be 5th cousins if their GGgrandfathers, the two Michaels, were 1st cousins, possibly named after a common grandfather.

The descendants of Mary Lynch née O'Dea (d. 11 Dec 1885 aged 84) and Kate O'Connell née O'Dea (d. 13 Jan 1889 aged 78) have many matches with descendants of Anne Hanrahan née O'Dea (d. 28 Mar 1901 aged 84), who lived and died in the adjoining townland of Lisheenfurroor, and who is almost certainly a third sister.
I have documented 983 descendants of the three probable O'Dea sisters, of whom 85 have autosomal DNA results.
Likewise, there are enough strong DNA matches between descendants of Mary Lynch's husband Thomas Corry (d. 1890 aged 77) and descendants of Susan/Johanna Tubridy née Corry (d. 1887 aged 81) to make it almost certain that they are siblings - I came to this conclusion independently before I realised that AncestryDNA ThruLines was hinting it.
If so, then Eugene the Blackguard and Ryan Tubridy would be first cousins four times removed (DNA match).
We need to persuade additional O'Dea, Lynch and Corry descendants to copy their results to GEDmatch so that we can add them to the Autosomal Matrix Comparisons.
The Northern Ireland connection:

Eugene the Blackguard's nephew, Michael J. Curry (1881-1939), taught the well-known writer Benedict "Ben" Kiely (1919-2007) at Mount St. Columba Christian Brothers School in Omagh:
Then, ten years later, meditating I was on the banks of the Delaware where better men than me have meditated, and M.J. Curry came back into my mind and heart, if he had ever left them, and I began to write a novella that I called Proxopera. The year, as you may have readily worked out, was 1976, and the part of the world I come from, and the absurd political contrivance set up there, by the British and history and ourselves, in 1920, was falling or being blown to pieces ... when I wrote about [Binchey], I was thinking of Michael J. Curry who came originally from the County Clare and who took his academic degrees across the water.
(quote from Kiely's 1991 memoir Drink to the Bird, on p. 95 of "'My Town': Proxopera and the Politics of Remembrance" by Gerald Dawe, in the Irish University Review, Vol. 38, No. 1, Special Issue: Benedict Kiely (Spring - Summer, 2008), Published by: Edinburgh University Press.)