I did a deep dive into a cluster of DNA matches to my father, his sister and his two first cousins on Ancestry.com earlier this year and ended up with a few new branches on my family tree, adding a sister to my 4th great-grandmother, Margaret Barago and four sisters to my 3rd great-mother, Anne Coonane (also spelled Conane or Coonan). My 3rd great-grandmother, Anne Coonane, was baptized August 25, 1812 in the parish of Cashel and Emly in Tipperary to James Conane and Margaret Baraga (also spelled Barago).
Anne married Daniel Scott February 10, 1834 at the age of 22, in Cashel. They had at least 5 children: Margaret born 1834, Mary born 1836, Ellen born 1838, Edmund born 1844 and James born 1846.
Daniel and Anne immigrated to New York City in 1851 aboard the “Robert Kelly” with son Edmund, age 8.
Daughters Mary and Margaret had immigrated a few years previously. Children Ellen and James likely died earlier. The family was all together in the 1855 census, living at 132 W. 36th St., Manhattan, but Anne died a month later, at age 43 of dropsy of the bowels, which in today’s terms would be described as abdominal edema, which can be caused by various factors including heart failure, liver disease, kidney disease or malnutrition.
I reviewed the confirmed matches descended from the Coonane side of my family tree. Looking at the tree of one of the Shared Matches, I found the name Honora Coonane, whose father’s name was James and was born in Tipperary, all of which aligned with information in my tree. I then looked at all the matches my father, his sister and his first cousins had in common with that person and, Using the shared match feature, historical records, and other people’s family trees, I was able to connect reconstruct their family trees and show that many of them were descendants of the same Honora Coonane Dunn.
During this research, I found that some of the matches had a different common ancestor — Catherine Coonane O’Brien, Margaret Coonane O’Donnell and Mary Coonane Ryan. Matches descending from these four women also shared DNA with each other, showing that these women were related and had a common ancestor themselves.
Although there is a gap in the baptismal records for the Coonane/Barago family, Honora, Coonane, Margaret and Mary fit into the family structure. While I haven’t found baptismal records to confirm the connection, the DNA evidence is strong enough to establish the relationship. Additional traditional genealogical work lent support to the theory that these four women were sisters to Anne Coonane.
Additionally, some matches that were descended from Honora Barago, a likely sister to Anne Coonane’s mother, Margaret Barago. Honora Barago lived in the same small townland, Deansgrove, Tipperary with a relatively uncommon name. If the cluster of descendants from Honora, Catherine, Mary and Margaret that I had found earlier also had Shared Matches with descendants of Honora Barago, that would mean that those Shared Matches are related through both the Coonane and Barago lines. This would make Honora Barago a likely sister to Margaret Barago.
