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Fáilte Go Bernieworld!  Go Browns!!

Welcome!  My name is Bernie McCafferty and this website contains information I've collected while searching for my ancestors.  I have accumulated quite a few records that I will be posting to help other researchers looking for relatives from Clew Bay, County Mayo, Ireland and Cleveland, Ohio.  No frills, no dancing shamrocks, just the facts.  And a lot of Irish names.

 I've decided to turn pro and start a company called Cleveland Genealogical Research in order to provide genealogical content (births, baptism, marriage, cemetery records, gravestone transcriptions, etc.) on CD-ROM.  As with my website, my original focus will be Cleveland and County Mayo.  I am working with William Masterson to turn his Mayo transcriptions into PDF eBook format.  Fifteen books on Newport, Westport, Achill, Burrishoole, and Ballycroy are now available including the recently released "Early Westport Marriages 1814-1857".   Check here for an index of publications and a list of other CDs.

 Also, due to popular demand on the Cleveland Irish bulletin board, I've added a map of Cleveland in 1835 including Whiskey Island.

Most of my Irish ancestors came from the towns and islands around Clew Bay on the west coast of County Mayo, Ireland.  They survived the Great Famine only to be driven from their native land by other social and economic ills with most emigrating to Cleveland, Ohio between 1878-1890.  Hence the name of my website.  On my father's side, the surnames and families are:

bulletGill from Inishgowla Island off Carrowcally near Westport
bulletStaunton (Stanton) from Crovinish Island, Inishgowla, Carraholly, and Kilmeena, Westport
bulletMoran from somewhere around Clew Bay (Moran's are the toughest ones to track down...)
bulletGarvey and Carney from Roslahan (Belcarra) near Castlebar
bulletLoftus from Westport
bulletMcCafferty from ... probably Donegal but possibly Antrim or Derry.

For a family reunion in 2001 we published a book called "From the Shores of Eire To the Shores of Erie - The History of Clan McCafferty" documenting my ancestors.  I have included some of the pages from this book under Clan McCafferty and will be adding more information and photos as I go through my files.

My mother's Irish roots came from the Newport area on the north side of Clew Bay:

bulletMcLoughlin from Sandhill and Knockmanus, also called Tiernaur, near Newport
bulletMoran from ... maybe Sandhill or Roskeen?
bulletOther family names from Sandhill: Coyne, Keane (Kane), O'Donnell, and Walsh

There are at least 10 different McLoughlin families from that general area around Newport that I am trying to connect into what I believe were two different families in the early 1800's.  A relative, Brendan McLoughlin in Sandhill, indicated that in the mid-1800's there were two Patrick McLoughlins - Pat Thomas and Pat Seamus, probably named after their fathers.  I am currently researching each family trying to find connections that would confirm their relationships.  These families are:

  1. Patrick McLoughlin and Mary Moran (my gg-grandparents) - Sandhill
  2. Thomas Mullen and Bridget McLoughlin - Roskeen
  3. John Moran (blacksmith) and Mary McLoughlin - Roskeen
  4. Owen Kelly and Julia McLoughlin - Roskeen
  5. John Stanton and Anne McLoughlin - Roskeen
  6. Thomas McLoughlin and Catherine Carey - unknown, died in Cleveland
  7. James McLoughlin and Mary Moran - Roskeen
  8. Michael Keane and Bridget McLoughlin - Tawnawoggaun, Newport
  9. Thomas Sweeney and Judith McLoughlin - Knockmanus
  10. John McLoughlin and Bridget McManamon - unknown

If you have any information or think you are related to any of these families please send me an email!

Cleveland, Ohio

One of the first questions that someone from Cleveland will ask upon meeting a fellow Clevelander is "What side of town are you from, east or west?".  Cleveland is a city divided by a natural geographic boundary, the Cuyahoga River, into an East and West side, each having a distinct style and personality.  Even the Irish in Cleveland are different depending on which side of the river the settled on.  For the most part, my ancestors all settled on the west side, originally starting in an area known as "The Angle" and then moving steadily westward.  Once in Cleveland, they usually married other Mayo immigrants from the same areas of Westport, Newport, and Achill Island.  I have a theory that all of the Irish in Cleveland are somehow related.

In trying to identify potential relatives in Cleveland, I took the other approach of trying to eliminate as many as possible that weren't related.  While this did help find one unknown brother of my Great Grandfather John Gill, it left me with a lot of great data that wasn't in my direct line.  It also left me convinced that 85% of the McCafferty's in Cleveland were originally Cafferkey's from Mayo.  The rest are my relatives.  The end result is that I have a large collection of Cleveland McCaffertys and Gills from the 1860-1940 range, most of them not related to me but hopefully these files can assist other researchers.

Data Collections

Mayo Cemetery Transcriptions from 2004

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Killeen Cemetery near Roskeen

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Burrishoole Cemetery at the Burrishoole Abbey

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Kilmeena (New) Cemetery by the school near Moyna

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Aughavale Cemetery southwest of Westport towards Louisburgh

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Murrisk Cemetery at Murrisk Abbey across from Croagh Patrick

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Slievemore Cemetery on Achill Island near the Deserted Village

Cleveland Collections

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Cleveland Gills - Gill families in Cleveland from 1850-1920

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The Gill Collection

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Cleveland McCaffertys - McCafferty/McCaffery/McCaffrey families in Cleveland 1850-1930

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The McCafferty Collection

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The Garvey Collection

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The McLoughlin Collection

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Calvary Cemetery Search Engine over 1800 burials and growing

Mayo Collections

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Mayo Gills - Gill families in Mayo from 1700-1911

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Townland maps for western Mayo

 

Last Updated 04/12/2011