In my blog page “Finns in the USA” I traced the story of four Finn sisters who had emigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. I noted that I had one weak DNA connection to them, through one of the sisters. The sisters are all descended from James Finn and Nancy Finn, who came from Derrynabrock, the southern most of the four townlands making up the village of Cloontia, County Mayo, Ireland. The problem was that Nancy, just like my grandparents from the same area, had the same surname before she got married. This made it more difficult to work out further family connections back in Ireland because I was not sure whether to follow the paternal or the maternal line.

Thomas Finn wrote his booklet “Cloontia Its People and Its Past” in 1999 when the author was 80, so it includes his recollections from, say, 1935 up to 1999. There are very few dates in this booklet, so pinpointing when things happened is hard. Published sources to support any research are Griffiths Valuation, the 1901 census, the 1911 census and the usual births, marriages and death records. However, birth, marriages and deaths can be difficult to use when there are so many similarly named people in the same area. I decided to use the 1901 census as a base and traced every Finn household in Derrynabrock. There were twelve. I then traced these forward to the 1911 census. I chose the 1901 census as a base because ages in the 1911 census were notoriously unreliable. This census was used as part of the introduction for State pensions, so where the birth year pre-dated the commencement of birth registration, many older residents had the opportunity to exaggerate their age.

Combining the details from Thomas Finn’s booklet with these two censuses, yielded the following table, labelled Page 9, because it is part of a set of 16 pages. I have noted on this chart the 1901 and 1911 census connections and the references contained within Thomas Finn’s booklet. This chart captures the family in Ireland before any of the siblings emigrated to the USA.

Page 1 shows the four Cincinnati sisters and their parents as James Finn and Nancy Finn. Pages 2 to 5 follow the families of each of these sisters. Pages 6 and 7 show James’s and Nancy’s other four children, two sons who died young, another Tom Finn who moved to England and married Gertrude Linley, where they had their son James Finn. The older James Finn, Nancy’s brother, married Marie McGeever and one of their sons is Thomas Finn, the booklet author, whose sister Kathleen Francis Finn married Brian McGeever. I have a DNA connection to Brian McGeever’s family

It is now I must introduce Mary Bihn. I first had contact with Mary at the end of August 2022. She gave me the information about Margaret Finn and Anna Finn being Nancy’s sisters. As Nancy’s name is Ann, she also confirmed that Nancy did indeed have another sister called Anna, unusual to say the least. Mary married Edward Victor Bihn, the son of Edward Bihn and Bertha Marie Gorman. Bertha was the daughter of Bernard J Gorman and Bridget M Finn, the oldest of the Finn sisters who emigrated to Cincinnati. The death certificates for Margaret and Anna show their parents as Matthew Finn and Mary Tarpy, although on Margaret’s certificate it is spelt Tarpe. Mary provided this photo of Nancy:

Mary Bihn provided some further information about Nancy’s husband James’s sole sibling, Mary Finn, who emigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, USA in 1934. This is shown on page 8 and maybe the subject of another blog page. Mary married Peter Higgins in 1887, in Ireland and emigrated with some of her children, but not with her husband. James’s and Mary’s parents were Patrick (Patch) Finn and Bridget Doherty. Pages 10 to 15 lead on from the above page 9 as marked under each column on the chart above and follow the families of each of Nancy’s siblings, so the story of James and Mary will have to wait for another day.

Thomas Finn’s booklet doesn’t mention Nancy’s American sisters nor James’s American sister. The information provided by Mary Bihn has been invaluable in being able to show Nancy’s siblings above. But Mary didn’t stop there. I contacted her again in June 2023 with the fifteen charts mentioned above and asked for any DNA information she might have, plus checking for inaccuracies I may have introduced. She responded with a list of people she knew who had taken DNA tests. Checking through these I was able to identify two further matches.

Nancy’s sister Catherine Finn was born in 1850 and she married Edward McGeever on 4th February 1867, as shown on page 10. The witnesses were John Finn and Mary Finn, presumably her siblings. Her father was noted as Matthew Finn, which confirms their father in Irish records and not just from the death certificates of the two sisters who emigrated to the USA. According to the 1911 census they had six children all of whom were living. Thomas Finn on page 6 of his booklet states that Edward was married to my father’s aunt Catherine, who was sister to Jack and Nancy Finn, and that Edward and Catherine had 4 or 5 children, of whom he only knew Edward and Mary Ann. The six children have been identified and the others were Margaret, Matthew, Patrick and Kate.

UPDATE Sunday 17th September 2023: Mary Bihn has identified another son, Patrick Finn, born after the 1911 census on 8th February 1913 in Cloontia.

Nancy’s sister Mary Finn was a local teacher in Cloontia and she married Ned (Rue) Finn on 28th January 1872, with their connections shown on page 12. Mary’s father was given as Matthew. The witnesses were Edward McGeever and Catherine Finn. Thomas Finn asserts in his booklet on page 5 that Mary Finn was sister to his grandmother Nancy.

UPDATE 20th February 2025: It was John (Mathue) Finn who had the nickname Jack as noted on page 3 of Thomas Finn’s booklet.

To summarise we have Nancy’s siblings, Margaret, Anna, Catherine and Mary where their father is recorded as Matthew. Thomas Finn has recorded all of those living in Ireland in his booklet as siblings of Nancy and these are noted across the foot of page 9 above. He was not aware of Margaret and Anna in the USA. He has also made a few mistakes, not surprising given that he was relying on his memories. UPDATE 20th February 2025: This has been resolved in the new charts at the foot of this blog page.

In Griffiths Valuation that was taken between 1847 and 1864 across the whole of Ireland, there were nine entries for Finns in Derrynabrock, with the properties being numbered on Ordinance Survey maps 63 and 64. Two were in Shanbally: John at 26 and Thomas at 28. The other seven were in Finn’s Village: Patrick at 50, Edmund at 52, Thomas (John) at 55, Matthew (Thomas) at 57, Thomas (Michael) at 58 and 63, Patrick (Michael) at 62 and Mary at 64. I can’t tie up any of these to the 1901 census and the area of Finn’s Village is larger than recorded as part of Ballahere by Thomas Finn in his booklet. It is interesting though that one of the entries in Griffiths Valuation is Matthew (Thomas) Finn and it may be the explanation as to why three of Nancy’s siblings have (Tommie) inserted in their names. In the 1901 census there was only one house in Derrynabrock occupied by a Matthew Finn and that was House 52. He was a widower aged 65, so born in 1836. This would make his age range 11 to 28 during the Griffiths Valuation period, just about old enough to have his own household at the end of that range. Certainly not conclusive proof of a family connection though.

At least another blog page is needed to cover the later generations of Nancy’s siblings. As can be seen above there is further research needed and I will provide updates to this blog page should more information come to light. If anyone would like a copy of the fifteen charts, I will be happy to send them out, if you email me at ray.backler@capsa.co.uk

UPDATE Sunday 17th September 2023: Mary Bihn asked me to check whether I had a DNA connection whose parents were Marie McGeever and Nelson Curran and whose grandparents were Patrick McGeever and Delia Kelly. and I do.

UPDATE Wednesday 20th September 2023: Mary Bihn has sent me another DNA match, again descended from Catherine Finn and Edward McGeever. This DNA match’s grandfather was Matthew McGeever son of Edward and Catherine and he married Teresa Murphy.