Melloy / Malloy / Meloy

The RC parish of Inniskeel has no baptism or marriage records earlier than 1866, so unfortunately tracing this family may prove difficult.

Looking at the 1901 census for Donegal, there are 34 Malloy, 1 Meloy, nil Maloy and nil Melloy. The most common variant is Molloy. There’s 512 of them.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

1 Malloy in Co Donegal in the current Irish phone book (in Letterkenny) 90 Molloy. No other variants.

Some information on the parish on this link:

http://donegalgenealogy.com/inishkeelproj.htm

Quite a few of the surname in the tithes (c 1820s), including in Innishkeel. See:

http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/home.jsp

DNA testing may be the only way of matching with descendants of someone who left Donegal in the period you are looking at.

I do have DNA testing done through FamilyTreeDNA.  How would you suggest I try to find any sort of a match from Donegal?

There are some sites which allow you to load your FTDNA results on for comparison with others. (I am not an expert on DNA so can’t really recommend which ones to use).  I suggest search on google for likely sites. You could also try  contacting Molloys and Malloys in Donegal today to see if any would be willing to give a DNA sample. (Could be expensive and not all will agree to it anyway). 

Could you tell me exactly what testing you've done with FTDNA? I've done 111-marker testing, Big Y and Family Finder, but have no really interesting matches. My great-great-grandfather Owen melloy was born in Ireland somewhere around 1815, but that's just about all I know about him. My great-grandfather Charles Melloy was born in either Ireland or Liverpool about 1939.

I am a member of the FTDNA Molloy-Malloy project, but I don't have any matches in the project. You may be interested in joining the project - the more members we have, the more likely we are to make connections. What connections I do have with non-Melloys suggest that my family may originate in the Sligo/Donegal region rather than the "core" Molloy country in Offaly.

Geoff Melloy

Hello Geoff --

If this helps, my FTDNA kit is #416556.  My mtDNA hologroup = H1a3b and my Y-DNA = R-M269.  My GEDmatch kit = T202964.  I am a member ofthe FTDNA Molloy / Melloy group but I haven't yet entered my DNA info so I'll be sure to do that ASAP!  Thanks for the info and I'll hope to keep in touch with more info as it appears.

Hi Geoff!

I came across your posting through a search myself. So, Matilda Mulligan Meloy is my Great, Great, Great Grandmother. She was born in1850, in County Donegal, Ireland as Mathilda Mulligan and came to America and to Benton, Wis., in infancy with her parents, and settled in that mining center. She was married to John Meloy in St. Patrick's church at Benton in 1868. They moved to Bernard, Iowa in Jackson county, where Mrs. Meloy lived until the death of her husband in August, 1917. Since that time she lived in Bernard with her daughter, Mrs. William Dwyer.

Mr. Elmer E. Meloy, Matilda's first born, is my Great, Great Grandfather. He was born in Benton, Wis., August 29, 1869, and came to Iowa with his parents in 1878, and the family settled on a farm near Bernard. In February, 1899 he was married to Miss Anna McLaughlin in St. Patrick's church, Garry Owen and she survives him with seven sons and two daughters; their names are Raymond R., Elmer A., Edmund, Harold P., Gussie, Clara, Eileen and Cyril. One son, Melvin and two daughters, Mary and Grace, preceded him in death.

My Great Grandfather, is Raymond Melloy who was born in 1900. He married Christina Hazer Melloy. They had two children Patrick C. Melloy and Robert E, Melloy, my grandfather, born in Bernard, Iowa in 1923. Bob and Celeste, my grandmother, moved from Iowa in 1949 heading to Arizona. While traveling through Albuquerque, Bob fell in love with the neon lights on Central Avenue and never left. They had severn children, one of them being my dad, Stephen R. Melloy.

I'm sure were related somehow!

My Meloy lineage can be traced back to Daniel Meloy & Grace O’Donnel, both of whom were born in County Donegal, Ireland. They first appear in US census records on 01 Oct 1850 at Benton, Lafayette Countv, Wisconsin with four children, Peter, Barney, Ann and Daniel, all, of whom, were born in Ireland. All of the males, except the youngest, were listed as being miners.

Daniel & Grace Meloy left the UK from the port of Liverpool on 01 Feb 1847, and entered the US at the port of New Orleans, Louisiana on 15 Mar 1847. On their immigration forms they indicated that they intended to settle in Lafayette County, Wisconsin, and both of them remained there for the rest of their lives. Their son Barney had emigrated from Ireland a few years earlier, leaving Liverpool on 18 Apr 1845 and arriving in Rochester, New York on 05 Aug 1845. He also stated his intent to settle in Lafayette County, Territory of Wisconsin. According to the 1900 census, two of his siblings, Peter and Ann, indicated that they had also arrived in the US in 1845, so perhaps Barney, Ann and Peter traveled together. It seems likely that their other brother, Daniel, would have accompanied them, but he spent most of his life committed to various mental institutions. In 1900, the institution caring for him did not record the immigration date of their patients.

Not long after they had settled themselves in Lafayette County, the California gold strike mesmerized the nation, and large numbers of Lafayette County miners headed west. The 1852 California state census for Sierra County lists three Meloy males from Wisconsin employed as miners. While both Barney and Daniel’s names can be read, damage to the document unfortunately removed the given name of the third. A historical sketch by my grandmother, a granddaughter of Barney, provides some background color to this California gold mining endeavor.

"… They settled in Lafayette County, Wisconsin - they were old "'forty-niners" going to California via the Panama route.  On this voyage he and the other passengers suffered from hunger - subsisting on two small crackers a day.  While working in the gold mines he was thrown from a lever falling on rocks and broke his left arm. Infection developed and the arm had to be amputated. This was before anesthetics were known - four men held him while the doctor operated."

Peter Meloy and his sister Ann (who had married Daniel McDonald) remained in the Lafayette County, Wisconsin area for the rest of their lives, but Barney moved to the part of Dakota Territory that eventually became organized into Yankton County, South Dakota in 1872, where he spent the rest of his life.

Family Structure

Daniel Meloy (1784 – 21 Ape 1860) & Grace O’Donnell (1788 – 01 Jan 1783

Peter C Meloy (July 1821 – 08 June 1907)
Bernard “Barney” Meloy (1825 – 03 Mar 1902)
Daniel Meloy (1832 – 24 Sep 1905)
Ann Meloy (Mar 1833 – 1909)

My wife and I are actively researching my Meloy lineage, and we would be quite interested in learning more about Meloy family history and structure. We have a number of questions about several Meloys that we don't quite know how to fit into our known Meloy family structure and would be extremely interested in being able to extend the history of this family back in time in Donegal.

Jim & Debby Jackson

My family tree includes two Molloy families in Inishkeel parish.:

•    Charles Molloy   b. abt 1810  at Mully (near Glenties).
•    Shane Molloy     b 1835 at Cornagrillagh (also near Glenties)  md. Mary McDevitt
     they had 11 children, some of whom most likely went to the US.

Both Mully and Cornagrillagh are 'townlands'.near Glenties.  I have found learning the name of the 'townland' of my ancestors is key to narrowing down the locality and specific family of my Irish ancestors... Moreover they are vital when searching the tithe books, Griffiths Valuation and the 1901 census.

After immigration, the name of the townland was sometimes given as a middle name of a child - or as a placename of their new home. 
That is how I found a brother of my g-grandfather.
good luck.
Janice Kent-Mackenzie.

Jim and Debby Jackson,

I am a great grandson of Barney Meloy. Growing up I heard the same story about leaving for the gold rush, going over land in Panama, having only a cracker or two to eat and then losing arm in mining accident in California. Who was ur great grndmother? Barney had 3 step daughters and six bio daughters. I am grandson of Jim. Also think there is a tie to Cornelius Meloy. Can catch up at Hubert.grogan@gmail.com