Week 30 of the WikiTree Challenge for Daniel Loftus was an intense showing of pooled resources and skills as the participants once again bashed hard at what seemed at one point like unbreakable brick walls!
These challenge participants added 127 profiles to his branches. There were 43 new direct ancestors and 84 nuclear relatives of ancestors. Six of the new ancestors were completely new to Daniel!
Altogether, more than 24 members made 1,418 edits to his ancestor profiles. Many did research, while others worked on profile narratives, looked up articles, added categories, and contributed in other ways.
Here are some highlights from our discoveries:
- One of Daniel's second great-grandfather’s was known to be Anthony Carney. His father, Bartholomew, was already on his tree. His wife was found to be Mary Hughes. We haven’t found her parents, but she was born about 1810 in County Mayo and was listed in death records for three of her children.
- The maternal grandmother of Catherine Mary (Foley) O’Cleirigh was found. Her name was Bridget (Naughton) Shaughnessy and she married Michael Shaughnessy in 1834 in Shanagolden, Ireland. There is currently a 19 year gap between their marriage and the baptism of their purported first child. Other children born to them during that time have not yet been found. Another stubborn brick wall down!!
- The parents of Edmond Walsh, Daniel’s third great grandparents, were proven to be Richard Walsh and Judith (Hoban) Walsh. In 1821 they appeared in the census for Mooncoin, County Kilkenny with two of their children. There are research notes on the profile about possible parents and siblings. This discovery came after a team member found a report of his marriage in a newspaper, which listed his parish. What an incredible break-through!
- Margaret (Quinlan) Walsh was another difficult brick wall to bring down. After much research and collaboration her parents were found to be Pierse “Peter” Quinlan and Catherine (Purcell) Quinlan. "Peter" derives from the Greek "Petros", meaning "rock" ... The version "Piers" is the French one, originally brought [from France to England] by the Normans at the time of the Conquest in 1066. There are at least sixteen different spellings of the name in the modern idiom.
- Michael Walsh is Daniel’s 3rd great-grandfather. A likely baptism was found listing possible parents of Patricic Walsh and Bridget Hefren.
Team Captain: Karen Lowe
MVP: Paddy Waldron
Top Bounty Hunter: Maddy Hardman
For more information see the challenge scoring explanation and check out the week 30 statistics to see a summary of all contributors.
If you missed the wrap-up LiveCast and want to see what we found for Daniel, you can view it at any time on YouTube.
