Kiss me, I'm Irish (Apparently)

I posted a while back about a program called "Relative Finder" which pulls your ancestry and compares it to other people to find connections.  But there is another one called "Grandma's Pie" that tells you what percentage of different countries your ancestors came from.  I actually never thought I had any Irish heritage but when I did Grandma's Pie it said I was about 2% Irish so I went into my family tree and found all my Irish ancestors.  Here is what I know about my Irish heritage. I have FIVE Irish ancestors that I can trace!

Daniel & Maria Harvey (my 6th great-grandpa through my dad's dad)

On my dad's side, I have an ancestor named Daniel Harvey Sr. who was born in 1741 in Ulster, Ireland and died in 1805 in Adair County, Kentucky.  We know he had a wife named Maria and that she was also from Northern Ireland and that she was born in 1742 (we don't know when she died).  Around 1763, when Daniel would have been about 22 and Maria would have been 21, they had a daughter named Barbara Harvey who was born in Augusta, Virginia.  I googled "Daniel Harvey Sr Ireland" and found a link which had information about him that says he was married to "unknown" on November 17, 1761 in Augusta Co., Virginia (so when Daniel was 20 and Maria was 19). 

Andrew Ferguson (another 6th great-grandpa through my dad's dad)

Also on my dad's side is an ancestor named Andrew Ferguson who was born around 1738 somewhere in Ireland.  He was married in 1764 in Virginia to Catherine Kinder Schmitz who had been born in Virgnia.  Andrew died June 2, 1792 in Montgomery, Virginia.

William Dickey (my 8th great-grandpa through my dad's dad)

He was supposedly born in 1707 in County Antrim, Ireland (although I think this date is wrong and I would guess he was born sometime more like 1685-1690).  I wonder about the accuracy of the records on this line because according to the record on Family Search William Dickey had a son named John Dickey in 1708 (um, when he was 1 year old?) who then had a son (William's grandson) in 1726 (also named John Dickey).  We don't know where William Dickey died or whether John Dickey was born in Ireland or America so I can't say which of them was the original immigrant but I'm thinking that William's year of birth might be wrong because John Dickey's birth year of 1708 makes sense since we know his wife's name and that she was born 9 years after him in 1717. 

Mrs. Richard Flyn (my 8th great-grandmother through my mom's dad's side)

Born 1702 in Ireland, all we know is that she married a Richard Flyn who was born in 1685 (not sure where, but guessing Ireland also) and that they had a son born in Massachusetts in 1723 who they also named Richard and who is my 7th-great-grandfather.

That all totals to about 2% of my ancestry coming from Ireland, so it isn't any sort of substantial chunk, but still, interesting to me.

Paul's Side...unfortunately, I had typed out all of his information and dumb Blogger somehow deleted all of it except for one.  And it took so long to figure it all out the first time...heavy sigh.  Hopefully I can get back to it and update the info again.  I do remember that his closest connection was a 4th great-grandfather named James Geoghegan who changed his name to Gagon when he came to America. 

John Marcy (Paul's 9th great-grandfather through his dad's mom's side)

Born 1662 in County Limerick, Ireland to Jeffery and Blanch Marcy, and died in Connecticut in 1724 when he was about 62 years old.  Here's the problem with this record, though - Jeffery and Blanch were born 1591 and 1595, respectively and I'm pretty sure Blanch couldn't have given birth to John when she was 67 years old, so something is not right with these records.  But my guess is that it is the dates that are confused, not the place of origination.

Anyway, it has been fun learning about all of this and it certainly makes St. Patrick's Day more fun feeling a connection to Ireland.