It turns out that the Keegans' history in America dates back to Kerrin, my fourth great grandfather (i.e. great great great great grandfather). As of now, I only know that Kerrin was Irish-born, from a one-horse town called Cloghan, which was then part of King's County (with the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the county took on the far less British name "Offaly", after the ancient kingdom of Uí Failghe).
Although it was once a thriving hub in medieval times, Cloghan's not much more than a speck on the map these days. Situated near the western border of the Leinster province, it's a little over an hour's drive outside of Dublin, marking the intersection of a National secondary road & a couple of regional roads. In the 2006 census, Cloghan's population measured 503. A bit of nosing around on the internet yielded this outsider testimony:
It was good to stretch our legs in the countryside, but I don't think we realized how rural it was going to be! We had a hard time wrapping our heads around the fact that the town of Cloghan consisted of 1 roundabout, two pubs, a corner bistro, a SPAR, and a park that used to be a Protestant Church, but was abandoned.
In another post, this author compares County Offaly to Kansas, praising it as a place of 'agrarian heritage & kind people'. No wonder the Keegans ended up in Iowa! From what I can tell, traditionally, the sole resource in that part of Ireland is & has been peat, which the farmers harvest from the surrounding bog, dry out, & then sell to others who burn it for energy. Fi says Ireland is full of bogs.
A bog.
Kerrin was married to Margaret, also born in 1819, but hailing from a place called Shankill Lower in County Cavan, which is in the Ulster province to the North. The daughter of Edward & Mary Smith, Margaret married Kerrin in 1841 in New York City. Whether they traveled over from Ireland together & then married in America or just met in the States is still a mystery to me. I haven't been able to find a record of them on Ellis Island yet, but Kerrin's name is notoriously difficult to spell, so it's possible he's been recorded as Kearn, Kearin, or some other variation I haven't anticipated.
Irish immigrants.
If all of this information's correct (nothing is certain--I haven't seen any hard evidence, so all of these conclusions are based on internet research), the Keegans ending up in America then particularly is very interesting. As you know, the Irish Potato Famine provoked tides of immigration to America, but the blight didn't start showing up til late 1844, after the Keegans had been in America some time already.
Margaret & Kerrin don't show up on the grid again until 1844, when the records indicate they begot their first born, Tom Keegan, Sr., in the great southern state of Louisiana. The how & why of their trip from the Big Apple to the Big Easy is still a mystery to me, but I suppose speculation's part of the fun in this genealogy business, trying to extrapolate someone's life story from a line or two of census data & a marriage certificate. Curiously, I came across a record stating Tom had two younger siblings (Catherine & Mary Ann) born in New York City, & then another (James T.) in Louisiana, all before the family relocated to Iowa, implying that the Keegans must've had reason to travel back & forth between LA & NY. Very curious, isn't it?
New Orleans, 19th century
As I've indicated by the title, this will be the first of a few more posts about my family-tree research. There's still plenty more to come about the Keegans, & some exciting revelations about the Kohls as well.
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