Week 3 2026 - What this story means to me - Sheridan

Over the last 50+ years, I have spent countless hours searching for our immigrant ancestor's story. Utilizing family histories, county histories, searching birth, death, marriages and following every lead that has popped up I am finally able to say with conviction where the Sheridan's originated.

Because of DNA testing.

Through matches, I found a great group of researchers that were also looking for Sheridan's from Ireland that showed we were connected.  Way, way back and some with more DNA than others.  But the proof was there. Kim, Christopher, Kevin, Wendy, Gearóidíne and myself. There are for sure many others but it is this list that has spent these many years trying to figure the total connection. Thanks to Gearóidíne who is a direct descendant of an original Sheridan family - over 250 years of her father's fathers, fathers staying the course and continuing to live in the same town and on the same land.

Luckily a kind soul decided to make a handwritten copy of the 1821 Ireland census for Cloncovid. Then sent the original to Dublin as demanded, which then burned up in the Four Courts fire. That left the copy to languish in the repository of the town records and then have Gearóidíne decide to research her family and seek some answers to questions she had and discover it a couple of hundred years later. There are five Sheridan families living in Cloncovid/Clonkiffer townland in 1821 and our small group connects to them. 

Mary Sheridan - 1821 Census Clonkiffel, Cavan County, Ireland
mother of our immigrant Michael Sheridan

Over the years, I have found records that state our immigrant Michael was from Longford County - the border is only 6 miles from Cloncovid. So, he could have felt he was from Longford, not Cavan. I have found records that state that he was from County Mayo. Now when he decided to head for America it was about the same distance to a port in Mayo as it was to go to Dublin. So reasonably, it could have worked that way if he had stayed and worked for a bit before boarding a ship to take him to Galway or Limerick to catch a ship for America. Unfortunately, I will never know. The name Michael Sheridan is way too common.


But, again, I have DNA connections to each person in our small research group that are connected to those Sheridan families that lived in Cloncovid/Clonkiffer at that point.  Checking the 1821 census for Michael Sheridan, there is not a Head of Household with that name in town.  But there are two widows, both named Mary (of course) with children.  One of those Mary's has children: Margaret, Alice, Mary, James and age wise there is a break between age 27 and age 22...that our Micheal would fit right into.  And those names...that are repeated in our Sheridan family. 

And again, because of the DNA connection, we know for sure that we connect to this town and the people named Sheridan. We may not know exactly, but I feel sure this is where we began. That 1821 Census is truly a blessing and helps in the culmination of my years of research on the Sheridan family.

Barbie






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