Keating Ancestry

Hello to everyone who joined our Keating Cousin Zoom yesterday! I did not record the session, but here are the photos we discussed...I plan to do another session in September to highlight a few of our female ancestors who had particularly interesting lives...Then in November, I want to focus on some veterans.   We started with a quick view of our family tree.  Our closest shared ancestors are Edward M. Keating (1864-1944) and Eleanor "Lillie" Motie Keating (1869-1958).   This is a photo taken of Eleanor and Edward around their marriage in May of 1893.   Eleanor's parents were Mary Maguire Motie (1828-1896).  Mary was born in West Clare, Ireland and immigrated to Iowa with her parents and siblings.  She married Joseph Motie in Iowa.  Joseph was born in Portage des Sioux, MO in 1818.  His mother was Felicite.  Joseph moved to Iowa as a young man and got into the brick business.       We are most fortunate to also have a...

Hello, family!  Cousin Carolyn and I just got back from a trip to the St. Louis area. We got a chance to visit Portage des Sioux, Missouri.  This was the village where Felicity and her husband, Francois, lived from approximately 1807 until the late 1830s. After living in Missouri most of her life, middle-aged Felicite traveled up the river to Davenport, Iowa to be near her son, Joseph. (In my imagination, she took a steamboat up the river.) Portage des Sioux is a small village located on the southern banks of the Mississippi river (the river is heading east/west at this point).  The village is north of city of St. Louis and the Missouri river. This map from approximately 1850 shows the location.  It's named for the Sioux who used it as a place to portage (carry their canoes) between the Mississippi and Missouri river to save time, evade enemies or other reasons of convenience.   The village was founded in 1799 by Spanish Lt. Governor Zenon Trudeau and Francois ...

    In honor of Veteran's Day, I want to salute one of our family veterans, Rev. Laurence Henry Keating (1907-1987).  Father Laurence was a Lieutenant Colonel with the U.S. Army serving as a Chaplain in the 7th Armored Division. He served in four battles or campaigns in World War II and earned a purple heart, a bronze star, and numerous other medals.  Father Laurence was fairly well known throughout the family, so I hope you will all find this information about his military service to be interesting. Laurence was the 7th child of Eleanor Motie Keating and Edward M. Keating. My grandfather, Louis, was one of his older siblings. Laurence, Irma, and John were the youngest three and grew up in Palos Park, a suburb outside of Chicago. I am not sure why the Keating family moved from the city to the suburbs (really rural at that time), but they did.  My father believes the family moved to Palos for the children's health, grandpa's sister, Mary Felicite*, may have had h...

This painting of our great great grandmother, Felicite Constant Motier (1780-1873), crossed the Mississippi River from Illinois and returned to Missouri on March 27, 2024. This painting is now part of the permanent collection of the Missouri History Museum and Research Library. Here is a summary of Felicite Constant Motier's life, as we know it from historical records.  Some facts are easy to find and verify, others are not. I assume and hope that facts are corrected and updated by future family historians.  Felicite was born in the St. Louis area in 1780* to French-speaking parents Gabriel Constant and Marie Duplanty.  Marie was born in Quebec; Gabriel in Strasbourg, France.  Gabriel and Marie married in Quebec and made their way through New France, first to Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit;  then to Cahokia, Illinois; and finally to farm in St. Louis/Carondolet, Missouri.  (*Felicite may have been born in 1786, JoAnn Brennan found Felicite's baptismal record...