Keating Ancestry

    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...

  In honor of Mother's Day, I am focusing on one of the many fantastic Mothers in our family history. This year, I am choosing Bridget Creagh Keating, the mother of my dad's grandfather, Edward Michael Keating, and the mother of Mary Keating Motie, the grandmother of Ann O'Brien.    (For those of you who would like to know connections to Felicite, Bridget was the mother-in-law to two of Felicite's grandchildren, Eleanor and George. Did Bridget know Felicite? They could have overlapped in Davenport, perhaps crossing paths at the Catholic church, but...probably not.)   Bridget was born in Carrigaholt, County Clare, Ireland on February 1, 1838 to parents James Creagh and Margaret Gibson.  Bridget had several siblings including Margaret, Martin, Mary and Michael.  The big Irish famine was in 1847, so Bridget was a young girl when that happened.  Far western County Clare was devastated by the famine, so Bridget and her family were absolutely impacted by tha...

  Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, I'm back with a blog post about one of our ancestors named Patrick. I will focus on Patrick McGuire* (1797-1861) and I think you will not be disappointed by this remarkable Irish immigrant. For those of you (like my sister) who like to position ancestors around Felicite Constant Motier, Patrick was the father of Felicite's daughter-in-law, Mary McGuire Motie.  In fact, Patrick almost surely interacted with Felicite in Davenport. Patrick was born in Kilrush, County Clare, a far western part of Ireland (also where the Keatings and the Creaghs come from later). Patrick immigrated to the U.S. with his wife, Margaret Slattery, and two older daughters, Mary (1828) and Catherine (1834).  He arrived in Davenport in 1839 and I think he left Ireland a year or two early and went through Newfoundland on the way to Davenport.  Again, we have no specific information about why he came to Iowa, but the "pull" was likely jobs and opportunities...

Cousin Petra sent me this photo and it is so terrific, I felt it merited a blog posting.  Although the photo is undated, Petra thinks it is from around 1955.  Thanks to Petra, we know all of the people in the photo: Back row: Father Laurence, Irma Manning, Alice Stevens, Genie Lynch, Jean Marie Manning Front row: Edward (Buzz) Manning, Eleanor "Lillie" Motie Keating (seated), Petra Manning Steele, in the very  front holding a chicken Mary Manning (Emily Skafish's mom!). Date and place.  Although we do not know the exact date, from the ages of everyone present, we think it is 1954 or 1955.  We also think it is springtime.  Springtime in Chicago often includes coats, but little Mary is holding a chicken and Petra remembers that one year they got chickens in their Easter baskets (I'm guessing you only do that once!)   The photo is taken in front of Irma and Ed Manning's home in Chesterton, Indiana.  Eleanor was widowed in late 1944 and moved to ...

Just in time for Bastille Day, I thought I would write a quick blog on some research I've done over the past few months into our French ancestors who lived in Illinois in the early 18th Century. First, a quick history of the French in North America.  As we know, European countries began to explore and colonize North America starting in the mid-16th Century.  The French got into this game with Jacques Cartier entering and exploring the St. Lawrence River on numerous voyages in the mid 1500s.  In 1603, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain established a French settlement in what is now Quebec City.  The French, like all of the Europeans, wanted to find a passage to the Pacific and had high hopes that the great Mississippi River they'd heard so much about from the native peoples would get them there.       It was actually 350 years ago in the summer of 1673 that French explorers Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette traveled down the Mississip...