Series 9 - McGinity-Crosby letters

25pp

Isabel McAnulty Williams of West Lafayette, Indiana, great-granddaughter of John McGinity, donated the McGinity-Crosby letters to PRONI in May 1979. PRONI provided transcripts of the letters [reference number: T3539] to Kerby A. Miller which he subsequently annotated to reflect the original typography of the letters.

The McGinity-Crosby letters were written between members of the McGinity family in America, primarily New York City and Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, and Ireland, including Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in 1847-1869.
A note from the donor to Kerby A. Miller states: 'John and Mary Crosby McGinity were my maternal great-grandparents. John and his brother, Thomas, were linen vendors in Ireland. Thomas, accompanied by his son, John, immigrated to the U.S. in autumn 1847. His wife and their 3 younger children joined him the following year. In the early spring of 1850 my great-grandparents (John and Mary Crosby McGinity) and their four children -- Thomas, Catherine, Mary, and Bernard - immigrated to the U.S. John purchased a farm in western Pennsylvania; he died of pneumonia on 23 Apr. 1852. Mary and their children remained on the farm and Mary's brothers, John and William Crosby, came to the U.S. to help her manage the farm.' Miller also notes that Mary Crosby McGinity 'died in June 1890, and was buried beside her husband in SS Simon and Jude's Cemetery, Blairsville, PA. Her full name was Mar[y] Theresa Crosby McGinity, lending further support to the belief that the family was Catholic. At the time of his emigration, John McGinity's mother lived at New Town Hamilton (see /1, Catherine McGinity to son, John, 20 May 1847, addressed to him at Newtownbarry (Co. Wexford?).'
This series contains Miller's brief notes and abstracts on five of the McGinity letters with reference to later letters, along with photocopied transcripts of two letters from 1847 and 1850 with Miller's notes and annotations.