Ebenezer to Hugh

My Brady Family History

Background.
Our BRADY family ancestry has been traced back from my great grandfather Ebenezer Brady (1817-1879) to his great grandfather (my fourth great grandfather) Hugh Brady (c.1709-c.1778). Hugh Brady emigrated from Ireland to the American colonies shortly after 1730, by tradition embarking from Londonderry with his Scottish wife Hannah in company with several other Scots-Irish families. They landed at the mouth of the Delaware where their first son John was born in 1732. Hugh and Hannah eventually settled with their growing family in Hopewell Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, where they were early members of the Middle Spring Presbyterian Church.

Acknowledgement.
My contributions to the discovery of more information about our Brady family history began in 1997 when this web page was first created. Our Ebenezer Brady's specific family connection to pioneer Hugh Brady was still somewhat tentative. My own efforts began using the fruitful discoveries of a first and a second cousin. Their genealogical search for my great grandfather Ebenezer's ancestors began well before the existence of the Web and its many genealogical resources. My two cousins' help and advice while I was doing my family research were indispensable and are gratefully acknowledged.

A 1997 trip from Pennsylvania to Ohio to Iowa.
In 1997 I took a leisurely road trip back across the country from the east coast that traced my Brady family's migration route from Cumberland County near Shippensburg, PA, to Westmoreland County (1787) to Indiana County, PA (by 1810), to the Ohio counties of Belmont (1837), Monroe (1840s), and Noble (after 1860), and then to Guthrie County, Iowa (about 1872). Several days each were spent in Shippensburg and Indiana, Pennsylvania at their local libraries and historical societies. My trip also included visits to cemeteries and county court houses to gather new information.

Upon returning home I put up the first version of this genealogical web page summarizing our Brady family lineage back to pioneer Hugh Brady: my great grandfather Ebenezer Brady was the son of John, who was the son of Ebenezer, who was the 6th son of Hugh. This genealogy web page produced many important new family contacts that otherwise would never have happened.

Contributions of others.
My family research over the twenty-two years since that first visit to Pennsylvania has significantly benefitted from the many contacts with other Hugh Brady descendants (in particular 2nd and 3rd cousins descended from my 2nd great grandfather John Brady). This was made possible by the ancestral information I posted on this web page and have endeavored to keep uptodate. I always welcome contact from anyone having questions or additional information to contribute.

My family line back to Hugh Brady.
Here is a summary of my direct line back to my Brady great grandfather Ebenezer Brady and to his great grandfather Hugh Brady.

• Allen H. BRADY
  (tba)
• F. Howard BRADY
  (b. 1901 Guthrie Center, Iowa; d. 1966)
• David Thomas (Tom) BRADY
  (b. 1847 Monroe County, Ohio; d.1928 Guthrie County, Iowa)
  married Martha Adeline "Addie" Timmons (1875-1946).
• Ebenezer BRADY
  (b. 1817 Mahoning Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania; d. 1879 Guthrie County, Iowa)
  married Margaret Rose Shipley (1823-1904).
• John BRADY
  (b. circa 1779, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania; d. 1834, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania)
  married Mary Brewer (1795-c.1850).
• Ebenezer BRADY
  (b. circa 1750 Cumberland Co. Pennsylvania; d. 1804 Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania)
  married Jane Irwin (c.1753-c.1800).
• Hugh BRADY
  (b. circa 1709, Ireland; d. circa 1778, Hopewell Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania)
  married Hannah McCormick (c.1710-c.1755).
• Hugh BRADY's Irish Ancestry:
  The Irish ancestry of Hugh Brady is not known. A widely circulated story from the late 1800s claimed that Presbyterian Hugh was the son of a prominent Anglican cleric residing in England. It is a persistent myth and even includes a Brady coat of arms awarded to the family of the cleric! The story is a fantasy, probably intended to reinforce the Protestant bona fides of pioneer Hugh Brady in the face of the huge 1800s Roman Catholic Irish migration to America. This nonsensical story that Hugh's father was the Anglican cleric was apparently created in the late 1800s and propagated later in print. Now, unfortunately, it has been kept alive on the Internet gaining even more embellishments. There is no basis in fact whatsoever for the story. It flies in the face of both historic religious conflict and the published histories of prominent Irish families. The Anglican cleric himself, Hugh's supposed father, never even had a son named Hugh! And Presbyterian Hugh never named any of his seven sons after the supposed Anglican father! Were we asked to guess, we would say that Hugh Brady's father was most likely named John.
  
  Cavan Bradys and yDNA.
  Since I began my research in 1997, we have learned from yDNA testing that our pioneer Hugh Brady is genetically related to the large Irish Brady sept that has its origins in the vicinity of County Cavan. We also know from yDNA tests that Hugh had a distinguishing marker value. It separates his American male Brady descendants from the male Brady descendants of several other genetically related Brady ancestors who settled in the American colonies. There is of course a third group of male Bradys descended from colonial American Bradys who are not genetically related to the Cavan sept. If a male American Brady is directly descended from a colonial Brady male related to Hugh, then (1) he must be genetically related to the Bradys from Cavan. (2) He should have the slowly mutating DYS 439 marker value of 11, not the usual value 12.

  If however a male American Brady is directly descended from an American colonial era Brady and is not genetically related to the Brady sept from Cavan then he is certainly not descended from Hugh Brady regardless of the value of the DYS 439 marker.

  A number of unsubstantiated claims have been made over the past two centuries by some Brady families convinced they were descended from colonial pioneer Hugh Brady. The answer to such a claim is now easily determined by a yDNA test. The distinguishing marker value is not unique, but it is highly unusual. So if a genetically related male Brady is directly descended from a later 1800s Irish Brady immigrant, it is entirely possible that his test could show the distinguishing marker value. (The marker value of 11 has been seen in one or two genetically-related Bradys in Ireland. If you somehow happen to be in the latter group, please contact me.)

Continuing the search started by two cousins.
When I began this serious Brady family research in 1997, I started from my two cousins' many years of work. We had (1) only the newly deduced connection of my great grandfather Ebenezer to his father John Brady, (2) the year 1834 for John's death inferred from my great grandfather Ebenezer's 1879 obituary, (3) that Daniel Brady living in Monroe County, Ohio was Ebenezer's brother and (4) that Mary (born in 1795) was John Brady's wife and the mother of Ebenezer and Daniel. Everything that we learned subsequently (including the information I had found during my 1997 trip) has clearly substantiated our original conclusions. It has fleshed out many facts and the history about the John and Mary (Brewer) Brady family and filled in important missing details.

Pictures and Letters from the 1800s.
A picture of John Irwin Brady's son Ephraim ("E. G. Brady, Humphrey, Nebr.") was sent to me in 2003 by a second cousin in Iowa. She had obtained a boot box full of old family pictures from her father. The pictures had thankfully been saved because she managed to dissuade her father from tossing them into the fireplace.

An 1889 family letter obtained later (written by one of my grandfather's brothers) mentioned "Ephraim Brady" living in Nebraska. The letter had been found among a collection of family letters from the late 1800s that appeared in an old trunk. The trunk was fortunately obtained in Iowa in 2006 by yet another second cousin, and my Iowa second cousin with the family pictures has copies of those letters.

My determination in 2009 of our family connection to John Irwin Brady, my great grandfather Ebenezer's youngest brother, was finally confirmed by the family list of John and Mary Brady's found in the Brown family Bible. This transcription (of the list) was obtained in 2012 from a Brown descendant who contacted us. We finally had the entire John and Mary Brady family identified.

Contact by a descendant of Daniel Brady.
In 2008 I was contacted by a descendant of the family of the youngest son of my great grandfather Ebenezer's brother Daniel Brady. To my delight I learned from my 3rd cousin that of the extremely large number of Daniel Bradys living in America after the Civil War, our Daniel Brady, the brother of my great grandfather Ebenezer, had ended up nearby in Nebraska after the Civil War. My new cousin contact had just moved to Nebraska, and her relocation there was extremely useful for our family research.

John Irwin Brady(1831-1865), the youngest brother.
I was already aware that Ebenezer's and Daniel's eldest sister, Margaret (Brady) Brown, was living in Nebraska in the 1880s. In 2009 I was finally inspired to track down the mysterious "E. G. Brady, Humphrey, Nebr." written on the back of the tantalizing hundred year old family photograph. I quickly determined that E. G. Brady was Ephraim G. Brady, born in Ohio. "Ephram Brady" had even been mentioned in an 1889 letter sent by one of my grandfather's brothers from Nebraska to Iowa.

Tracking Ephraim led me back to his father John Irwin Brady (1831-1865), a Methodist minister residing in southeastern Ohio. A descendant of John Irwin Brady knew of his 1831 birth in Westmoreland County, PA, so it seemed logical to conclude that Ephraim's father John Irwin Brady was the ninth and final child in the family of my 2nd great grandparents John and Mary (Brewer) Brady. One sister and all three brothers among the nine children were identified. We were left with identifying and accounting for the remaining five sisters of my great grandfather Ebenezer Brady.

DNA testing.
My family's genealogical connection to Hugh Brady was corroborated in 2009 by tests of y-chromosome DNA (yDNA). A male Brady fifth cousin of mine also agreed to be tested. When our two 46 marker tests of two descendants from two different sons of Hugh Brady were compared, they were identical! In 2012 we also obtained a yDNA test from a descendant of the first brother Capt. John Brady. He was also closely related. All three yDNA tests showed the same value for the distinguishing marker. More recently a yDNA test of a descendant of yet a fourth brother (a fourth son of Hugh) is in complete agreement.

Presently the relationship of our Brady family to Hugh Brady's descendants has been confirmed by autosomal DNA (atDNA) tests. The results of all the relevant DNA tests, when added to the weight of the accumulated genealogical evidence, indisputably confirm our original conclusion in 1997 that my great grandfather Ebenezer Brady (1817-1879) was descended from the family of the Irish immigrant Hugh Brady through his father John Brady (c.1779-1834), and grandfather Ebenezer Brady (c.1850-1804). His grandfather Ebenezer, born in 1750, was the sixth of seven sons of Hugh Brady(c.1709-c.1779).

John Brady, "no record" of descendants.
My second great grandfather John Brady is mentioned in his father Ebenezer's 1804 will. Otherwise, the published genealogical research regarding the offspring of pioneer Hugh's son Ebenezer's is summarized in the statement, "We have no record of the descendants of Hugh, Martha, and John Brady named above." (See the Brady Annals Vol 1, edited by William Y. Brady, published between 1923 and 1955 and distributed by the editor as a series of 12 monographs of Hugh Brady family history.)

Our John Brady's family history is now known in some detail. His brother Hugh who moved to Ohio has been identified. A descendant of Martha (Brady) Shannon, with whom I was in contact some years ago, has researched the family of Martha Brady and her husband Samuel Shannon. (Samuel was given 150 acres of Westmoreland County land by Martha's father Ebenezer Brady).

John's and Mary's nine children.
A careful study has been made over the years of many official records, family pictures (in 2003) and family letters (in 2006). Important contacts have been made with several descendants of my great grandfather Ebenezer's siblings. This has finally led to the our conclusion in 2010 that John and Mary (Brewer) Brady's family consisted of their oldest child, Margaret (Brady) Brown (1814-1898), three sons, Ebenezer (1817-1879), Daniel (1827-1886), and John Irwin Brady (1831-1865) along with five of their daughters all born between the years 1817 and 1830.

John and Mary family list found in a Bible.
In early 2012 we were contacted by a descendant of my great grandfather Ebenezer's older sister Margaret (Brady) Brown (1814-1895). Among the Brown family documents which the descendant had received from his grandmother (a Brown who was my third cousin) was a transcription of a complete list of the family of John and Mary (Brewer)Brady. The original family list was found tucked inside a Brown family Bible. Everything we had concluded about the family composition (Margaret, Ebenezer, Daniel, and John Irwin Brady) was corroborated by that list. The five previously unnamed sisters Jane, Sarah, Susannah, Mary, and Martha Brady were also listed. Dates of birth were given for all nine children. The nine children in the family ranged from Margaret, the eldest, born in December 1814 and John Irwin Brady, the youngest, born in November 1831. My great grandfather Ebenezer, the oldest son, had the name of his grandfather, and Jane, the second daughter, had the name of her grandmother Jane (Irwin) Brady. The third son John Irwin Brady was named after his father. The family list also gave a date of birth for my 2nd great grandfather John Brady and listed his wife Mary's birth as occurring in 1795. There was no mention, however, of Mary's maiden name. In 2017 we determined her maiden name was Brewer.

John Brady in 1810.
My second great grandfather John Brady (c.1779-1834) lived in Mahoning Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania during the early 1800's. Living in that township were two of his four first-cousins also named John Brady. (All five John Bradys were grandsons of Hugh Brady of course.) Our John Brady apparently was the Brady reported to have bought a tannery in Indiana County's Mahoning Township. We later realized that the 1810 census along with other documents show that my second great grandfather John Brady lived in Mahoning Township next to his future father-in-law Daniel Brewer.

The 1830 move to Westmoreland County.
After the U.S. Census was taken in 1830 John and Mary (Brewer) Brady moved with their then family of eight children from Indiana County, to adjacent Westmoreland County. In 1831 their third son and the youngest of their nine children, John Irwin Brady (1831-1865) was born. The Westmoreland County place of birth of the son John Irwin Brady (a fact already known by his descendants) was stated in his obituary published in 1866 in the conference proceedings of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Tax records apparently show that my second great grandfather John Brady (who had been a tanner) was taxed in the 1830s in Westmoreland County as a saddle maker.

John Irwin Brady (1831-1865).
My great grandfather Ebenezer's youngest brother John Irwin Brady (1831-1865), the youngest of John and Mary (Brewer) Brady's nine children, was an ordained Methodist minister. During the Civil War he was a 1st Lieutenant (serving as a line officer, not as a chaplain), commissioned in August 1862 in the 97th [87th?] Regiment of the Ohio Volunteers. He was wounded during the Civil War at the Battle of Missionary Ridge, but after recovering from his wounds he was discharged from the Union Army in 1864 because of an incurable cough. He came home to southeastern Ohio where he died of consumption in April 1865 as the Civil War was ending. John Irwin Brady left his widow Mary Melissa (Gould) Brady (1837-1921), with two young sons, Ephraim and Hiram. The two sons have many descendants.

Maiden name of John Brady's wife Mary is Brewer.
The maiden name of my 2nd great grandmother Mary Brady was finally determined by my daughter after a careful effort in 2017. John's wife Mary Brady was born Mary Brewer (1795-c.1845). Mary was one of three children of John Brady's neighbor Daniel Brewer (1761-1842) who married children of Ebenezer Brady (1750-1804). The steps to the discovery of Mary (Brewer) Brady's maiden name were not simple, but once all the genealogical facts were taken together the conclusion was clearly unchallengeable.

Originally it was thought that just working with the atDNA results would lead us to Mary's maiden name. It was soon realized that such an approach would be very difficult if not impossible. However, once we had Mary's maiden name, Brewer, the atDNA test results clearly corroborated our genealogical connection to her Brewer family.

Learning Mary's maiden name has not only filled an important gap in my paternal lineage, but it has opened up further research into the Brewer branch of the John Brady and Mary (Brewer) Brady family.

John and Mary (Brewer) Brady followed the naming custom.
The family list found in the Brown family Bible indicated that John and Mary (Brewer) Brady followed the old Irish and Scots-Irish custom for naming their children.

Their oldest daughter Margaret was named after her maternal grandmother Margaret (Bennet) Brewer, and their second daughter Jane was named after her paternal grandmother Jane (Irwin) Brady. Their first son Ebenezer was named after his paternal grandfather Ebenezer Brady (1750-1804), and their second son Daniel was named after his maternal grandfather Daniel Brewer (1761-1842). Finally their third son John Irwin Brady, obviously, was named after his father John.

A correspondent of mine completely of Irish descent once told me that her father's Brady family followed the naming custom rigorously, but her mother's family didn't follow it at all!

Death of John in 1834 and widow Mary's 1837 move to Ohio.
In 1834 my 2nd great grandfather John Brady died. His oldest son Ebenezer, then 17 years of age, went to work in a lumber mill to help support the family. He met with a severe accident which left him recuperating for many months. Three years later (1837) John's widow Mary (Brewer) Brady moved with her children from Pennsylvania to Belmont County, Ohio. Her father Daniel Brewer and mother Margaret also moved to Ohio at the same time from Mahoning Township. Her brother Daniel Brewer's family already lived in Belmont County, along with the families of her late husband John Brady's brothers Ebenezer and William P. Brady.

Mary (Brewer) Brady's brother Daniel Brewer (Jr.) had previously married John's sister Mary Brady in Mahoning Township, and another Brewer sister had married John's brother William P. Brady. Both families were already in Belmont County, having moved there from Mahoning Township much earlier.

Remarriage of Mary in 1840 and her son Clancy.
Widow Mary (Brewer) Brady remarried in Belmont County in 1840 and had a son Thomas Clarence "Clancy" Hendricks (1841-1914). Mary (Brewer Brady) Hendricks apparently died before 1850 (probably in 1845). Her husband Thomas Hendricks apparently also died before 1850. In the 1850 census their nine year old son Clancy was living in the home of John Davis along with his half sisters, John's wife Martha (Brady) Davis and Mary J. Brady. By the time of the 1860 Census, however, the teenaged Clancy (Thomas Clarence Hendricks) was living in the state of Indiana with the William Hendricks family (who also had a son named Thomas Hendricks).

Clancy Hendricks (my great grandfather Ebenezer's much younger half brother) served in the Civil War and eventually married and had children. Thomas Clarence Hendricks died in 1918 while living in Shelby County, Iowa located halfway between Guthrie County, Iowa and the Missouri River border with Nebraska.

Interestingly, the name "Clancy Hendricks" strangely appears hand printed on the back of the transcription of the John and Mary (Brewer) Brady family list we received from a 3rd cousin in 2012. Clancy's year of birth is shown incorrectly as 1861 instead of 1841, but the day and month shown for his birth is correct. The unknown transcriber of that family list (supposedly the wife of my 3rd cousin Bernard Brown) left us pondering a mystery that has now been resolved.

Margaret (Brady) Brown, a Nebraska pioneer.
Margaret (Brady) Brown was the first of John and Mary (Brewer) Brady's nine children to be born (1814) and the last to die (1898). She married Alexander Brown (1811-1866) in Monroe County, Ohio in 1846 after the death of his first wife, and had four children. The children were named after her husband Alexander, her grandfathers Daniel Brewer and Ebenezer Brady, and her mother Mary (Brewer) Brady. (Her first son Alexander Brown died in his youth.) The Browns left Ohio in 1865 and settled in Lucas County, Iowa.

Alexander Brown died in Iowa in 1866. His apparently illiterate widow Margaret (Brady) Brown filed on a homestead in Seward County, Nebraska in 1871 and became a Nebraska pioneer. From the boot box saved from the fireplace came a picture taken in early March 1878 in front of Margaret's Nebraska sod house. Snow was in the foreground, and the people were posed in three groups. First was Margaret's (and Ebenezer's) younger brother Daniel Brady dressed in skins with his rifle and dog. Second was Margaret herself standing behind her son Daniel Brown and his new bride Margaret (Cross) Brown, both seated. Third was the family of Margaret's brother Ebenezer, his wife, three sons, a fourth son William Shipley Brady with his wife Julie and Ebenezer's first grandson. (William was an official witness to the wedding.)

My grandfather Tom (David Thomas Brady), then Ebenezer's oldest surviving son, was absent from the picture. He (my grandfather) had obviously stayed home in Guthrie County, Iowa to tend his father Ebenezer Brady's farm.

Do you have useful information?
We remain interested in any further information others might have about my 2nd great grandfather John BRADY(1779-1834) and his immediate family. We are particularly interested in information about the lives (and possible families) of Brady daughters Jane (1818- ), Susannah (1824- ), and Mary J. Brady(1825- ). The marriages found for sisters Sarah (Brady) Dillon and Martha (Brady) Davis occurred in Belmont County, and several of their children have been identified. Daughter Mary J. Brady was living with her sister Martha's family in 1850. John and Mary's daughter Susannah Brady was apparently in Monroe County, Ohio in the 1840s, but nothing more is known about her. Nothing further has been found about daughter Jane Brady except that she was obviously part of John and Mary (Brewer) Brady's family in 1820 and 1830 in Mahoning Township.

Please send email to