I have managed to trace the immigration records of several of my own Rooney families.

Bernard Rooney was the brother of my 3xgrandfather, he lived in the townland of kilcreen in Co Monaghan.

We managed to search passenger lists for ships leaving for USA and were lucky to find details of two of his sons Thomas and Hugh.

Thomas left Liverpool for the USA with three of his friends Joseph Flynn, Peter McCabe and James Soraghan, all residents of Roslea.
 They arrived at Boston, Massachusetts aboard the steam ship SS Saxonia on 18 Mar 1909.The interesting thing was that their final destination was 'cousin' Patt Flynns house at 902 House Street Wyoming.

Although i have not proved thier relationship, i have found a Flynn family living in on the same townland of kilcreen where the Rooneys lived, this is taken from the Roslea Historical journal '“ There was a Flynn family from Derrygellia - a large family; eighteen survived. The girls in that family did all the crochet. Their father bought a farm of land in Killcreen, Co. Monaghan, for £80 which was a considerable amount of money in those days. When he died he left a will leaving all his family £40 each. This money was all saved from crochet work.” I would guess that this is almost certainly the family of the Patt Flynn in Wyoming, but as yet this has not been proven.

click here for copy of ships manifest

Thomas appears in the passenger list again in 1914, we do not know when he left wyoming and returned to Ireland but on this passenger list he was travelling from londonderry to New York with his brother Hugh aboard the ss Caledonia, he arrived in America on the 24th January 1914.

According to the ships manifest Hugh was a resident of County Monaghan but Thomas was listed as being a resident of New York, the final destination for them both was Jeresy, which is just across the hudson river from new York

The next family we are going to look at is the family Master Hugh Rooney and his wife Bessie Cosgrove.This family were from the townland of Derryneese, both of them were schoolteachers. This family can be seen by clicking here.

On the 2nd of may 1926 two of their daughters left Ireland for Boston, they were going to visit their Aunt Maggie Rooney (nee Cosgrove) and thier uncle Thomas Rooney. Also visiting the same household was a Charles Beggan. The first and second pages of the ships manifest can be seen below..