The not-so-Irish Murphys, from Barra, Invernesshire, Scotland

Haplogroups, geographic history, primary sources, derivative records, foreign language translation, and archaic script are all pieces of the large and intricate puzzle that often looks like a ball made of rubber bands to be unwound to build a family tree. In Spring of 2020, when I first began unwinding that ball, it was only to satisfy a curiosity around where in Ireland my maternal line originated. The state of Massachusetts was largely housebound, essential workers aside, and I ended up in a text-based circular conversation with a first cousin who insisted they are 100% Irish.

Years back, I had spit in a cup and sent it to 23andMe where I learned...not much. I'm about 50% Italian-based (with a little bit of Portuguese) and 50% UK-based. With the surnames Comperchio and Murphy, that sounds about right - except, it doesn't. O public school system, thank you for allowing me to graduate having never taken a world geography class. (My degrees are in musical theatre and statistics so no help there.) I had ignorantly assumed that the UK portion of my DNA pointed toward Ireland.

I informed Cuz of this. His next statement was, "prove it."

Ever grateful for continued learning, I began building a family tree on Ancestry. Since it was the Spring of 2020, the state of Massachusetts was hit particularly hard by Covid-19. As a data professional, tracking the trajectory of cases and deaths outside of my day job became a normal part of each day. Outside of that, there was nowhere to go. Having not yet discovered triathlons and having an infant at home, finding an outlet for my mental energy that didn't involve binge watching Netflix was a must.

I'll note here that many Americans frame our cultural nationality by saying, "I'm Irish," or, "I'm Italian," rather than, "I have Irish heritage." I've recently learned that this earns a raised eyebrow from certain groups - namely those who are actually from those places. If I have to form a theory on why we say this, I would guess that our recent ancestors likely phrased it this way. They were, in fact, Irish, Italian, English, Scottish, etc. Their children learned the phrasing from them and a trend emerged. There is no intent to insult natives of those lands as they stand today. Even so, I'm working toward the phrasing, "I am primarily of Italian, Scottish, and English descent," instead of the alternative.

After learning the hard lesson of not accepting all of the recommended hints, I worked my way up my maternal tree, through the Murphy line, expecting to find someone who had migrated from Ireland pretty quickly. It just didn't happen. I did land myself firmly in Nova Scotia though, both virtually and eventually in person.

On my way north, I learned to navigate outside of genealogical repositories, to communicate with genealogical societies, archives, churches, and other organizations with an interest in history, and to locate unindexed records which frequently contain essential information. Upon identifying the ancestor who lived in Brooklyn, Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia, Canada and was the earliest Murphy I could find, I packed up the family, put the car on The Cat, and off we went!

What new information did I gain about the Murphys by visiting the lands where they built their home? Nothing I hadn't already found, sadly. I did feel closer to my Nova Scotia heritage and hope to return one day to travel further north and explore more of my Scottish lineage on Cape Breton.

All of that said, my Murphys are an interesting crew. Here's what I know:

• My mother is Patricia (Murphy) Comperchio. She is alive and well so her information will remain her own to share if she chooses. She married Francis Anthony Comperchio - also alive and well. Their kids spend copious hours in cemeteries.

• My grandfather was Lawrence Edward Murphy Jr. (1927-1993). He married Bertha Dorothy Bowen (1927-2002). They had eight children. Seven of them are still living. He died from cirrhosis after a lifelong battle with alcoholism. He spent most of his life as a laborer. Nana Bert is a descendant of the Stevens family of Connecticut which makes her line easily traceable.

• Lawrence's father was Lawrence Edward Murphy Sr. (1906-1985). He married Hazel Marguerite Moore (1907-1999) and converted from Protestant to Catholic prior to their wedding. Hazel moved to Massachusetts with her family from Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia where she met Lawrence. This Lawrence has a particularly interesting birth story. Born 29 Oct 1906, he was born exactly five days after his parents wed on 24 Oct 1906. Today, we wouldn't think this was odd at all. In 1906 though, it would have been a scandal. Read about his parents below, for the rest.
  

• Lawrence Sr.'s father was Stanley Crosby Murphy (1887-1947) who married Lillian May Prindall (later Paterson) (1885-1962). Stanley was with the first Murphy family to migrate to Massachusetts from Nova Scotia. As mentioned above, Stanley and Lillian were married with very little spacing between their nuptials and the birth of their first child who was born at home, unassisted. In their marriage announcement, it is noted that they fooled all of their friends who had no idea how serious they were about each other. - Yeah...seems like the joke was on them alright. Stanley died in a mental institution years later after decades of alcoholism and gambling. Lillian was remarried to a Scottish widower Freemason named Hugh Paterson.

• Stanley's father was Frederick Leslie Murphy (1862-1954) who married Annie Isabella Moir (1864-1902). Frederick and Annie's story is heartbreaking. In 1902, at 38 years old, Annie been visited by her sisters from Nova Scotia. On their way home, they were notified of her passing. It was believed that she had stomach cancer. She left behind six children, ages 17, 15, 11, 9, 5, and 2. Later, in 1917 the youngest of the Murphy children who was 17 at the time, died of sepsis after a pelvic infection. Frederick headed for New Hampshire where he shares a burial plot with his daughter-in-law.
  

• Frederick was the son of Captain John Murphy (1811-1890) and Margaret Sollows (1825-1905). Margaret traces her lineage to Mayflower passenger, Isaac Allerton. John and Margaret are a collision point for the Trask family of Essex County, Massachusetts as they both descend from that family. John and each of his brothers who survived to adulthood were all seafarers in some capacity. John was the captain of several ships in his day.

• John was the son of the very last of the Murphy line that I'm able to trace - the patriarch of Y Haplogroup R269, James Murphy (est. 1755 - 1833) and Chloe Horton (1780-1863). The amount of research that has been done to unfold the story of James and Chloe warrants its own section.

What do we know about James and Chloe:

• James was born in Ireland, likely in County Cork, some time between 7 Oct 1755 and 8 Oct 1756. He had at least one brother, John, who was lost at sea in October 1803. John is listed on the Lost To The Sea memorial in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. John married Chloe's sister, Mercy Horton.

• Both James and John arrived on the ship Fame, on 10 Oct 1778. The ship was a schooner owned by James and it ran aground on the sand dunes of Sable Island the very next year. Sable Island is renowned for shipwrecks since the sand dunes are unreliable in their locations. They'll be found in one location one day and somewhere else the next.

• James became known as James of Brooklyn to set him apart from James of Pictou in documentation such as newspaper records. He is sometimes listed as Jacques in church records since he was Catholic and the only Roman Catholic church near Yarmouth in his lifetime was St. Ane de Rousseau. At least two of his children were baptized there (Sarah and Thomas). It is assumed that Thomas did not live to reach adulthood since he is not listed in his father's will. The same is true for another son, James Jr. who we know from his widow's marriage announcement died prior to James Sr.'s death in 1833. However, Sarah is listed in James Sr.'s will, and one of her descendants made Yarmouth history as a traveling missionary.

• On the property where the Murphy farm stood now resides a long term care facility (Villa Saint Joseph du Lac). Prior to this operation, it was an upscale resort hotel.

• The Yarmouth Township Records list several children for James and his wife Chloe (Horton) Murphy. They are incomplete as additional children have been identified within the body of church records in nearby jurisdictions for their immediate family and for Chloe's parents, Levi Horton and Mercy Haskell. Children include:

  • James Jr. (1802-est. 1827)

  • Mary (1803-1880)

  • Sarah Anne (1804-1877)

  • William (1806-1899)

  • Elsa (1808-1890)

  • Eliza (1809-1871)

  • John (1811-1890)

  • Benjamin (1813-1900)

  • Martin (1814-1888)

  • Joseph (1818-1902)

  • Thomas (1820-est. 1827)

  • Melzar (1822-1889)
    

• James' obituary was printed in the Yarmouth Herald on 11 October 1833 and lists his date of death as 7 October 1833 at age 76. This aligns with his will which was probated later that year. All living children and Chloe (spelled Cloe) are included in it. Son William took over Murphy's farm (named Murphy's Bridge) and sadly, lost a young daughter to the nearby lake when she was three years old. Hannah is listed on the Lost to the Sea Memorial, along with her great uncle, John.

• No marriage record has yet been found for James and Chloe. However, Chloe seems to have been baptized multiple times. She may have had a complex religious relationship during her lifetime. Within what would logically be a few months of her marriage to James, based on the birth of their first child, she is baptized at Trinity Church, along with John Murphy and several of her siblings. She is later baptized again in the Zionist Church approximately six months after James' death. Between these two baptisms, two of her children are baptized in the Roman Catholic church which I assume is James' faith tradition. Given her age and the date of their first child's birth, they seem to have been married in approximately 1800.

• Despite the lack of birth and marriage records for James, a few facts can be theorized about him:

  • He was likely from Cork, Ireland. Based on current day Murphy family DNA, and the lack of Ireland-based matches from other regions, it is statistically probable that James and John Murphy originated in Cork. Their names are so common that their exact identities cannot be identified as yet.

  • Given common naming conventions, it is highly likely that James' mother's name was Mary.

  • James is likely interred at St. Ane's although the exact location is unknown. Given the Catholic baptismal records of Thomas and Sarah, and the fact that Chloe is buried in a separate location, it is likely that they are not buried together. This could be explained by a Catholic burial site since Chloe was re-baptized upon James death.

  • There may be other Murphy siblings in Yarmouth when James and John were alive. Further research is needed.

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Regarding Chloe's father, Levi Horton, many researchers have attempted to identify his family and encountered the challenge of lacking primary source records for him. When I began researching him, there were two large pools of (ahem...incorrect) family trees on Ancestry. They led back to:

• Option 1: parents Elijah Horton and Mehitable Richmond of Rehoboth, MA

• Option 2: parents Eliphalet Horton and MaryAnn Case also of Rehoboth, MA

Neither of these options made sense. When I researched both of these Levis, they were still in Massachusetts when our Levi was settled in Jebogue, NS. Option 1 was living in Stoughton, MA and married to Anna Billings with three children when our Levi was in Nova Scotia and married to Mercy Haskell. He was later accused of adultery and the two divorced in 1797, but our Levi and Mercy were still signing probate papers well into the 1800s. Option 2 was born about 30 years too late to be a contender, as are all of the other Levis with identifiable records.

To identify our Levi, I built a table listing all of his children's names, and their relationship with any namesake if one could be found. They could all be found. Every one of his children was named after a close family member or neighbor.

Name	Named For	Relationship to Namesake	Spouse
Levi Horton	Levi Littlefield	Levi's mother's brother who died as a baby	Mercy Haskell
Mercy Haskell	Mercy Trask	Mercy's mother	Levi Horton
1 Mercy Horton	Mercy Haskell	Mercy herself	John Murphy
X Levi Horton Jr	Levi Horton	Levi himself	NA
X Edmond Horton	Edmond Horton	Levi's Uncle and brother	NA
2 Levi Horton Jr	Levi Horton	Levi himself	NA
3 Edmond Horton	Edmond Horton	Levi's Uncle and brother	NA
4 Deborah Horton	Deborah Littlefield	Levi's Aunt	Andrew Bryar
5 Dorcas Horton	Dorcas Littlefield	Levi's mother	John Rodgers
6 Martha "Patte" Horton	Martha Horton	Levi's Aunt	Cornelius Rogers II
7 William Horton	William Haskell	Mercy's Father	Sarah Lewis
8 Chloe Horton	Chloe Butler	Wife of Waitstill Lewis, widow of John Barnard.  Lived next door.  John had died just prior to her birth.	James Murphy
9 Lydia Horton	Lydia Horton	Levi's sister	Still reseaching (Wetmore?)
10 Robert Horton	Robert Haskell	Mercy's uncle	Mary
11 Benjamin Horton	family name	Both Levi and Mercy have uncles named Benjamin and Levi has a brother named Benjamin

Beyond this, Levi's brothers Edmond and Lemuel had traveled to Nova Scotia and lived the rest of their lives there.

Levi was the son of David Horton and Dorcas Littlefield of Milton, MA. The book Planters and Pioneers lists his origin as Saybrook, CT but this is an error. Several passengers who traveled on the ship Levi arrived in Yarmouth upon were from Saybrook, but Levi himself was from Milton, MA. His baptismal record is found within the records of the First Congregational Church, along with may of his siblings who share names with his children.

Levi seemingly left the Colonies due to turmoil over his political beliefs. He was a loyalist. Life in Colonial Massachusetts cannot have been a friendly place for him.

Ample documentation is available proving that Levi lived until at least November of 1818. He participated in many land acquisitions and transfers. While no death records exist for the first four of his sons, the second pair named the same as the first, Levi makes it a point to sign over his property to his surviving sons upon the untimely death of son William, ensuring an heir.

Like James Murphy, Levi and Mercy seem to have disappeared. Some theories on their whereabouts include:

• Frost Park - grave records were originally taken from existing markers, demonstrating that unmarked stones are not recorded.

• The Horton Family Burial Ground - Some of the earliest Nova Scotia burials are marked here with only initials.

It is my hope that some day we will locate their burial plots.

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So how did the Murphys end up with more Scottish heritage than Irish?

When people were asked their nationality on the census in decades long past, it was always recorded exclusively the nationality of the head of household, typically the husband. If each Murphy is followed from James, all the way to my mother, no one married another Irish descendant after him. Each spouse is of English, Welsh, or Scottish descent. Because the DNA of my great grandmother, Hazel Marguerite (Moore) Murphy would have been 100% Scottish (her children's is 50%), that heritage is introduced strongly. Following her lineage leads to the MacKinnon family from Craigston, Inverness who migrated to Cape Breton, NS in the mid 1800s. They originally lived in a small area called Christmas Island where a dialect of Gàidhlig is still a prevalent tongue.

Injecting Hazel's Scottish line into the Murphy family tree split the predominantly English line in half with Scottish coming in as the heritage with the highest percent.