Person in this family

Margaret Needham

about 1851 – 17 March 1922

Margaret Needham was born in County Mayo about 1851, a daughter of Thomas Needham of Derrycriff, and married **Peter Cooney** at Islandeady on 26 February 1884. Their children were registered at Derrycriff across the next eleven years, and the 1901 census finds the family at **Derrycreeve** — Peter a farmer and road contractor, his mother Bridget Durkan in the house at ninety, and four children at home. She died there on **17 March 1922**, aged 70, of cardiac valvular disease and heart failure, with **Peter present at her death**; her death was registered on 28 April and gives her simply as a farmer's wife. She was buried in **Islandeady Parish Cemetery** at Westport, in the ground of the parish she had lived her whole life in. Whether her daughter Mary is the Mary Cooney who married Andrew Farrelly in America is the largest unresolved question in this archive — if she is, these forty people join the family.

Family story - not yet proved

Margaret Needham married Peter Cooney at Islandeady in 1884 and was recorded as the mother of six children born at Derrycriff through 1894.

Died at Derrycreeve, Islandeady, County Mayo, Ireland

Birth: From our family tree - no record found yet

How is this person related?

Show the relationship to

Andrew John Leahey’s no relationship found in this archive

Worked out from the recorded parents and marriages. No sex is recorded for anyone in this archive, so the wording stays neutral.

Life

Margaret Needham married Peter Cooney on 26 February 1884 at the Roman Catholic chapel of Islandeady, County Mayo. The register spells her name “Margaret Needhan,” calls her “Full” and a “Spinster,” and names her father as Thomas Needham, a deceased labourer. Peter was recorded as a bachelor and labourer.

Civil birth registrations place Margaret at the center of a Derrycriff household over the following decade. They name her as “Margaret Coony formerly Needham” or “Margaret Cooney formerly Needham” and record Mary on 11 December 1884, Bridget on 16 February 1886, Thomas on 15 February 1887, Anne on 11 August 1888, Peter on 16 October 1890, and Ellen on 1 August 1894. Peter’s occupation in these entries was farmer.

Our family tree attaches additional or duplicate children to Margaret, including another Mary and a Helen. Those entries are not all supported: Helen may be a conflation with Ellen, and the extra Mary is not securely distinguished from the documented Mary born in 1884. Margaret’s own birth and death remain unknown.

How we know this: Strong original evidence documents Margaret’s marriage and six Derrycriff births; her own birth, death, and several family-tree child links remain unresolved. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

Signed with a cross

This person could not write, and signed official records with a cross — a mark witnessed by the registrar.

She registered her daughter Ellen's birth at Derrycriff on 21 August 1894 and could not write her name, so the registrar wrote it for her and she made a cross between the words. Her marriage line of 26 February 1884 carries the clerk's 'mark' annotation in the same position, though the cross itself is faint in the surviving copy. Her husband Peter made his mark on that line and again in 1886 and 1890, so neither parent in this house could write.

As written in the register: “Margaret Cooney her ✗ mark, Mother, Derrycriff”

In their own hand

Margaret Needham's mark, registering her daughter Ellen's birth at Derrycriff on 21 August 1894 — the registrar wrote her name and she made the cross between the words
Irish civil birth register, Ellen Cooney, 1 August 1894, Derrycriff, Islandeady, Co. Mayo

Family

Work and occupation

Farmer's wife

Where they lived

1884: Derrycriff, Islandeady, County Mayo, Ireland

Use the place list first. The map below is optional.

Places listed on this page

Derrycriff, Islandeady, County Mayo, Ireland
Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey
New York City, New York
New York
Westport, County Mayo, Ireland
37 West 50th Street, Manhattan, New York
Islandeady, County Mayo, Ireland
County Mayo, Ireland
Ireland

The map could not load. The complete place list is above it.

The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 3 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.

Timeline

26 February 1884

Married

Twenty sixth February 1884 ... Roman Catholic Chapel of Islandeady ... Peter Coony ... Margaret Needhan

Proved by a record

26 February 1884

Married Peter Cooney at Islandeady

Married at the Roman Catholic Chapel of Islandeady, County Mayo. She is entered as a spinster of Derrycriff, daughter of Thomas Needham, landholder, deceased. [4]

Proved by a record

26 February 1884

Signed her marriage register with a mark

The signature line of her marriage register carries the clerk's 'mark' annotation between her names, in the same position as her husband's plain cross — the form used when the person could not sign. The cross itself is faint in the surviving copy, so this is read as consistent with her documented 1894 mark rather than as independent proof.

Proved by a record

Original records

Civil birth register, Anne Coony, 11 Aug 1888, Derrycriff
Civil registration means an official government record of a birth, marriage, or death. It matters on this page because it records information connected with Margaret Needham.
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Original source (irishgenealogy.ie)

Civil birth register, Bridget Coony, 16 Feb 1886, Derrycriff
Civil registration means an official government record of a birth, marriage, or death. It matters on this page because it records information connected with Margaret Needham.
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Original source (irishgenealogy.ie)

Civil birth register, Ellen Cooney, 1 Aug 1894, Derrycriff
Civil registration means an official government record of a birth, marriage, or death. It matters on this page because it records information connected with Margaret Needham.
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Original source (irishgenealogy.ie)

Civil birth register, Mary Coony, 11 Dec 1884, Derrycriff
Civil registration means an official government record of a birth, marriage, or death. It matters on this page because it records information connected with Margaret Needham.
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Original source (irishgenealogy.ie)

Civil birth register, Peter Coony, 16 Oct 1890, Derrycriff
Civil registration means an official government record of a birth, marriage, or death. It matters on this page because it records information connected with Margaret Needham.
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Original source (irishgenealogy.ie)

Civil birth register, Thomas Coony, 15 Feb 1887, Derrycriff
Civil registration means an official government record of a birth, marriage, or death. It matters on this page because it records information connected with Margaret Needham.
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Original source (irishgenealogy.ie)

What the records say

4 of 7 records transcribed.

Record exhibit