The Wonder of DNA

I read Cece Moore's tribute to her friend Joan Miller and watched the video of Joan's genetic genealogy journey, I was motivated to have another look at my mom's matches.
I logged in, found a couple of matches I had not contacted and fired off the e-mails. I received a reply a short time later with a link to a page that had this persons tree. I didn't have much hope but at least I saw Canada listed as a location under some of his surnames. I quickly scrolled through the list and I was surprised two-fold, one to see a surname I recognized and two the surname was one I had long ago given up hope to find out more about.
The surname was Loftus.
It is my great great grandmother Mary's surname. What I know about Mary is that she was born in 1822 in Co. Sligo, Ireland. She married Felix McGowan and they had a daughter in New York and then two children in Ontario, Canada. I know her first husband had died by 1846 as that is when she married my great great grandfather William Stewart.
William and Mary had 6 more children and also moved from Dundas, Wentworth Co., Ontario to Normanby, Grey Co., Ontario.

What I don't know about Mary -
1) Where she was born.
2) Who her parent's are.
3) Where she is buried.

When I spotted the name Loftus on my mom's DNA match I did a double take but still felt like this could be quite a long shot. I had sent him off a list of my mom's surnames and his reply back really had me on high alert. He wrote -
"BINGO!       Mary Loftus b.1822, Sligo, Ireland; Ontario, Canada
We have several connections to the Loftus family. Also, I'll betcha --Mary Loftus was born in Kilmoremoy Parish of Co. Sligo, which in 1898 was transferred to Co. Mayo.
That is the same area our Myers/Mears family is has lived in for hundreds of years, at least."

A possibly Ireland location, are you kidding me...isn't that what we all want?

I quickly sent off an email to my research buddy, I don't many of those in my family but this wonderful lady and I have been researching our mutual interest in the Stewart/McGowan families for years...

It was 1998, I convinced my husband that packing up our two little kids and doing a driving holiday visiting relatives we had never met and cemetery searching for ones we would never meet, across Alberta and Saskatchewan would make for a lovely holiday. He agreed to it! 

Admittedly, I was very green when it came to researching, as picking up all the clues, was a learning process.

Off we went, stopped in at homes, introduced ourselves and were made to feel welcome. One stop along the way was Yorkton, Saskatchewan where I knew my mother's grandfather was buried. I was very impressed by the wonderful headstone that was in place and took a couple of photos, spent a minute enjoying the location and quiet. 

We were getting ready to leave when I happened to notice under the tall grass a cement curb that seemed to be around the headstone (if you look at the photo you will notice it on the right hand side just behind the stone). I followed it as well as I could with my eyes, and that was when I realized it went around the headstone beside it. I was truly surprised. Looking closer at the two stones I saw they were identical except for the names. For the life of me I could not understand why this would be. I had never heard of the McGowan name. which was the name on the second headstone. 

So I chalked it up to another unknown and continued on our trip. Once home I went on my dial-up internet and proceeded to check to see if Rootsweb had a McGowan surname list. They did!! I wrote off a message asking if anyone was researching the McGowan family buried in Yorkton, Saskatchewan with a connection to the Stewart family. A few hours later I received a wonderful reply from DaniLee, she also had been to the Yorkton Cemetery and had a photo of the McGowan and Stewart stones. (The second photo is the one I received from her).

Well the hunt was on and it was finally revealed that Mary Loftus was the mother of both the McGowan and Stewart families as she been married twice. First to Felix McGowan and then to William Stewart.

Although me and DaniLee have never met we have enjoyed sharing information with each other for many years and it has been great pursuing our family connections together.

I was very excited to forward the information to DaniLee, I know she will be as excited to pursue this new avenue.
I do realize nothing is confirmed as of yet, but at least now there are possibilities.

What a wonder DNA has turned out to be, I cannot imagine how far this will take us 5-10 years from now!