Mary Anna Hammel was just eight months old when her father Owen died in June 1858, leaving her widowed mother Ann to raise four children alone on an isolated Wisconsin farm. She never knew her father, yet her life would become one of the most thoroughly documented among Owen and Ann's children—and her descendants would provide crucial DNA evidence linking the Wisconsin Hammels to the broader Donaghmoyne Network. Her 1881 marriage record explicitly names her parents as "Owen Hammel" and "Ann King," providing documentary proof that corroborates the guardianship records from 1865.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

ames Hammel was the eldest child of Owen and Ann Hammel — and the only one born before the family emigrated from New York to Wisconsin. His 1876 marriage record to Mary Ann Sherron explicitly names his parents as "Owen Hammel" and "Annie King," providing crucial documentary evidence of the family's Irish origins. He signed his own name on court documents at age 16, demonstrating literacy unusual for children of Famine immigrants. After raising seven children on a Nebraska farm, James lost everything to foreclosure in 1892 and relocated his family to Oklahoma. He was documented there as late as 1910, but his death record has not yet been located. His children scattered across the Oklahoma oil fields and Wyoming, leaving traces that help reconstruct his story.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

Henry Patrick Hammel was the younger son of Owen and Ann Hammel—his older brother James had been born in New York before the family moved to Wisconsin. His 1885 marriage record to Lizzie Long explicitly names his parents as "Owen Hammel" and "Ann King," providing crucial documentary proof linking this Nebraska pioneer family to their Irish origins in Donaghmoyne parish. Remembered in his 1926 obituary as "one of those sturdy pioneers who have paved the way for the builders of a nation," Henry's story is now DNA-validated through his daughter Rose Anna's descendants.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

Mary Elizabeth Hammel was five years old when her father Owen died in 1858, leaving her mother Ann to raise four children on an isolated Wisconsin farm. In 1875, she followed her widowed mother to Nebraska, where she married Edwin L. Bucklin and raised eight children—all of whom survived to adulthood. Her sudden death in 1927, captured in vivid detail by her local newspaper obituary, provides crucial genealogical documentation connecting this family to the broader Donaghmoyne Network through DNA-validated descendants.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

When Owen Hammel died in 1858, he left his widow Ann with four young children and an 18-acre farm in rural Wisconsin—with no road access. Seven years later, Ann petitioned the court for guardianship, creating over twenty pages of legal documents that solve a decades-old family mystery and reveal the intimate details of this immigrant family's struggle for survival.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

While brothers Patrick and James crossed the Atlantic to Missouri and Montana, and sister Anna remained in Dian as a widow, Bridget Hamill married a farmer from neighboring Beagh townland. Her children would eventually scatter—one son emigrating to Toronto—but Bridget herself never left Donaghmoyne parish. DNA connects her descendants to family in Montana more than a century later.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

At fifteen years old, Henry Hamill left County Monaghan and crossed the Atlantic alone. He built a new life in St. Louis—becoming a policeman, marrying an Irish immigrant, and raising three daughters. His death at thirty-nine came suddenly, but his legacy endures through descendants whose DNA connects them to cousins in Montana more than a century later.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

In a family defined by emigration, James Hamill and Ann Gartlan represent the anchor—the parents who stayed. While three of their sons crossed the Atlantic to build new lives in Montana and Missouri, James and Ann remained in the townland of Dian, Donaghmoyne parish, County Monaghan, where they farmed the same land for over fifty years. Their headstone at Old Broomfield Cemetery explicitly identifies James as "of Dian"—a rare specificity that anchors their descendants' research.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

This episode brings together the documentary evidence and DNA analysis that proves the children scattered across Montana, Missouri, and Ireland all descend from the same parents: James Hamill and Ann Gartlan of Dian, Donaghmoyne, County Monaghan. When descendants of James, Patrick, Henry, Anna, and Bridget all share DNA with each other, the conclusion is inescapable: they share common ancestors.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

While her brothers Patrick and James crossed the Atlantic to build new lives in Missouri and Montana, Anna Hamill remained on the family farm in Dian. Widowed young with two small daughters, she became head of household and keeper of the family's Irish roots—the sister who stayed behind.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

While his younger brother James chose Montana's copper country, Patrick Joseph Hamill headed to St. Louis—where he built a transfer company, raised ten children, and established a family that DNA would reconnect to Montana a century later.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story

While his brother headed to St. Louis, James Hamill chose a different path—one that would take him to "the richest hill on Earth" and the copper smelting operations of Anaconda, Montana. Born September 12, 1873, in the townland of Dian, Donaghmoyne parish, County Monaghan, James was the son of a farmer who had weathered the Great Famine and held onto his land through decades of upheaval. This documentary biography traces his journey from rural Ireland to Montana's copper country, where he raised a family of teachers and worked until age 77.

Part of the Storyline Genealogy series: Documentary Biographies From Research to Story