A Chairde, I came across a web page recently that claimed that both U.S. Grant and Matthew Brady were Irish --or of Irish ancestry. Does anyone know their family backgrounds. Eamonn.

Ulysses Simpson Grant was Irish son of an Ohio. merchant and so was Matthew Brady Ann ----- Original Message ----- From: "McNulty, Eamonn" <Eamonn.McNulty@health.wa.gov.au> To: <CIVIL-WAR-IRISH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 1:08 AM Subject: [Civil-War-Irish] U.S. Grant & Matthew Brady > A Chairde, > I came across a web page recently that claimed that both U.S. Grant and > Matthew Brady were Irish --or of Irish ancestry. Does anyone know their > family backgrounds. > > Eamonn. > > > ==== CIVIL-WAR-IRISH Mailing List ==== > "Remember Ireland and Fontenoy!" > Irish War Cry > > ============================== > Search over 1 Billion names at Ancestry.com! > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist1.asp > >

"McNulty, Eamonn" wrote: > > A Chairde, > I came across a web page recently that claimed that both U.S. Grant and > Matthew Brady were Irish --or of Irish ancestry. Does anyone know their > family backgrounds. ---------------------- The Irish connection for Grant is his mother's (Hannah Simpson) grandfather John Simpson. See http://www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/presidents/prez18.htm He's believed to be from a county in Ulster. According to US Grant III, Grant's paternal grandmother Rachel Kelley was the daughter of a Colonel Miller. Don't know where the Kelley comes in; maybe she was the widow of a Kelley when she married Noah Grant. Brady is a mystery. According to James D. Horan: "Francis Trevelyan Miller* put Brady's birthplace as Cork, Ireland, but Brady, in a newspaper interview, claimed Warren County, New York, and put the year as 'about 1823-24'. We know nothing about his parents, who were believed to be Irish immigrants. On Brady's death certificate their names are listed as Andrew and Julia and their birthplaces as the United States." (From "Mathew Brady: Historian with a Camera", Bonanza Books, New York, 1955.) *Francis T. Miller edited and wrote "Photographic History of the Civil War" (1912) BTW, Brady's eyesight was horrible by the time the Civil War rolled around, and most of the photographs with his label were actually taken by the others in his employ, among whom was another Irish American named Timothy O'Sullivan. Dennis