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6 Things You Didn’t Know about Mark Kelly’s Roots
It’s an understatement to say that Sen. Mark Kelly has an impressive resume. Navy Captain turned astronaut turned Senator and married to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt, retired from Congress, and became a formidable gun control activist. Then there’s the fact that he’s a potential candidate for Vice President of the United States. What kind of family, I wondered, would produce a man like this.
1. Heritage-wise, he’s a typical American in that he’s a bit of a mix: five-eighths Irish (as it happens, the same amount as President Biden), one-quarter Polish, and one-eighth English. In recent generations, his family tree has been concentrated mostly in northern New Jersey and New York with a bit of Massachusetts and Canada. Further back leads to Ireland, Poland, and England. In case anyone in Poland is curious, it’s Brok and Moszczenica that contributed to his gene pool.
2. Sen. Kelly has three immigrant great-grandparents, one of whom was John “Jack” F. McAvoy who arrived in New York from Ireland at the ripe old age of 11 months just eight months before Annie Moore would become the first immigrant to arrive at Ellis Island. He and his parents arrived while Ellis Island was under construction, so would have entered the country through the temporary processing center at the Barge Office. This great-grandfather went on to serve in the U.S. Navy and lived until Mark and his twin brother, Scott, were three years old, so whether they knew it or not, they were following in his footsteps when they joined the Navy. Imagine how delighted Jack would have been to know that his descendants would one day orbit our planet in outer space.
3. It would be fair to describe Kelly as pan-Irish. He has at least 17 direct line ancestors who hailed from Ireland, so a number of towns hold a piece of his past. Early findings feature Kilkenny (Watergate vicinity) with dashes of counties Kildare, Longford, and Carlow, but Dublin, Roscommon, Mayo, and Fermanagh are also in play.
Kilkenny stands out because one of his great-great-grandfathers, Joseph P. McAvoy (father of Jack mentioned earlier), was prominent in New York City’s Kilkenny circles and the Irish American community at large. A house painter by profession, he served at various times as…
