My mother was never wild about the fact that our surname Mattimore was actually derived from Mattimoe, also occasionally spelled without the “e” as Mattimo in Ireland. She grew up a Mattimore after all, so THAT was the name! She reluctantly assumed that somehow the name of our immigrant ancestor, Michael, changed from Mattimoe to Mattimore when he arrived, either due to an Ellis Island misspelling or a change at some later point.

There were other Mattimoe families whose surnames ended up Mattimore that emigrated from Ireland to the United States — Toledo, Nashville and San Diego among other places. So for whatever reason, Mattimore eventually seemed to be the more common surname here. But when I explained to my mom (or reminded her?) that Mattimoe was actually a derivative of Milmo, with a variants of Milmore and Mullamore among others, that was almost too much for her to want to believe.

First of all, let me say that it is believed that all Mattimoes are related. There is a narrow band where County Sligo and County Roscommon meet where Mattimoes are said to have settled and a number still live today. Evidence points to the areas in Sligo near Ballysadare or Coolboy as the actual birthplace of the Mattimoes. But migratory movements were southward as is proven by the very large number of Co. Sligo names found inside the borders of Roscommon. Migration to secure land was necessary because on the death of a father, farms were divided among sons, explaining why holdings were so small; families became inescapably poor in every succeeding generation. The move was part of a large migration from impoverished and over-populated Sligo to under-populated Roscommon. But in general the Mattimoes kept to this particular geographic border area, and the name Mattimoe has been, and still is, considered a fairly rare name in Ireland.

The late Col. Cyril Mattimoe, a native of Boyle, Co. Roscommon, and no doubt a relative of ours from somewhere back in the mists of time, did extensive research on Mattimoe origins and history, writing a paper called “Origin of the Surname Mattimoe and Its Association with the Surname Milmo.” He also wrote a book called North Roscommon: Its People and Past. That book is out of print and only available in some Ireland central libraries, but I’ve been lucky enough to get a hold of copies of some of the pages.

Through his research, Col. Mattimoe came to believe that the name Mattimoe did not derive from any occupation, incident or place name. Its origin, like that of most other Irish surnames, developed from a Christian name. Below is an image capture from Col. Mattimoe’s writings on how the name developed.

Cyril’s research shows beyond question that Mattimoe was regarded as the same name as Milmo. There is oral and written evidence to prove that both surnames have at times been attached to and recognized as one and the same within the same family.

But Col. Mattimoe died 17 years ago a few days shy of his 90th birthday and hadn’t done a whole lot of new research for many years before his death. Was his research still correct? How could I prove that this was all really true to my mom? That probably all Mattimore lines are related back through time and that the names Mattimoe and Milmo were one and the same?

The answer is… DNA. Let me say that again, louder this time: DNA! I manage the DNA profiles on Ancestry.com for my mom, her brothers Richard and Hank, as well as several of my siblings. Several of us have small portions of identical DNA with descendants of those Toledo, Nashville and San Diego Mattimore lines I mentioned in the second paragraph. And to really affirm Col. Mattimoe’s research, some of us have DNA matches with descendants of a Milmore line that immigrated to Brasher Falls, NY. I can tell that Jane Hashey has a DNA connection with this same line, too, because her match with Milmore descendants is “in common with” some of our family matches — meaning we share the same DNA segment(s). Other cousins who have taken DNA tests may also show distant DNA matches with some of these other lines, independent of my family’s matches. But in all cases, the origins lead back to Sligo or Roscommon.

With apologies to William Shakespeare, I say “What’s in a name? That which we call a Mattimore by any other name would smell as sweet.” This is to say that what matters is what something is, not what it is called.

If you’ve taken a DNA test and don’t know how to see if you can find DNA matches to others with specific names in their trees like Mattimoe, Milmo or Milmore (or Long, McMahon, etc), let me know and I can tell you how.

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