Dorgan Family Research Profiles
A Visual Guide to the People at the Center of Our Research
This page brings together visual research summaries for the principal people in the Dorgan family story.
Each profile is based on the documentary evidence currently available and is designed as a living research tool. Some relationships are firmly established by parish, civil, census, land, immigration, cemetery and other records. Others remain working hypotheses or unresolved kinship leads.
Where a relationship has not been proved, it is identified as such.
These profiles will be revised as new evidence is discovered.
How the Dorgan Research Figures Connect
The overview distinguishes documented family relationships from important but still unproven kinship leads. It also traces the family's development from Carrigkilter through the Cloyne and Providence branches.
Research status: Living overview
Last updated: October 2026
The Carrigkilter Family
Patrick Dargan / Dorgan of Carrigkilter
The established patriarch of the direct East Cork Dorgan line. Patrick is securely documented through land, baptismal, marriage and family-network evidence, although his own parents and exact death and burial remain unresolved.
Research status: Established identity • Parentage unresolved
Last updated: October 2026
Johanna / Anne / Nancy Flynn Dorgan
Patrick’s wife and the mother of the Carrigkilter children. Her identity is securely established within the family records, while her proposed Ballyandreen origins and possible parentage remain under investigation.
Research status: Established family role • Origins unresolved
Last updated: October 2026
The Cloyne and Rock Street Branch
Michael Dorgan of Cloyne
A son of Patrick Dorgan and Johanna Flynn and an important documentary bridge between the Carrigkilter household and the later Cloyne branch. His 1869 marriage to Johanna Garde provides particularly valuable relationship evidence.
Research status: Established relationship
Last updated: October 2026
Johanna Garde Dorgan
Wife of Michael Dorgan and a central figure in the Rock Street household. By 1901 she was the widowed head of the Dorgan household at Rock Street, Cloyne, working as a vintner and grocer.
Research status: Established identity and household
Last updated: October 2026
From East Cork to Rhode Island
Patrick Joseph Dorgan
The pivotal emigrant who carried the Carrigkilter line from East Cork to Rhode Island. His marriage, emigration, census appearances, naturalization records, obituary and burial make him one of the best-documented people in the direct family line.
Research status: Well documented
Last updated: October 2026
Mary Catherine Hartnett Dorgan
Wife of Patrick Joseph Dorgan and matriarch of the Providence branch. Her life can be followed from her 1866 Cloyne baptism through emigration aboard the Teutonic to her death in Warwick, Rhode Island, in 1950.
Research status: Well documented • Birth-year discrepancy preserved
Last updated: October 2026
William John Dorgan Sr.
Son of Patrick Joseph Dorgan and Mary Catherine Hartnett. An infant emigrant from East Cork, he carried the Providence branch into the twentieth century and has a particularly vivid place in the surviving family memory.
Research status: Well documented
Last updated: October 2026
Important Unresolved Kinship Figures
Daniel Dorgan / Dargan of Garryvoe
A well-documented Garryvoe farmer and the leading candidate for the adult Daniel Dorgan who sponsored Mary Dorgan, daughter of Patrick Dorgan and Anne Flynn, in 1840.
The accumulated evidence places him within the same East Cork family and social network, but his exact relationship to Patrick remains unproved.
Research status: Strong kinship candidate • Exact relationship unproved
Last updated: October 2026
William Dargan / Dorgan of Ballybraher
An adult agricultural occupier immediately beside Carrigkilter who sponsored Patrick and Johanna’s son David in 1846.
His location and sponsorship make him one of the strongest possible close paternal relatives of Patrick, but no surviving record yet proves whether William was Patrick’s brother, cousin or another relation.
Research status: Strong unproved kinship lead
Last updated: October 2026
Research caution: Daniel Dorgan of Garryvoe and William Dargan of Ballybraher are important research figures, but neither should presently be attached to Patrick Dargan / Dorgan as a proven brother or other specific relative.
About These Research Profiles
These visual profiles are summaries of the evidence rather than substitutes for the underlying records.
Their purpose is to make the developing family story easier to understand while preserving an important distinction between documented fact, strong inference and unresolved hypothesis.
As new evidence is found, individual profiles and the overview chart will be revised. Visitors interested in the underlying documentation should consult the related family, record and place pages elsewhere on this website.
Last page revision: October 2026