With tomorrow being inauguration day, we thought this might be a good time to take a look at Joe Biden’s connection to New Albany, Indiana.  So far as I know, he has never visited New Albany, but his great grandmother did.  His great great uncles lived here.  Beth Day Nolan, a former Indiana Room staff member, has done research on this family and has agreed to let me share it here.  I’ve included a basic pedigree chart below, just to help you keep everyone straight as I go through the connections.

Photo of Joe Biden from Wikipedia.

 

John and Mary Hanafee were Irish immigrants.  They had three children:  William, John, and Mary Ann, who were all born in Ohio.  The family lived in West Virginia when both parents passed away in 1875 and 1878, both in their 50s at the time of their deaths.  None of the children had yet married.  According to the 1880 census, William and John were working for the railroad.  Mary Ann, then 20, was working as a domestic servant for John J. Gilligan, a dry goods merchant in Grafton, West Virginia.

Just a few houses away is the family of George Robinette, an engineer for the railroad.  He was married with two children.  George’s wife died in 1882.  In 1884, George married Mary Ann Hanafee, who was 24 at the time, and 15 years younger than George.

William Hanafee settled in New Albany and lived at 1310 East Elm Street.  He married Anna Rose Broecker, who went by Rose.  They are buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery.

John Hanafee also settled in New Albany, living at 1409 East Oak Street.  He married Mary Amelia Broecker, Rose’s sister, who went by Amelia.  They are buried at Holy Trinity Cemetery.

George and Mary Ann Robinette moved to Baltimore, where George continued to work for the railroad, eventually becoming an inspector.  Mary Ann is buried at Loudon Park Cemetery.  They had several children together.  Their oldest son, George W. Robinette, drowned at age 14 in a boating accident on the Susquehanna River.

It has been documented that Mary Ann traveled from Baltimore to New Albany for the wedding of her brother, John Hanafee, in 1892.  A few years earlier, William Hanafee and his wife included Baltimore in their wedding trip.  Mary Ann’s brothers also made a trip to Baltimore in 1898, to attend the funeral of their nephew George W. Robinette.  The obituary stated that George had been to New Albany the previous year.

Their youngest daughter, Mary Elizabeth Robinette, married Joseph Harry Biden.

The oldest son of Mary Elizabeth Robinette and Joseph Harry Biden was Joseph Robinette Biden.  He married Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Finnegan.

The oldest son of Jospeh Robinette Biden and Jean Finnegan is Joseph Robinettte Biden, Jr., the man we know as Joe Biden.