Peter MC CONOMY (1804-1877) and Rebecca RUDISILL (1806-1873) were my 2G grandparents. Peter MC CONOMY was the son of Neal MC CONOMEY (@1769-1839) an Irish immigrant, and Ann MC GUINESS who settled in Lancaster, Pa, where Neal was naturalized as a citizen in 1807. Peter apprenticed to his father and took up his trade of shoemaker. He eventually owned a small shoe manufacturing business. Peter MC CONOMY was very active in the civic life of Lancaster: serving on the city's first school board in 1838, raising money for victims of the Irish famine in 1847, serving as trustee of the Home for Friendless Children in 1859, and so on. The library for the Mechanic's Society was housed upstairs from his shoe store. A contemporaneous account refers to him as "a respected merchant, and a man of strict integrity."

Peter MC CONOMY also devoted a lot of his time to the Catholic church, becoming a prominent member of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Lancaster. Family legend has it that he laid out the "new" cemetery of St Mary's church, and planted the trees that lined the avenue leading to the family burial plot there.

Peter MC CONOMY shoe store was located on West King Street in Lancaster,