A beginning...

and then...there was James P. Brennan, from County Mayo, Ireland. He was born October 27, 1866, in a place called "Tomboholla", now called the more common name of "Bushfield". It is part of the greater area called Charlestown. 
The Catholic parish Church there is where the children of the family were christened. I've seen the insides of the chapel where stained glass windows bear the family name.
James P. was the middle child of eleven and 11 years old when his mother died in 1878, two and half years after the birth of her last child. 
James would leave for America by 1881 at the age of 15.

Mary Elizabeth Forsythe, age 24

To skip a few years, more than twenty, the facts are recorded that James married Mary Forsythe, a Pittsburgher, daughter of an Irishman, William Forsythe. 

They were married on February 23, 1903, in the St. Colman's Catholic Church in Turtle Creek, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. 

James P. and Mary Elizabeth Forsythe Brennan, February 23, 1903
Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania

They became the parents of  9 children, my father being the middle child, Thomas Robert -  Bob) Brennan. 

William F.(Bill), Paul V., Mother, James Howard (Howdy), Thomas Robert (Bob)
Ann Jane, Mary Margaret (Peg), Helen Elizabeth (Betty), Rose  (son John, died at age 16, 1920)
The James P. and Mary Forsythe Brennan Family 

Bob was the same age as his father, 11 years old, when he lost a parent - this time it was his father.
 Mary raised a beautiful family to adulthood following the loss of their oldest, John, age 16, in 1920, and their father, James, in 1921. All 8 remaining children graduated from college and 5 of them served the war effort during WWII.