Michael S. Sweeney: Hello, my name is Michael S. Sweeney. That's the name I use when I write books; my friends call me Mike Sweeney, but I found that there are so many Mike Sweeneys in the world, that if you Google that name, you are likely to get somebody else, a doctor in Huston, or a baseball player. So Michael S. Sweeney it is.

The name Sweeney is Irish; my ancestors come from Northern Ireland, and Northern Scotland. The name means pleasant, good natured in Gaelic and I think that's a good description of everyone I know in my family that has that name. We're easy-going people.

The first Sweeneys that I can trace in the United States came here shortly after the Potato Famine, and the first Sweeney born in the United States was born in 1851 in Flat Rock, Indiana, and his name, the parents gave him, was George Washington Sweeney. I don't know much about them but I can assume that they were very, very glad to have become Americans and to have survived the Famine in Ireland.