Mary Jane McKinney (maiden name: Smythe) was born around 1815 in Ireland. She married Robert McKinney, and they had at least five children: William, born around 1845; Sarah, born around 1847; James, born around 1848; Robert, born around 1852; and Mary, born around 1854. They immigrated to America by the early 1840s and settled in Troy, New York. Her husband worked as a machinist. The family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, around 1861, and her husband died unexpectedly there on July 24, 1864. She moved to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, with her children in the 1870s, and she died sometime in the late 1800s.