Unfortunately very little is known of Johanna or the Lyons/Lynes family (the names Lyons and Lynes are interchangeable) although I have been told thay may have come from Knockbrane in Lixnaw, Co. Kerry or Newtownsandes (now Moyvane), Co. Kerry.
However, Heather Olson, a descendant of Johanna and her husband, Myles Cunningham, tells me she has an uncle who is a DNA match with the following people with Lyons/Lynes connections:
1. A descendant of Edmund Dineen from Glenalappa, Moyvane and Honora Lynes from Shronagragra, Moyvane who were married in Moyvane in 1858. Honora was baptised in Duagh, Co. Kerry in 1835 and her parents were Daniel Lynes and Honora Shine who would have been contemporaries of Myles and Johanna. Honora Shine was from Kilbaha.
2. A descendant of Margaret Lynes and Richard Woulfe. It appears Margaret was a sister of Honora Lynes and was baptised in Kilbaha in 1844. She emigrated to the United States, married Richard, and they had a daughter named Aileen.
3. Mary Stack, a daughter of Catherine Lynes and Michael Stack. Catherine was a daughter of Dermot Lynes and Mary Sullivan and was baptised in Kilbaha in 1839. This DNA match is also a shared match with the descendant of Margaret Lynes and Richard Woulfe.
It appears, therefore, that our Johanna above was related to Daniel Lynes and Dermot Lynes. Could they have been siblings?
Lynes is a variant of Lyons and is most numerous in counties Kerry, Cork, Limerick and Tipperary. It is an anlicisation of the Irish surname "Ó Laighin" from the word "laighean" meaning lance or spear. The Lyons surname is one of the commonest surnames in Ireland, particularly in the three southern provinces. In Ulster it is usually a variant of the English and Scottish surname "Lyon", but elsewhere it is virtually always the anglicised version of one of two Irish names, Ó Laighin, or Ó Liathain which possibly derives from the Irish word "liath" meaning grey. The Ó Laighin name originated in two areas, Co. Kerry and east Co. Galway. In Kerry the name was almost invariably anglicised as "Lyne". The Ó Liathain family is reputed to have originated in Co. Limerick but the Ó Liathain name is now more common in Co. Cork, particularly in the north of the county.