Using documentary evidence, flavoured by legend, researchers have isolated historical data using books by O'Hart, McLysaght and O'Brien, the Four Masters, baptismals, parish records, and ancient land grants.

Conclusions by these researchers show that the family name Moriarty was first found in county Kerry.

Church officials and scribes spelt the name as it sounded, sometimes several different ways in the lifetime of the same person.

[3] One Edward Moriarte (c 1644, Kerry, Lower Ormund, County Tipperary, Ireland) died in Anne Arundel Co, Maryland c 1688.

While a direct connection to Edward has not been made (and therefore the immigrant ancestor is not known), a family with surnames Meratta, Muratta, Marattay, Maratty, and so forth migrated from Maryland to Pennsylvania before 1790, and members migrated to the Nelson Co / Spencer Co region of Kentucky (outside Louisville) about 1805.