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Archiver > CoTipperary > 2011-02 > 1297343473


From: "Roger & Hillary Depper" <>
Subject: Re: [COTIPPERARY] families moving around within Ireland -Pat'squestions - some examples
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:11:13 +0100
References: <AANLkTi=u96FGa9eShtjDruSrg_201+Y7UHo5-9+M4y1S@mail.gmail.com><4D5304D2.4060408@proaxis.com>


You wouldn't by any chance searching the Smith - Barry families in
Tipperary. Family involved in land transactions together with Richard
Lockwood Castle Leake and Cashel.?
Roger Carden Depper
----- Original Message -----
From: "Geralyn Barry" <>
To: <>; <>
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 10:19 PM
Subject: [COTIPPERARY] families moving around within Ireland -
Pat'squestions - some examples


> On 2/7/2011 4:19 PM, Pat Connors wrote:
>> So this brings me to my questions. Is it possible, that they moved
>> around
>> and didn't stay put in the area where they were born and raised? Did
>> they
>> follow the work? Any opinions? I don't know if it is wishful thinking on
>> my
>> part but I have a strong feeling that this might just be the guy I have
>> been
>> looking for and was wondering what others, familiar with the area
>> thought.
>
> Pat, you ask some very interesting questions there.
>
> My Irish research has taught me that people moved around a lot more than
> you might think - not just to foreign lands but within Ireland also. The
> necessity of finding food or making a living has caused people to migrate
> for tens of thousands of years. I have found that Ireland in the 1800s was
> no different.
>
> However, such moves can certainly be hard to document in the period before
> civil registration and can make Irish research more difficult than it
> already is. So many people had the same names in Ireland. How can you tell
> if you have found the same person again in another location or a totally
> different person with the same name? It can be hard.
>
> Luck plays a big part in whether you can find records to document such
> moves. Perhaps you have finally had that luck in finding your Brian
> Connors. It certainly is possible - not just "wishful thinking". If you
> can follow up on each instance of Brian Connors in other records in the
> different localities, perhaps you will be able to determine if you
> actually have found one person or two (or more). If a branch of the family
> remained behind in Ireland into the period of civil registration and
> valuation revision lists, documentation of these moves is sometimes easier
> to find. I have spent a long time tracing families that turned out not to
> be related to the families of interest to me. But I would never have known
> that if I had not done the research. That research told me that I needed
> to continue looking elsewhere.
>
> I think most US researchers with Irish roots start out wanting to find
> "the" place where their family was from in Ireland. We start with a vision
> of our family living on the same small patch of ground in Ireland back
> into the mists of time. But as we progress in our research, a very
> different picture sometimes emerges. We begin to wonder how several
> generations of a family could be supported by one small farm. How could
> even one generation with many children support themselves on one small
> farm? The answer is, it couldn't. Some of those children had to leave the
> farm, whether they migrated to foreign shores or moved around within
> Ireland.
>
> In my research, I have found quite a few families that moved around within
> Ireland. Just a few examples:
>
> (1) In central County Limerick, one branch of a Barry family moved to
> another farm 10 miles away in the 1820s, after the head of the family
> died. But many descendants in the next two generations were returned to
> the old family burial place after death - even though some had never lived
> in that location, or had lived there only for a short time after birth.
> There were 8 children in the generation that moved, the oldest born around
> 1800. That oldest son married and remained on the "new" farm, but the
> other children had to make their own way in the world as they grew to
> maturity. The girls eventually married and moved to other parts of
> Limerick, where their husbands had farms - sometimes 30 or more miles
> away. Of the other 3 sons, one married a much older widow with small
> children on a nearby farm. He took on the management farm of her farm, so
> was able to remain in the area. Another son went to Cork City and became a
> butter merchant (the family he came from had cows). The othe!
> r
> son went back to live near the family's previous location for a while,
> then set off for the US and settled in New York, where he was visited by
> other relatives (according to family stories written down in the early
> 1900s). In the next generation, the eldest son who had remained on the
> home farm had several children who emigrated to Australia. Among those who
> didn't emigrate, the girls again married farmers from other parts of
> Limerick, some of the sons went to Limerick City and Cork City and became
> merchants, and again, the eldest son remained on the farm - for a while.
> But he later moved his family to town about 7 miles away (in yet another
> civil and Catholic parish) and became a merchant. Among the documented
> lines of this family that remained in Ireland, later generations also had
> family members that followed previous generations to Limerick City and
> Cork City, and other family members who ended up in Dublin City or foreign
> locations (US and Australia) or in other rural
> parts of Limerick (by marriage into families from there). This particular
> family, over several generations, had people whose baptismal, marriage and
> death records were in totally different parishes, sometimes in different
> counties in Ireland, and sometimes in different countries (the US and
> Australia being the known destinations in this family). Even a larger farm
> of 60 acres could not support several children in each generation of one
> family. The others had to go somewhere else. And some of them made several
> moves in their lifetimes, having children born in each place. And yet,
> some descendants still live in Limerick in the same area to this day -
> although not on the same piece of land. If a family moved around within
> the same parish in this part of County Limerick, it would be hard to know
> that, since the parish registers almost never mention a townland of
> residence - unlike in some other dioceses.
>
> (2) My ggg-gfather Edward Harrold (1800-1871), "native of Co. Tipperary"
> according to his gravestone, did not create a single record in County
> Tipperary that I have been able to find! I found him just across the
> border in Co. Laois, while I was searching Co. Laois parish registers for
> another family entirely. As I scanned down the page of the
> Borris-in-Ossory parish register, I was stunned to suddenly be staring at
> a record for the baptism of a child of Edward Harrold and Bridget Maher! I
> found the baptism of just that one child (their last) in County Laois, but
> very near the Tipperary border. Edward also appears in Griffith's
> Valuation in that same Co. Laois location (as Edward Harrol). There are
> huge gaps in the Rathdowney (Co. Laois) parish register, which is where I
> assume Edward and Bridget's many earlier children were baptized. Or
> perhaps they were living in another parish in the area whose records began
> too late. I don't know. I have never found their marriage either
> - again, probably due to gaps or late start of records in the area.
> Edward's much younger brother William Harrold married in yet another Co.
> Laois parish further east (Aghaboe) because his Farrell bride was from
> there. After marriage, the couple lived back closer to the Tipperary
> border - but in a different civil parish than Edward and Bridget Harrold.
> William's first two children were baptized there (different Catholic
> parish than the one where he married). However, William does not appear
> anywhere in Griffith's Valuation as occupier, so perhaps was a farm
> laborer and not responsible for paying any tax - if so, he would not
> appear in valuation records. He was certainly in the area, as evidenced by
> his presence in the parish register, which almost always listed a townland
> of residence (unlike the Limerick example above). Both brothers eventually
> emigrated and settled in Paterson, New Jersey. Edward Harrold made a will
> in Paterson in which "my brother William" was named as
> executor along with Edward's widow Bridget. That is how I discovered they
> were brothers, at the beginning of my research nearly 20 years ago. But I
> did not discover either of them in Irish records until 2004. Edward's
> gravestone led me to believe I would find him in Co. Tipperary... but no,
> he and William were found in Co. Laois. I also found a few other Harrolds
> mentioned in parish registers in this same area of Laois, but they also
> seem to disappear after the 1840s or early 1850s. I suspect they either
> moved elsewhere or emigrated - like Edward and William. There are a few
> more Harrold families on the Tipperary side of the border (some back into
> the mid-1700s). This is where I suspect my Edward Harrold (and perhaps his
> brother William) were born - before the start of parish registers,
> probably somewhere between Roscrea and Templemore in the northeast corner
> of County Tipperary. I think Edward Harrold's gravestone was correct - he
> was born in Tipperary. However, that
> doesn't mean I will ever find any record of him there!
>
> I have still other families in this area who made the move in the opposite
> direction - from Co. Laois into Co. Tipperary, to near Templemore sometime
> in the early 1800s. Parish registers in the area have gaps or in some
> cases, start too late to determine the exact time of these cross-border
> moves. Some of these families created later records in several Catholic
> parishes on the Tipperary side of the border, but had come there from
> Laois in a previous generation.
>
> (3) Sometimes you find children who remained on a farm with a married
> sibling but who themselves never married. Perhaps some of those bachelors
> spent parts of their lives elsewhere, but if they didn't marry and have
> children, how can you even know where they were? I have been amazed to
> find civil death records in the 1860s or 1870s for several "bachelors"
> in rural locations whose records say - "age 75, grocer (not farmer), never
> married", and the informant is a nephew or brother. Sometimes you find the
> same old bachelors reporting the births of their nieces and nephews (after
> civil registration began). Their "qualification" to report the birth is
> listed as "Inmate, [townland name where child born]" rather than
> "Occupier, [townland name where child born]". These men were obviously
> living with the family for several years at least before they died, but
> never appeared in valuation records since they were not occupiers (not
> responsible for paying the tax). The "occupier" who
> appeared in valuation records was their married sibling who paid the tax.
> Maybe these bachelors had earlier roamed the world, or been merchants in
> Limerick City, or maybe they had been living on that farm with their
> brother the entire time. How would you know unless family stories survived
> or unless you found a detailed obituary in Ireland? I know of some
> bachelors who traveled to the US but returned to Ireland, and in some
> cases, then went out to Australia to stay permanently. If you were born
> before parish registers began, were not the taxpayer on property, and did
> not marry and have children, what records would you have created in
> Ireland in the 1800s before you died? And if you died before civil
> registration or ended up in Australia, would you have left even one record
> of your presence in Ireland other than perhaps a gravestone?
>
> (4) In death, people often returned to the place of their ancestors and
> were buried in their family's traditional burial ground - even if that
> meant that husband and wife were buried in different places! (Yes, I have
> at least one example of that.) And descendants who had never even lived in
> that area themselves might be buried there. I only know about some of
> these instances because I stumbled across oral history - from people with
> first-hand knowledge of these events - that was committed to paper in the
> later 1800s and early 1900s. I have also read similar "stories" in Irish
> obituaries in newspapers from the early 1900s, which recite where the man
> had been born, and tell how, as a young man, he had gone to Limerick City
> and had become a merchant. But his body was being returned to his old
> family burial ground to be interred - via railroad, then a 12-mile
> procession from the church (in a different parish) to the graveyard (in
> yet another parish)! So if you were looking for
> someone to be buried in the parish where they died, or where they lived,
> or even where they were baptized as children, you are out of luck! Without
> that obituary , how would I ever have discovered that? There are reasons
> why people were buried in particular places, but they might not be obvious
> to us 100 or 150 years later.
>
> (5) Marriages usually occurred in the parish in which the bride lived,
> which was sometimes (but not always) where the bride was baptized. But
> that was not necessarily where the couple lived after their marriage. I
> have found several instances where a woman living elsewhere with her new
> husband returned to her home parish to give birth to their first one or
> two children. I know this from civil birth records combined with valuation
> revision lists. Sometimes that child was also baptized in the parish where
> he was born (his mother's home parish), but sometimes he was baptized in
> the parish where the family actually lived (I have found examples of
> both ). In one case, the child died within a few days, and his death was
> registered in his mother's old parish, where he had been born - not in the
> location where the family actually lived. His birth was reported by his
> grandfather, and his death was reported by his father. That same family
> had other children born and baptized in the
> parish where the family actually lived - about 15 miles away.
>
> (6) I have seen birth records (not the first child of the couple either)
> where a child was born and baptized in the woman's old home parish, and
> the father's residence is listed on the civil birth record as... United
> States or London! Usually the father had some occupation like shoemaker,
> which suggests to me he had left Ireland to obtain work. In some cases, I
> have been unable to document the family after that, which suggests more
> moves or possibly emigration. Or perhaps the husband remained in the US or
> England and never sent for his wife or died there. Who knows? I have
> documented one case where the husband died on the way to London when his
> ship went down, but the wife still brought the entire family (children
> ages 1 to 12) to London, and lived there for many years along with her two
> older unmarried sisters. Why? That is one thing I do not know... Did they
> have other brothers or sisters already in London, who helped the new widow
> and her young family after they arrived?
> Another mystery...
>
> I have traced other people living near the Tipperary-Laois-Kilkenny border
> whose baptismal records I have found (in one or another of these
> counties), then a marriage record in another county, and I have yet to
> find the baptisms of all the children born in Ireland, but I suspect that
> at least one of them occurred in the third county!
>
> And the examples go on and on... A look in the 1901 census of Ireland
> will find people living in one county whose children were born in another
> county (or counties) in Ireland - or sometimes even in the US. Such
> families are often farm laborers (in rural areas) or factory workers of
> some kind in urban areas.
>
> People did what they had to in order to survive - and sometimes that meant
> moving around within Ireland. Necessary for them but very inconvenient for
> us, their descendants trying to trace them in Irish records!
>
> Geralyn Wood Barry in Oregon
>
>
>
>
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