IRL-CORK-L Archives

Archiver > IRL-CORK > 2007-08 > 1186971441


From: "Judith Morris" <>
Subject: Re: Subject: GOD-PARENTS & WITNESSES
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:18:28 +1000
References: <c1e.1ab9d0a4.33f06000@aol.com>


Hi Sheila and Everyone,

Regarding marriage witnesses: back in the 1960's a kindly minister copied
out all of our Thornhills in the Brigown, (Mitchelstown,) Cork parish
records for my mother, so I've spent countless happy hours pondering over
witnesses and sponsors (mainly because as I am obsessed by this branch of my
family.) As in other parish registers, the same male witness appears over
and over again and and of course could not possibly be closely related to
everyone, or if he was, be so popular that he was sought out for so many
weddings! The most obvious conclusion to draw is that he was the church
clerk and the minister would just call on him to witness as required because
he was probably on the premises anyway. This would apply to all parish
registers. This is just my theory.

An interesting entry for my family is my gt.gt. grandmother Alice
Thornhill's marriage to Richard Hobart. Her brother, William Johnson
Thornhill, was a minister who lived in Co. Wicklow. He travelled to
Mitchelstown to officiate at Alice's wedding and one of the witnesses was
Quayle Thornhill, an obvious family member, and the other was Harry Disney.
Because we have the records we know that Harry Disney was the minister of
Brigown church who, it seems, stood aside for Alice's brother to perform the
ceremony. Had we only had the one entry of this marriage we'd have been
trying to find blood connections with the Disney family! We've always found
it useful to look at entries other than those directly connected to us when
studying parish registers....it engenders a warm community feeling if
nothing else, but sometimes a clue emerges.

I absolutely agree with the person (sorry, forget your name,) who started
this thread - that sponsors (God parents,) at christenings are family or
very close friends of family. These are people who accepted responsibility
for the child's spiritual welfare and even when I was born way back in the
1940's this honour was taken very seriously, much less way back then when
religion was the mainstay of the family. For the Thornhill family, frequent
sponsors were the Baileys, Johnsons and O'Dells and we know for certain that
the Johnsons were related because of Alice's brother's and grandfather's
names, but are still to find the origin of this connection.

Regarding your last question Sheila, sponsors/witnesses were not of any
particular generation, (unfortunately, because this would narrow the
search,) and I have entries where the witness was the father of the bride or
groom. We need to look for siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends of all
ages.

Enough from me! Happy hunting!

Judie Morris,
Victoria, Australia.


----- Original Message -----
From: <>
To: <>
Cc: <>
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2007 11:07 PM
Subject: Subject: GOD-PARENTS & WITNESSES


>I have a question concerning the relationship of sponsors for weddings and
> births. Several years ago I was looking at a microfilm of a Cork parish
> register, and I found the same few names recurring as sponsors,
> particularly when the
> couple marrying were servants (so-described in the text). Were these men
> (and they were always men) the important leaders of the community? The
> acknowledged elders of a particular family? I find it hard to believe
> they were
> closely connected to everyone for whom they served as sponsor.
>
> Another question: would baptismal sponsors within a family have been of
> the
> same generation (siblings or cousins) or of the senior generation (aunts
> and
> uncles)?
>
> Sheila Connolly
> Middleboro, MA USA
>
>
> **************************************
> Get a sneak peek of
> the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
>
> -------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to
> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the
> quotes in the subject and the body of the message

This thread: