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Archiver > NIR-ARMAGH > 2006-07 > 1151862589


From: Alison Causton <>
Subject: Re: [ARMAGH] Thomas W. SNOWDON
Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 14:51:30 -0300
References: <BAYC1-PASMTP108A081281622E716628A7AA730@CEZ.ICE>
In-Reply-To: <BAYC1-PASMTP108A081281622E716628A7AA730@CEZ.ICE>


On 2-Jul-06, at 2:24 PM, David Dixon wrote:

> I have a hand-written baptism record, hard to read, but appears to
> say Thomas SNOWDON(SNOWDEN) was born in the Town or Parish of
> Pountop, in the County of Armanagh, Ireland. I have the right
> person but is the town and county correct and where is it located?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Dave.
...

Well, this gets tricky. There is a County Armagh, and there is also
a County Fermanagh. Your "Armanagh" looks like a blend of the two!
So, either county may be the one you are after, tho' I'd guess the
former because the placename in your record begins with "A".

As for a parish or town named "Pountop", it may well be a spelling
variant or, worse, an outright spelling error. I would suggest
extending this search to townlands. I checked the PRONI's
Geographical Index at http://www.proni.gov.uk/geogindx/geogindx.htm,
but found no obvious contenders. Then, I checked the IreAtlas
Townland Database at www.seanruad.com, inputting "op" at the end of
the field as the search term and again, there are no obvious
matches. Inputting "oun" in any part of the field as a search term
doesn't appear to help your cause, either.

You might try searching for all of the townlands for counties Armagh
and Fermanagh, again at www.seanruad.com, to see if any in the
resulting lists come close to "Pountop".

Placenames did change from time to time. Perhaps another reader,
with better local knowledge, will recognize the placename that you
seek. What if "Pountop" is (or was) the name of a house?

Alison Causton
Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia

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