Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:
It's Saturday Night Again
-
Time For Some More Genealogy Fun!!
Our mission tonight from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:
1) One of the goals of every genealogy researcher is to solve difficult name and relationship problems. What is one of your most frustrating research challenges that you have not yet solved?
Here's mine:
My most frustrating research challenge is locating family in
Ireland. I know where my Sullivan family was in the early 1840s: Cahirkeem in
Eyeries Parish, County Cork. Two children of Jeremiah Sullivan and Mary Sheehan
were baptized:
- Mary Sullivan was born on 1 November 1843 and baptized on 5 November. Her godparents were Daniel Sullivan and Margaret Sullivan.[1]
- Julia Sullivan was baptized on 17 August 1846 in the same location as above. Her godparents were Cornelius Sullivan and Johanna Harrington.[2] She is not one of the children who came to America and probably died young. 1846 was during the famine.
These were the known firstborn children of Jeremiah and Mary. The church book from Eyeries Parish for sacraments between 1835 and April 1843 that would have recorded the marriage of Jeremiah Sullivan and Mary Sheehan was missing in 2003. It was missing when the church books were microfilmed beginning in the 1950s because this set of records is also missing from the online records at the National Library of Ireland.[3]
It is possible that Jeremiah and Mary were married in her parish and they moved to Jeremiah’s parish to live and have children baptized. He worked in the mines and moved around a lot. I have not found baptisms of the other younger children except for:
- Child 6: Jeremiah Sullivan was born on 10 October 1856 and baptized on 20 November 1858 in Cahirkeem, Eyeries Parish. His godparents were Daniel and Mary Sullivan.[4] This one was unusual as he wasn’t baptized for two years.
- Child 8: Peter Sullivan was baptized on 22 July 1860 in Cahirkeem, Eyeries Parish. His godparents were Jeremiah Harrington and Mary McAuliffe.[5]
Child 4 was John Sullivan, born about 1854. He was my great-grandfather. I have lots of mysteries surrounding him besides not finding his baptism. I cannot find when he arrived in the United States. I also cannot find the marriage to Anna Gleeson in Dakota Territory.
With names like Sullivan and Sheehan down in County Cork, I might as well be looking for Smith or Jones. These are very common surnames.
[1]
Research notes, Riobard O’Dwyer, 15 Nov 2003.
[2]
Research notes, Riobard O’Dwyer, 15 Nov 2003.
[3]
Research notes, Riobard O’Dwyer, 15 Nov 2003. Also “About,” Catholic Parish
Registers at the National Library of Ireland (https://registers.nli.ie/about).
[4] Research
notes, Riobard O’Dwyer, 15 Nov 2003.
[5] Research
notes, Riobard O’Dwyer, 15 Nov 2003.
Having the years you are looking for be missing is definitely frustrating! I hope you find alternative records to document your family's life events. And now you have reminded me that I should look at County Cork records for my ex's mother's family.
ReplyDeleteIt's very bad luck having that register missing, but perhaps there is still a chance the marriage record in Dakota Territory will pop up. I've found several marriages there for collateral lines.
ReplyDeleteI've got an ancestor Cornelis Dingemanse (van der) Sluijs who died around 1715. His patroniymic suggests his feather's name is Dingeman, which is a fairly uncommon name. Still, in all those years I haven't found a Dingeman van der Sluijs.
ReplyDelete