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Author Topic: East Galway parish records - MATTHEWS  (Read 874 times)
stevebooth
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Posts: 67
East Galway parish records - MATTHEWS
« on: Tuesday 11 January 05 22:04 UTC (UK) »
I don't know if anyone can help me make progress with this one. But any help would be gratefully received!

My ancestor BRIDGET MATTHEWS emigrated from Galway to Liverpool, England - probably some time in the 1840s or the beginning of the 1850s. She had married an Englishman called George Rawlinson and was settled in Liverpool by the time her first child was born early in 1853.

I've managed to track Bridget through five UK censuses, 1861 to 1901. Unfortunately, the age given for her varies wildly, so I can only say that she seems to have been born between 1826 and 1835 (I suspect somewhere in the middle, around 1830/31).

Despite some effort, I've been unable to locate a certificate for Bridget's marriage to George Rawlinson, although it imust have been well after civil registration was introduced in the UK. However, Bridget married a second time when her first husband died, and I have a certificate for the second marriage. This shows her father as being ROSS MATTHEWS, a stone mason. Ross is quite an unusual first name - which always helps!

I've tried as many Galway sources as I can find from this distance. Griffith's Valuation shows only a handful of Matthews/Mathews families in Galway in the 1850s, almost all of them concentrated in the south east corner of the county, in parishes around Loughrea and Ballinasloe, and near the border with neighbouring inland counties.

I was particularly excited to find two individuals called ROSS MATTHEWS mentioned in the parish records at Loughrea. Both are a little too early to have been Bridget's father, having been buried at Loughrea in 1801 and 1810 respectively. However, this name combination appears nowhere else that I can find, and I'm hoping that Ross might have been a traditional family name passed on from one generation of Matthews to the next.

Around this time, there are also references to Matthews families in the parishes of Ahascragh, Aughrim, Ballynakill, Donanaghta (Eyrecourt), Killalaghton, Kilreekill, Kilcloony, Kilconickny and Kilquain.

Does anyone have access to parish records for any of these places, or can anyone offer any suggestions? Having narrowed the search down to a relatively small area, I'm reluctant to give up now!

I know this is a long post, but thank you for your attention!

All the best,

Steve
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Maurice
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Posts: 6
Lough Rea - REA Genealogy
« Reply #1 on: Friday 28 January 05 01:02 UTC (UK) »
My interest is in the family REA history before 1800.

My GGgf left an intriguing  account that says the
Family Rea had lived by the Lough for a thousand years (under what clan ? ) and that the clan got
so large that it split into three parts and the people living nearest the Lough, then took the name REA.

Can anyone verify, prove, or discount this story ?

I am looking for the REA family history in this area
from before 1800 - all the way back in history, Please and THANK YOU.
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