ward travelling family of sothern ireland

[Murrell]

I have found my relatives marriage 1931 in Wexford, but can not find birth for her.
Kathleen Ward born 1905 or 1909 ? Her father Thomas Ward tinsmith. Carnt find on 1911 census searched all Ireland.  I have been told that Ward was a big traveller family in southern Ireland? She must have gone to school somewhere as she could read and write.
All seems to point to Wexford as locally where she lived, as she married there and had children in the area. 1st child is registed with Kathleen and her husband as living at Camoln but Kathleen maiden name incorrect when l queried at Wexford archives who gave me original details they said it was a mistake probably make at Enniscorthy Workhouse hospital where birth had taken place. Second child born recorded in Workhouse records but as birth had been outside workhouse staff did not notify records office. I don't know names of Kathleens' siblings so lm thinking if any Ward travellers from Ireland are on Rootchat l am so look eager to learn more.
Ps Kathleen husband Charles Power he has proved to be a mystery too, tinsmith
 turned horsedealer.

[Trillian]

I've traced the name of my 3x Great Grandfather as Matthew WARD with a potential traveller heritage. As yet I only have his name from my 2x Great Grandparents' marriage certificate and that he died before 1897. The traveller link comes at the moment only from what my Gran remembers (moving around a lot, canal boats, family stories - there's also apparently a photograph of my Great Grandfather outside of a gypsy caravan which they lived in). I haven't found any proof yet, although that they're pretty elusive hints towards it being true as do other surnames and occupations such as 'hawker'.

So, I'm probably not much use in helping you learn more but there may be a link somewhere. I'll update if I find more.

[Murrell]

Hello Trillian, Your comments sound very interesting and as you say there may well be a link. I have found gaining info so difficult as there is a lack of paper details except for church records B/M/D. As travelling folk you can never be sure of exactly where they are staying at any one time. I was told by a lady in Ireland that Ward and Sheridan were big traveller families in Southern Ireland many years ago.

Thank you very much for the reply. I live in hope that some other people looking at the Ward name will enlighten our quest to know the answers 

 

[celtic liberty]

Hi Murrell,

I had a look at both the 1901 and 1911 census.    How sure are you that your Ward family lived in Co. Wexford during the 1901 and 1911 census.


In the  1911 census I went through all the Kathleen Ward entries and nothing there for Kathleen with a father Thomas.   There was only one Kathleen living in an orphanage in Dublin and she was a member of the Church of Ireland so unlikely to be your Kathleen.

I checked for other spellings of Kathleen like Cathleen and found what could be your ancestor.
Her father is listed as Thomas and they were born and living in Dundalk, County Louth.  This is the  entry for 1911   Cathleen aged  7 living with her parents Thomas & Bridget and brother Austin and sister Molly.   

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Louth/Dundalk_Urban_No__3/Dublin_Street/904897/

This is the same family in 1901
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Louth/Dundalk_Urban_No__3/Dublin_Street/1561152/


I had a look on www.irishgenealogy.ie website for baptisms but Co. Louth does not seem to be on it yet.

I had a look at www.familysearch.org for a birth record and couldn't locate any for Cathleen , the only record for this family was a marriage for Austin Ward in the quarter April-June 1922.

Did you get a marriage cert. for Kathleen as it seems her name had the "K" spelling.   She married
Charles Power in the quarter April /June 1931.   

Charles Power was born January-March quarter 1908 at Wexford.

You can order birth/marriage/death certs from the General Registration Office, Roscommon but you need to have the reference numbers that would be volume numbers and page numbers.

An example for Kathleen & Charles' marriage  -

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FYJC-M68

if that link doesn't work for you ,  go into site www.familysearch.org and then into search
Key in the information you have and Kathleen's name will come up , click on her name and you will then see the reference numbers you require.

Hope this is some help,  It is also possible that Kathleen and her family may not have been in Ireland during the 1901 & 1911 census years, they may even have been in UK.   

I hope I am not putting you off course in your search but feel this seems to be the best possible match at the moment.

Generally with the Irish naming pattern the first child of a marriage was named after a grandparent,
if it was a boy after the father's father, and if it was a girl after the mother's mother.   

Did Kathleen name any of her children after her sister or brother?
Let me know what you think,   

Feel free to ask a question

Mary
Celtic Liberty

[Murrell]

Hi Mary Celtic Liberty,
Many thanks for searching for me. I had tried to look for a child Kathleen with a father Thomas and found none.  So I must have missed the one you have pointed out. I has assumed Kathleen Ward was living in Wexford to have met her future husband Charles Power and married there. I have the marriage certificate which spells her name Kathleen, the marriage cert also states vagus. Yes Kathleen has a daughter Mary. Now I am thinking i would need to locate the neastest R.C. church to see if a record exsists for the children of Thomas and Bridget.
Thank you so much for your help. Do you think the church records are my next path to take? If you have any other thoughts on how to move this search along I would value your imput.

[celtic liberty]

Hi again Murrell,

I have done some more searching today.   It is hard to know what your next move would be.

As I said already I hope I am not leading astray with the "Dundalk connection".   

You have to think about the fact that the Dundalk Ward family was living in a 3rd class house on Dublin Street at the time of the census.   Do you think travellers in the early 1900's would have been living in a house?  In my opinion I feel they preferred the nomadic lifestyle in those days but am not sure.

Also there were a lot of Wards living in Co. Wexford and in the area of Enniscorthy in particular which is about half an hour ( in todays travelling time) from Wexford town.

I think the first thing I would do is put up a query on the Ireland general forum under  Louth to
see if there are any Ward families still living in Dundalk and see if any of them have a connection to Austin Ward who was Cathleen's brother. Austin is such an unusual name it should be easy to connect with his immediate family.   

I would be inclined to post another query regarding the nearest church to Dublin Street, Dundalk where the family lived in 1911.   There seems to be many R.C. churches in Dundalk.  Hopefully you will get a response and then you could contact the church office.  I wouldn't hold my breath for a response from the church office though as many of them don't bother to respond to genealogy queries.   This is a good map of Dundalk showing Dublin Street.  Some churches marked on map also.

http://townmaps.ie/dundalk.html

I did find a birth for a Catherine Ward in Dundalk on family search - born Oct-Dec 1903

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FB2D-7JF

Birth for Austin Ward on family search born 1897 Dundalk

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FBNY-NMD

Also I would be inclined to post a query on the Ireland forum for Wexford to see if you can get any info on the Powers or Wards from Wexford.

I came across a very nice site on Traveller heritage and it has some photos of Wards and Powers worth a look, no photo with your Christian names though.

http://www.travellerheritage.ie/

Ward photos

http://www.travellerheritage.ie/photos.asp?s=search&typ=all&loc=54

Power photos

http://www.travellerheritage.ie/photos.asp?s=search&typ=all&loc=45

Brilliant section on Travellers Talking  -

http://www.travellerheritage.ie/travellers-talk.asp

You could contact the "Traveller and Roma Centre" in Ireland known as "Pavee Point".


http://www.paveepoint.ie/

They might be able to help you or point you in the right direction.

Hope this helps.

Mary
Celtic Liberty

[Murrell]

Wow Mary your have done a lot of searching for me. I have looked at the traveller heritage site its very interesting. I have spent a time reading Golly Power recounting his life on the road. Also he states that the Power families and Ward families are related so its quite possible that Kathleen Ward was a distant
 relative of Charles Power before she married him. I think many years ago it was frowned upon to marry outside your community.
Many thanks for your suggestions and thought as you said Austin is an unusual name it is worth trying to follow up. If there is no connection then I can rule it out.
I will keep you posted 

[celtic liberty]

You certainly have some digging to do.

I am hoping if you do get some communication from the Ward family with Austin they may be able to confirm if their Cathleen did marry a "Power " from Wexford.  Otherwise it will be very difficult to
tie up the two.

You might find that your Kathleen was in fact born in Wexford. 

From reading through all those lovely stories on the Travelling community it is very clear that families moved all over the country and never stayed too long in one place.

Do keep us posted if you make some progress.

Mary
Celtic Liberty