Hi Neil
Good to hear back from you so quickly.
John McCabe and Anne Clinton (born 10.7.25) were my wife's Great Great Grandparents. Their son Thomas McCabe (born Painstown Kildare in 1864) is her Great Grandfather who married Dorcas Fey. They had 8 children, one being Theresa my wife's Grandma.
Until a few days ago we didn't know much about Thomas except that he was from Painstown and looked after/trained horses, at least at one point (having been a bus conductor in 1901 census) once he moved to Devon in around 1889 with Dorcas after they had their first child in Ireland (in 1888 in Enniskillen). We believed John and Anne were his parents but it wasn't until I got onto the Irish Family History Foundation the other day that I was able to see the transcripts and actual microfilms of baptism and marriage records which showed me:
1. they were his parent and also, from further digging,
2. that John and Anne were married on 22.10.48 in Kildare (Clane parish), and
3. Anne's parents were Thomas Clinton and Catherine (surname unknown)
So having google searched I was very interested in your post on the Roots site and your posting that John's father was also called John (born in 1812) and his mother was Mary Donaher born in 1814 + that they were married in 1833. Where did you find this info on this John and Mary? It's very interesting as it means that, assuming their son John (jnr) was not born say 3 yrs before John and Mary were married (which we must assume is a correct assumption bearing in mind Ireland in the 1800s) that John would have been 15 at the oldest when he married 23 yr old Anne in 1848. That may well be the case of course but it would be good to understand how you got the info on dates for John and Mary and the reason you believe they are the parents of John (jnr). At one point it seemed from the Morman records that John Jnr's parents were a John and Maria but we've since established that this is not the case but such are the problems of tracing Irish ancestry of course.
We visited Clane last week (nice little town about 5 miles south of Painstown) and Painstown itself. Painstown was a townland which was owned by the Church (at least in the mid 1800s). There are only a (very) few houses and I chatted to two locals but they'd not heard of any McCabes. I did the same in Clane and interesting an older man informed me that a family called Clinton had lived on the edge of town and/but the only McCabe him and his son with him knew was a Jim/James McCabe who lived about 3 miles away.
My thoughts/other info for what they are worth are that:
1. The name McCabe indicates Scottish background and info my Mother-in-law's cousin Michael McCabe found supported this (in the 1500s I think it was) - so did they come over in the plantation of Ireland and were given some land and then converted to Roman Catholicism later (as many did)?
2. Thomas McCabe was born 1864 so unless John and Anne had trouble conceiving (or lost many children very young) it is very likely he had a number of siblings as he was not born till 16 years after John and Anne were married. If so there may be descendants of those siblings still around Painstown area.
3. My Mother-in-law has just told us/reminded us that her Mum (Thomas's wife Theresa) used to talk about the time she and Thomas briefly lived in Ireland in a house/area called Derry Gore (have just googled and found there are roads in Enniskillen called Derrygore Terrace and Derrygore Road and there is a commercial building there now in what used to be some stables!!) - As their first child was born in Enniskillen I have to be close there.
4. There is a James McCabe who is a racehorse trainer in County Kildare. I'm gonna give him a call to see if (if he knows) he is a descendant of our joint John McCabe. By all accounts it is not a common name in Kildare and what with that an the horse connection I'm wondering whether John and Anne has some sort of horse related trade, the skills of which they passé on to Thomas and their other children....... I'll let you know what he says.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes
Rich
