groarke/brady family

[Ireland]

Hello I am Patrick Joseph Groarke and Catherine Brady's grand daughter Jo-Anne Groarke of Australia. Their son John Thomas Groarke was my father. My dad moved to Australia in 1950 and married  my mother Shirley Jewell.  I am the youngest of their 9 children.  Dad passed away in 2002 in Goulburn Australia His father died in America in 1932 and is buried in Philadelphia and his Mother is buried back in Ireland.  Regards Jo Groarke.

[pwaldron]

Hi Jo-Anne

I certainly share second cousins with you - the Gallagher family of Swinford.

On 12 Feb 1934, my mother Noreen Durkan, then aged 13, was bridesmaid at the wedding in Swinford of her first cousin Margaret McDonagh (daughter of John McDonough and Margaret Durkan) to your father's first cousin Tom Gallagher (son of Jack Gallagher and Mary Groarke).  My mother and the Gallaghers' eldest child, both now deceased, independently told me that bride and groom were actually third cousins.  I have never been able to definitively prove this, but they certainly both had one or more Durkan grandparents.  I need to go to Swinford and see whether there is any note of the relationship in the marriage register.

If all this is correct, then you and I are fourth cousins.

I have lots more information and would be glad to exchange further details if you send me an e-mail or personal message using the links to the left.

Paddy Waldron