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General => Armed Forces => Topic started by: josey on Sunday 20 August 17 13:04 BST (UK)
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I wonder if anyone can tell me what information may be gleaned from Muster Rolls [army and militia]?
Here are the proven facts about Philip Murray 1813/4 - 1864
1831 married Anne Sheedy in Borrisokane
1832 baptism of daughter Mary 4 Oct in Borrisokane
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=469551.msg3296084#msg3296084
1837 enlisted in June in Nenagh, Co Tipperary aged 23
1841 UK census Newcastle Barracks
HO107; Piece: 847; Book: 8; Civil Parish: St Andrew; County: Northumberland; Enumeration District: Newcastle Upon Tyne Cavalry Artillery and Infantry Barracks; Folio: 4; Page: 2
1841 on army list in Newcastle
1846 son Patrick born 15 March in Dundee
1849 daughter Julia born 20 February in Weedon Barracks, Northamptonshire
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=765919.msg6214332#msg6214332
1851 on army list in Ferezepore [will muster rolls show if wife & children also there?]
1859 discharged from 87th on 27 May aged 45 yrs 7 months stating 7 268/365 years in East Indies
1864 death 5 July in Cashel Military Hospital aged 50
and here's what I would like to find out & are they questions that would be able to answered from the army Muster Rolls?
When did he go to India? Was it in April 1849 with 87th?
Were Anne & children with him – he was first made a a sergeant in 1847…
When did he return? And if a soldier discharged before regiment came home, would he get another ship? I believe the 87th returned to Britain in 1861 but he was discharged in Buttevant CO Cork 1859.
As to the militia muster rolls:
North Tipperary Militia muster rolls which I have identified as NA records:
WO 13/3260 2nd (North) Tipperary 1855 - 1859
WO 13/3261 2nd (North) Tipperary 1860 - 1867
North Tipperary Militia from ?discharge - death
1864 died in Cashel Military Hospital, death certificate states sergeant in NTM
Would these muster rolls state when he joined? Where he lived? If he was married or widowed?
Thanks for any help, Josey
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You tend to get information when they join and leave the list i.e. people don't just appear and disappear. So you should get some answers to your when questions.
Less likely to have info on wife and children.
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OK thanks, I thought as much as to wife & children :(.
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just to mention,,,he was first made a sergeant in 1843,,,then demoted,,,then became a sergeant again {as you said) in 1847.
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Sorry yes, I only put the promotion date in relation to going to India; here's his whole history
Private 6 Jun 1837 26 Feb 1840
Promoted corporal 27 Feb 1840 19 Nov 1843
Sergeant 20 Nov 1840 16 Jun 1844
Confined 17 Jun 1844 tried & sentenced to be reduced
Reduced Private 22 Jun 1844 31 Mar 1845
Promoted Corporal 1 Apr 1845 14 Oct 1847
Do Sergeant 15 Oct 1847 2 Sep 1850
Do Clr Sergeant 3 Sep 1850 20 Aug 1853 [in India 1851]
Good conduct pay @ 1d per diem 17 Jun 1846
Do @ 2d per diem 31 Aug 1854
Do @3d per diem 1 Nov 1855
Prisoner 21 Aug 1853 tried by a Regimental Court Martial 23 Aug 1853 and sentenced to be reduced but on the recommendation of the court ordered to revert to the rank of Platoon Sergeant
Released Sergeant 24 Aug 1853 28 Oct 1854
Confined 29 Oct 1854 tried by a Regimental Court Martial 30 Oct 1854 and ordered to be reduced to private
Prisoner 29 Oct 1854 30 Oct 1854
Released Private 30 Oct 1856 26 Feb 1856
Promoted Corporal 27 Feb 1854 20 Mar 1857
Total service allowed to 20 Mar 1857 is nineteen years two hundred and seventy nine days
Corporal 21 Mar 1857 25 Sep 1857
Promoted Sergeant 26 Sep 1857 27 May 1859
Further service from 28 May to 14 Jun 1859 = 20 days
Josey
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is the Philip Murray b 1861 Knockmore.. father in 87th regiment one of yours?
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Not as far as I know, the family were from, & stayed in, Tipperary before & after his army service. I think Anne may have been too old to have had a child in 1861 too - she must have been born 1815 at the latest. However I have no date for her death [that's partly why I hoped the NT Militia rolls might have details of a wife] so Philip could have married a second time if she died before 1860. Will look on NLI catholic parish registers site for 1861 Philip's baptism.
ADDED: I found a Michael Murray baptised Killala, Addergoole 8 Jul 1856 to Philip Murray & Mary Mangan - may be a brother to the Philip 1861 you found ??? so not my family as far as I know.
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Have you tried Overseas BMDS?
There's also a website called Soldiers, Sailors and Strangers. It has a lot of baptisms of children of soldiers in N.E. England.
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Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn't heard of that website & will have a look, but had looked at overseas BMDs.
As the thread title shows though, I am not really trying to find out about children, more about what the muster rolls can tell me about service locations, whether the wife was 'on the strength' etc.
is the Philip Murray b 1861 Knockmore.. father in 87th regiment one of yours?
Just realised this couldn't be 'my' Philip's child - he had been discharged from the 87th in 1859.....and was presumably in the North Tipperary Militia by then.
Thanks for your interest.
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Josey
I’d say that the information others have given about the information (or lack of) in the muster rolls is indeed the situation. Like most people I imagine, I have had occasion to look at only a handful but I have found none that do any more than list the soldiers “on the books” for the half year or quarter that the books cover. The National Archive guidance says that only after 1868 (don’t know the significance of the date) do some muster rolls have additional information about the wives and families – far too late for your man.
Highly likely that he went with the regiment in 1849 from Weedon. As to whether the family were with him in India. A lottery decided which half a dozen or so families could accompany the battalion overseas otherwise they were left behind. Could the family be found in the 1851 UK census?
He and others due for discharge about the same time would return home on one of the ships plying back and forth taking/bringing soldiers to and from India. Buttevant was the depot of the 87th.
The NTM rolls should show when he joined in the sense that his name would appear in one or other of the rolls you cite and in a later one there may be the annotation “died (date)” but the only way to establish this is to trawl the records.
While frustrating, it isn’t really unusual for army records to have little or nothing about the families. They were after all records of the regiment not the man. Even much later individual service records, where they survive, might list a marriage and the birth of children but this was not universally the case.
So not much further forward I’m afraid.
MaxD
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Thank you Max. I foresee a trip or two to Kew looming, plan add to it on to one of my fortnightly grandson sitting visits to London.
Thanks too for the info about when/how Philip would have returned to Britain before discharge.
As to the 1851, I have looked with - so far - no success but I suspect that if she didn't go to India, Anne + children would have returned to Ireland where, sadly, no censuses. I have yet to find the post birth histories of Mary 1832 and Julia 1849.
Josey