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Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland => Topic started by: mpa_web on Tuesday 28 May 19 16:10 BST (UK)
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I'm looking for the parents of my 2nd Great-Grandfather, John Flannery.
He was:
Born abt 1822 in Kings County
Married 1844, Mary Kavanaugh in County Clare
Immigrated to Canada (first Quebec and then Ontario) 1849
Children: Patrick (b in Ireland 1845--my great grandfather), Margaret, James, Michael, MaryAnn, and John.
Died in Mara, Ontario 1890.
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Have you looked at all the Canadian records available? Were any of the children born in Quebec? Sometimes, especially for new arrivals, the baptism record might say the county in Ireland that the parents were from? Did Canadian counties have biographical histories of the "prominent" settlers, as did the US ones? Sometimes the bio will mention the subject's parents and county.
And what are your sources for the two counties you mention for birth and marriage?
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Notes....##
According to anc tree - the family arrrived about 1849 - the first two children Patrick and Margaret born in Ireland - James 1851 Quebec - Michael 1853 Oakville Village, Ontario - Mary Ann 1859 Mara - John 1861 Mara.
The obituary listed for father John gives no indciation where in Ireland he came from. Mary his wife is listed as born 1827 Leitrim Ireland.
Sandra
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Thank you for your prompt reply. I have accessed all of the Canadian records to no avail. I have narratives written about John and Patrick written in Mara...so I'm pretty sure of those facts.
But for everything else, I've used the Family Search Center (online) and the results were pretty slim (what's online, anyway). So what I have may be inaccurate.
One birth record I could access for John was from the Ireland Catholic Parish registry (10 Apr 1828; Baptism Place--Lusmagh, Offaly, Ireland; Diocese Clonfert; Father Andrei Flannery; Mother Brigide Barkey). But I'm hesitant to believe that without other data points. I have found stories about Kings County for John, Leitrim (for Mary Kavanaugh), and Limerick--for the Flannerys.
I will be working with the local Family Search Center to search for Irish microfilm...and with the Library of Congress. But I'm trying this route to see if anyone has any pre-1800 references that would confirm or negate my information.
Thank you--any help (pointers,etc)is appreciated.
Mary
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Sandra--thank you for confirming what I have! The county of Mara and the church in Brechin, Ontario has given me confirmation (data) for Patrick and his father John in Mara.
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Addendum: In Canadian census materials, John was consistently listed as 3 years younger than Mary. So if she was born in 1827, then his birthday would be closer to 1824...and not 1828. Still...often I find that without the actual documents, people don't even remember their birthdates for censuses!!
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Sounds as if you have already tracked down all the canadian records that may have been helpful.
Pity the obituary didn't say where in Ireland he came from but that would be to easy !!! :-\
Sandra
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What religious denomination?
Many parishes don't have surviving early registers.
Have you looked at Irish Toolkit?
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The 1871 Census, Mara Ont
- free site - I don't know if familysearch has the Canadian censuses or not, I don't think so. This site does. the search requires an exact spelling for the surname though.
https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1871/Pages/results.aspx?k=cnsSurname%3a%22flanery%22+AND+cnsGivenName%3a%22patrick%22
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A tree at ancestry.com I'm looking at has both parents born in Kings Co, no source given, Mary between 1823 and 1831, and John between 1825 to 1831.
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Thank you for having researched the Canadian records first, I had to ask :)
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There are Canadian Directories available online but not via the likes of Ancestry.
Search for Henderson's Directories.
I used them to find out where my Grandparents were in the 1920’s and could trace them year by year to each house that they lived in.
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Addendum: In Canadian census materials, John was consistently listed as 3 years younger than Mary. So if she was born in 1827, then his birthday would be closer to 1824...and not 1828. Still...often I find that without the actual documents, people don't even remember their birthdates for censuses!!
You might like to check your maths. If John was 3 years younger than Mary and if she was born c.1827 then he might have been born c.1830. (Several 'ifs') Ages are best regarded as approximate.
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Reply to Maiden Stone: Roman Catholic. Yes--that's what I'm finding--records are incomplete.
The marriage record of Patrick Flannery in Mara (1868) was only recorded by the parish priest--Ontario as a province was just one year old and the "records law" was not yet in place. I'm lucky to have found a webmaster who answered my question AND sent me the record as well as copies from pages of a book chronicling the origins of Mara that included stories and even photos of my ancestors! I'm tracking down that book now through my University's library! To top it all off, he and I are related. I LOVE doing this kind of research!!
Reply to OldOhioHome: The Canadian records have been wonderful! I also have French ancestors--I can go to the town websites and find just about anything!
Reply to Colin Lamb: thanks for the resource...I'm on it!!
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Reply to Maiden Stone: Thanks for correcting my subtraction. Sheesh. So maybe the 1828 record is closer to the mark! And you're right about birth dates--even the census information is taken 1-2 years before the date filed.
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Reply to OldOhioHome:
"A tree at ancestry.com I'm looking at has both parents born in Kings Co, no source given, Mary between 1823 and 1831, and John between 1825 to 1831."
That's where I found the Kings County reference; my cousin found the same reference for these ancestors. But sometimes the family trees in Ancestry are really off.....
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Reply to Maiden Stone: Thanks for correcting my subtraction. Sheesh. So maybe the 1828 record is closer to the mark! And you're right about birth dates--even the census information is taken 1-2 years before the date filed.
I usually work backwards from known marriage year. Girls could marry at 12 and boys at 14 but I think that was uncommon. Marriage age tended to be later post-Famine than pre-Famine. It's easier working out possible birth years for a woman, calculating from ages of her children, providing you know them all. Btw, one of my Irish ancestors was allegedly born 1830/31 according to 1901 census. As she married in 1840, I knew the census age was wrong. Estimated birth years from census of all her children fluctuated wildly and one was more than a decade out on a death registration.
Even though I know where they were all from, I can't go any further back than the generations born c.1810-c.1830 because either records don't exist or there were too many people with the same name born in the same place around same time.
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Reply OldOhioHome:
That link you sent was great--thank you. So there were FOUR Patrick Flannerys in 1871 in Ontario! Made me a little crazy until I figured out that only one was my Patrick/Great-Grandfather. This information was GOLD to me. Thank you.
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Thank you, Maiden Stone. I have also figured out that the wedding date is the best starting point. Someone pointed out to me that none of us "remembers" our own birth dates but we all know when a wedding occurred. What you pointed out (discrepancy in dates) is the same for burial sites...wrong dates. These Irish ancestors (all named Patrick or Mary) have been a challenge, for sure!
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That local history that I see referred to in the trees on ancestry.com, "They Came to Mara", was probably your best chance at a mention of a county of origin on the Canadian side of the Atlantic.
I'm getting various places of birth for sons James and Michael, sometimes Lower Canada (Quebec) and sometimes Ontario. But can't find either of them in either place anyway.
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1861 image says Flanary
Michael born c 1853 Lower Canada
https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1861/Pages/results.aspx?k=cnsGivenName%3A%22maryann%22%20AND%20cnsAge%3A%222%22%20AND%20cnsProvinceCode%3A%22CW%22&start1=41
2nd on the page: Maryann Flanary, age 2, Canada West (Ontario)
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Patrick Flannary's death record, December 29, 1935, Mara, Ontario
born: April 22, 1844, Ireland
parents: John Flannary and Mamie Cavin, both born in Ireland
informant: Frank Flannery, son, address: Redney? [can't read]
buried: Brichin [?], December 31, 1935
had been in Ontario 75 years, in Mara 46 years. [The 46 years sounds low, acc. to the other information]
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Would really like to find them in 1851 in Quebec, but not so far.
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Re. reply 17. I would concentrate on trying to find a baptism for Patrick around 1844. It's possible that 22nd April recorded as his birthday on death record might be approximately correct (NB only 'might be'). If he was born near a memorable time like Easter, his family might have remembered that.
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Reply OldOhioHome
Yes--that's the book (They Came to Mara) that I'm trying to get--I do have the pages referring to Patrick and John. The information you found about Patrick is correct--I knew Frank who signed the death certificate (I believe the reference is Utney) and the town is Brechin where my grandfather lived.
I have tracked records for the children--Ontario was called Canada West before Ontario became a province (circa 1845). From Patrick's memory in the book mentioned above, he came with a sister from Ireland when he was 2. They first went to Sorrel, Quebec for about 4 years and then to Trafalgar, Halton County, Canada West (Oakville Village), and then to Mara in 1856 (the years are from his memory!).
His mother's name was Kavanaugh which was shortened to Cavin...in records provided by children. I find this a lot--one of the sons (my uncle) who signed my grandmother's death certificate in 1936 didn't even know her maiden name (which was Flannery!).
Thanks for your research!
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The book (They Came to Mara) records his birth month and year as April, 1845.
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I didn't find a close match for Patrick in April 1845, but ancestry's indexing of the parish registers is different from findmypast.ie. and people say rootsireland.ie is the best, but there you need to pay to view even the indexed search results. And I think the three sites collections are not identical either, they overlap a lot, but each has some the other doesn't. again rootsireland.ie is said to be the place to go.
Wait, see if you can find other Flannerys/Cavanaughs to look for (see below), then maybe pay for a 24 hour or 1 mo. sub, as an idea.
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This might be where everyone is getting "Kings, Co, Ireland" as a birthplace for John Flannary and Mary Cavanaugh.
start here
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:9C9H-Y39
and scroll to the bottom of the sidebar to find:
"Pedigree Resource File," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:9C9H-DTP : accessed 28 May 2019), entry for Mary Cavanaugh; file (2:2:2:MM9R-29N), submitted 29 December 2003 by gmcpeak2790465 [identity withheld for privacy].
Ancestral File Number
5LQM-B4T
Submission ID
MM9R-29N
which is a link to :
https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results#count=20&query=+subcollection_id:%222:2:2:MM9R-29N%22
when searching that file for Flannary you will come to this link.
https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results?count=20&query=%2Bsurname%3Aflannary~%20%2Bsubcollection_id%3A%222%3A2%3A2%3AMM9R-29N%22
(you can search it for Cavanaugh also)
It says "Kings Co" for both of them. But why?
Looking at that file shows that there were other Flannerys and Cavanaughs in Mara. Can you figure out where they came from? It's a roundabout way to work back, but it sometimes works. Works a lot better if you know for sure they are siblings of your ancestor. Where they were born in Ireland, their brother or sister was probably born.
I forgot what the reliability was of Pedigree Resource Files. They are pre-Internet LDS records. I think some came from records, and some just came from various people's research. You could probably Google it, or someone on here might remember.
That book "They Came to Mara" looked unavailable for sale, but is held by a few libraries. go to worldcat.org and put in your home locality. There were a few in the US and a few in Canada.
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Last thought for a while, I have to close it down here for now.
The book is available for $73 used, in Toronto
https://www.biblio.com/book/came-mara-pioneers-mara-township-circa/d/922667100
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a couple people in this thread from 2001 had a copy of the book.
https://www.ancestry.com/boards/localities.northam.canada.ontario.oldontario/132.136/mb.ashx
I think you can access the message boards without a paid subscription. Then do some 'live people finding' to track down the people with the book.
edit: maybe a local library in Mara itself might have it. or nearby.
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Thanks, Ohio. Yes--I have requested the Mara book on inter-library loan--the only libraries that will loan a book are public libraries and I think there is only one on the World Cat list. But I'm not in a hurry!
I also will be finally able to visit the local FSL here in my town (they have been closed for month...a water-pipe break or something). They said they have access to Irish microfilm--we'll see.
I will track your suggestions...thank you so much. I've been doing this since December...certainly the Irish family has been the most difficult.
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I also will be finally able to visit the local FSL here in my town (they have been closed for month...a water-pipe break or something). They said they have access to Irish microfilm--we'll see.
The LDS no longer have a microfilm ordering service but you would probably be best to check exactly what "Irish microfilm" [microfilms?] they do hold in your local library.
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Thanks, Aghadowey. I have a local office that has been closed for months...but they reopen next week. A woman I talked to on the phone led me to believe that I could get microfilm for a fee and read in their office. But I'll see. I also am close to the Library of Congress. I will persist!