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I'm trying to locate the place of birth of my wife's maternal great grandfather Edward Tierney.

We know that he married an Alice O'Loughlin in Newtownards, Co.Down, in 1870, but don't think he was from there. At the time of his marriage, he was a policeman. My wife thinks there was a rule that members of the Royal Irish Constabulary couldn't be stationed in their own county. She remembers her mother thinking that that line of her family came from Co,Cavan but I've found nothing there in my searches so far.

Any ideas of where I might find a clue?

Thanks.

Hello. 

I'm researching my wife's family. Sophia Martin was my wife's paternal great grandmother.

I have quite a bit of information about her already, but there are some mysteries I would like some help with.

What I know (or think I know in a few cases):

Sophia Martin was born in Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland, on 15 December 1849.

In September 1872, she met, in Drogheda, Jeremiah Jeffrey, a soldier with the 20th (East Devonshire) Regiment of Foot (Jeremiah Jeffrey was English, from Hauxton, Cambridgeshire).

Sophia and Jeremiah married in Drogheda on 13 November 1872. The next information I have is that a son, Patrick Joseph, was born in Newry on 15 March 1874. Evidence suggests that Jeremiah Jeffrey transferred from the 20th to the 2nd Battalion of the 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment, which was stationed in Drogheda in 1873 and in Newry in 1874 (the 20th was elsewhere by then).

By 1881, Sophia Jeffrey and her soldier husband were in India. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Ann, born at St. Thomas Mount, Madras (now Chennai) on 2 September of that year.

The 2nd/13th had arrived in India by January 1879 via Glasgow and Aldershot, although the information I've found has a gap between 1876 and 1879, so it's possible that Jeremiah and Sophia were in India earlier or that they were somewhere else after Aldershot and before India.

The 2nd/13th came to Madras after 2 April 1881 (on which date it was in Kamptee). Jeremiah Jeffrey's regiment was given as Royal Artillery on his daughter's birth record. He died on 25 March 1882 in the military hospital at St. Thomas Mount, at which time his unit was M Battery, 2nd Brigade, Royal Artillery.

Sophia Jeffrey gave birth to a son, Jeremiah Arthur, eight months after the death of his father, on 23 November 1882.

The next record I have of her whereabouts is in the 1899 Belfast Street Directory.

I have no further information about Sophia's two older children, Patrick Joseph and Elizabeth Ann. Jeremiah Arthur Jeffrey died in Belfast in 1924 when my wife's father was six. I have no information about Sophia's death. The last information I have about her is in the 1911 Census, where it's recorded that she'd had 4 children "born alive" and had 3 still living. I have no clues to the identity of the fourth child.

My main area of interest at the moment is the gap of 17 years between Sophia Jeffrey becoming a widow in India and turning up in Belfast. The 1901 Census gives her occupation as Linen Weaver, so presumably she came to Belfast seeking work.

I'm wondering what would have happened to her after her husband died in Madras. I know she remained there until her son Jeremiah was born. Would the Army have then sent her back to Ireland? Would she have had to make her own way home? What would usually happen in those circumstances?