Fnding - but not knowing where to look? Can anyone help? ?

[Rapunzel]

Can anyone tell me how I can find Irish family when I don't know where they came from? All I have are their names:

John Killigan Cunningham - Labourer who married Bridget Fury - Hawker
They were both alive in 1869, and had a daughter Ann around 1842 who went to Scotland and worked as a domestic servant for a blacksmith in Falkirk.

Rapunzel   

[Christopher]

Seasons Greetings Rapunzel, 

You may strike lucky here. Both these surnames appeared in Co. Donegal at the time of the Valuations in the county in 1857. Let us hope we are able to find more information for you in further searches. http://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths.php

Best Wishes, Christopher

[Rapunzel]

Dear Christopher

Thanks for your reply.

As John Killigan Cunningham was a farm servant and Bridget Fury a hawker, I hardly think they will be listed in any property owner's list.

As I also have no idea where or when they came from Ireland or Eire, when or where they got married, I think it is a total brick wall I'm up against.

There is no trace of any of these details in Scotland where their daughter Ann Killigan Cunningham (domestic servant) married my ggrandfather Archibald France (a blacksmith) in 1869.

Thanks anyway for your help.

Rapunzel

[Christopher]

I wish you all the best for the New Year, Rapunzel,

The practice in the 1800s, unlike today, was for farm workers to work on farms. Massive changes in the agricultural industry mean during the past number of years many farm worker's cottages have been sold to wealthy people from towns as a weekend home. Most of us can barely afford an all the year round home. Many farm workers of today have to find a second job in towns and cities. They work on the farm at weekends, during their holidays and whenever they can fit in the odd hour here or there.

John Killigan Cunningham may not appear on the estate records of an Irish estate as a tenant http://www.proni.gov.uk/records/landed.htm but occasionally labourers' names were mentioned in the records. Roll up your shirt sleeves, and get down to some hard graft going through the records of the estates in the counties where the name Cunningham appears. There is a chance his name may be mentioned. Honest sweat and toil puts the names on your family tree. A good genealogist should not shirk the work.

Best of Luck, Christopher

[Pat Reid]

Rapunzel:

I came across this marriage between a Cunningham and Fury in Clonbroney Parish in Co. Longford.

1860   2   Cunningham, Timothy.....Fury, Mary Ann
The 2 refers to month (February)

Here are a few sites you might want to explore:
http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl Moderator comment - link broken
http://www.rootsweb.com/~irllog/churchrecs.htm
http://www.rootsweb.com/~irllog/index.htm

You have a task!  Perhaps using variations in Google searches you might find some better leads.

Good luck,

Pat

[Christopher]

Er um Pat, please tell me what you found on that first site address you gave. I hope Rapunzel has better luck than I did. I clicked on the address and was given the following piece of useless information lol

Improper Search Call to www.PicoSearch.com
 
You have reached the PicoSearch Search Engine hosting service. You must contact the webmaster for the site that you were trying to search. Their search box code has not properly accessed a working PicoSearch search account. It may be that the account number is incorrect, or the account's search engine is broken and needs reindexing.

Best Wishes, Chris

[Rapunzel]

Dear Pat and Christopher

Many thanks for your replies.

Christopher, it's not that I am shirking - the task just seems impossible without any real facts to work from and with such common names as Fury and Cunningham.

A Happy Healthy New Year to both of you.

Rapunzel