HEALY bmd lookups and advice please

[Ruskie]

Wow, thanks so much for your thoughts and very useful suggestions. I will reply in general, rather than address each of your points….

I am interested in all aspects of their lives - names, dates, occupations, places they lived and the world they lived in …. I agree that knowledge of the places is vital. Generally the first thing I do upon finding an ancestor’s town or address is to head to google maps (and street view depending on how the area has changed over the centuries).

The prison record saying that Jeremiah is from Mallow Co Cork is under the heading “residence” …. That sounds like where he was living but could it mean he was born or lived elsewhere prior to that, hence the discrepancy? I’m sure mistakes can and did happen though - the same as it did with other records.

I’m not sure how land here was distributed to early settlers. I think it changed over time, and varied by state. I’m not sure that having a farming background was a prerequisite, but it might be worth my following up. I know that promise of land was dangled in front of some immigrants, and not all of them ended up with what was promised. My Healys (Thomas Joseph and his brother Michael) ended up in a rather lovely rural area. I have to ask my second cousin once removed exactly what they did there - I think it was a cattle/dairy farming area. Apparently one of the brother’s wives used to leave food out for a local bushranger, so the family story goes.

I only know of these two brothers. None of we descendants have heard of any siblings.

Thanks for explaining what records aren’t available online and which might be useful to me. I will go over your posts and pass the information on to my second cousin once removed to see what she thinks.

Thanks again.

[Wexflyer]

The prison record saying that Jeremiah is from Mallow Co Cork is under the heading “residence” …. That sounds like where he was living but could it mean he was born or lived elsewhere prior to that, hence the discrepancy? I’m sure mistakes can and did happen though - the same as it did with other records.

I can't imagine that the Jeremiah in Wexford Gaol in 1852, and tried in Gorey, could have been resident in Mallow, Co. Cork at the time. Way, way too far apart. He had to have been living in Co. Wexford at the time. He was arrested, jailed and tried there - they did not try people from Cork in Wexford!

So, two possibilities:
- A simple mistake. The same chap is listed as from Wexford on the next record from Newgate Gaol in Dublin.
- Or something like this. You are asked "Where are you from?" You can interpret that in two quite different ways. As "where were you born?" or "where are you living?"  i.e. he could have been born in Mallow, but living Co. Wexford by 1852.