Kilconduff Church Records 1830-1850s Still looking

[DudleyWinchurch]

Hi Trilobite,

Thanks for your help.

There is a possibility for one child on that site but problem is that the search method doesn't let me search to find any more children (who may not have survived) so I think that I probably need to check the film of the Kilconduff/Swinford records now.

The parents (James and Margaret, as in the reply above, were married in Kilconduff iat the beginning of 1851 (from IFHF transcription) and seem to have returned to Mayo after their first move to England and had at least one more child there before their permanent relocation to Bilston (also probable that Bridget 1851 did not survive but that another was born in Ireland too as later she always "born about 1854").

[DudleyWinchurch]

Hi again Fcurran (and welcome to the rootschat site),

Checking details, I'm a little confused.  The Maria McDonough Burke married to John Burke at Holy Trinity was too old to be of James and Margaret Oliver McDonough's family (Bridget was their first child as far as I can find out, they were very young when she was born) and I was assuming that Maria was James' sister and thus Bridget's aunt (but cannot yet prove it).

Michael McDonough's family (who again seems to be closely linked to James and Margaret - so I think is James' brother), also had a Maria (and a Mary) there are other Burke links in the family too.

Sorry, if I'm bombarding you with details, but as you can see, I'm delighted and very excited to have "met" another relative, so will try to sort out some more structured information for you for later.

[fcurran1]

Maria was born in 1835 to James & Mary McDonough.  I have his dob as 1816 but there is no source reference.  I'll look through the info that I copied on Bilston to see if there is anything else that might resolve the issue.  I remember older family members saying that she insisted that she be called Maria.  Do you know Mary's maiden name?

[DudleyWinchurch]

Hi again,

I have not yet gone back as far as that generation (James and Mary) as I have, as yet, no proof of my surmise that Maria, Michael and James were sister and brothers.  I have just been doing this for about a year and a half but have been very lucky with different databases going on line and with having access to Birmingham Diocesan Archives from time to time so have investigated James and Margaret Oliver's family as far as I can get.

It was only last week that I managed to make the link with Kilconduff and hope to get to Ireland before the end of this year to do further research there.

Mean-time I will PM you a short piece I wrote on their family history for my cousins last Christmas and a (partial) report from my family tree program to give you the sources.

You say you collected data in Bilston but from the way you wrote the date of Bridget's date of birth, I surmise that you may be based the other side of the ocean to me?  When were you in Bilston and did you actually go to the church itself?  I have wandered around there but the church was closed that day and much has changed although a few of the original buildings still exist (including the church).

When I started I already knew that there was a family tradition for naming sons James, and my grandfather was also James and I had an Uncle James.  GreatGrandfather James was born about 1830/1 in Mayo and Margaret Oliver, about 1834, also in Mayo (evidence from census pages is pretty consistent for dates, less so for places, but only 1871 specified Mayo).  Unfortunately the Irish church records for that period don't seem to have been transcribed so I do hope that they have survived.

Possibly, the reason for your Great Grandmother insisting on calling herself Maria was that there was another John Burke in Bilston married to a Mary (Coyne?) of about the same ages and appearing in the Holy Trinity records too.  I have found three children so far for John and Maria (McDonough) Burke, Mary, Jane and Ann? (it's difficult to be sure from the latinized baptisms but I think that's how they appear in censuses too).

Evidence for the strong family ties:
1. John and Maria seem to have been godparents to several of James and Margaret's children (difficult to prove with the possibility that Joannes and Maria could equally have been John and Mary.
2. 1861, John and Maria, Had Michael and children lodging with them when he was widowed (between first and second wife), both also lived close to James and Margaret at the time.
3. 1881, Michael and second wife Winifred and family lived next-door-but-one to James and Margaret (may not be obvious from census as there was a yard full of houses in-between, but look at the numbering.  I think John and Maria Burke may have lived in the yard too but can't find that reference to hand.

I'll PM you the more detailed information now (up early as I was so excited I couldn't sleep properly!)

Sheila

[Christopher]

Thanks Dee,

Was it normal in Ireland to marry only in January, February and March at that time?  I always thought that marriages in Lenten time were frowned upon - not so in that parish it seems.

Hello DudleyWinchurch,

Shrove Tuesday was one of the most popular days for Irish marriages. The reasoning
behind this was that according to tradition, marriages could not take place during Lent.

http://irishfamilyhistory.ie/blog/?cat=23

Christopher

[DudleyWinchurch]

Looking at the records, I presume much of the register for the rest of 1851 was damaged and so unreadable.  The East Mayo transcriptions have marriages for January, February and March but almost none for the rest of the year in that Parish.

The record I was after, had actually been transcribed but so incoherently on the East Mayo site that I didn't recognise it.  Male name Caroline (which I took to be meant for Charles) is elsewhere transcribed as Jacobus (James that I was looking for) and as no attempt was made for the bride's surname, I had missed that as potentially the marriage I was seeking.

I had heard long ago that many parents encouraged children who were leaving (fleeing the famine) to marry before they left (if at all appropriate) so that they would not be alone.  Under the circumstances, maybe the lenten restrictions were not applied so harshly.

Despite their young ages, a bride of 17 and groom of 20, leaving Mayo soon after the wedding, and the tragically young deaths of almost half their children, my Great Grandparents marriage lasted approximately 60 years.

[DudleyWinchurch]

Maria was born in 1835 to James & Mary McDonough.  I have his dob as 1816 but there is no source reference.  I'll look through the info that I copied on Bilston to see if there is anything else that might resolve the issue.  I remember older family members saying that she insisted that she be called Maria.  Do you know Mary's maiden name?

Hi again Fcurran,

I have James as born 1830/1831 and Michael <1829> and there is a Thomas <1841>? too, who appears as godparent once (to one of Michael's children) and possibly as lodger with James and Margaret in 1871 (unclear image).   If they are all the same family, I would expect the father's date of birth to be at least a bit before 1816.

Unfortunately there are several James McDonoughs and several Bridget McDonoughs in Bilston about that time so it gets very dificult to work out who all the godparents are related to.

With all these links however, it seems unlikely that they were not related.
Sheila

[fcurran1]

To Sheila,
I have been busy and may seem inattentive but am excited to find a third cousin doing a lot of research on the same people that I am collecting info on.  You seem to be on a good course of discovery.

Let me address a few of the points that you raised.  I am in Tennessee now but was raised in Plains, Pennsylvania where John and Maria lived.  John was a coal miner, as he was in Bilston.  I haven't pinned him down in Ireland yet, but know it was County Mayo and have narrowed it to either Drum, Kiconduff or Westport.  Kilconduff makes some sense - it would mean that they knew each other before their marriage on March 5, 1854.  By the way, I have not been to Bilston and obtained  much of my information from The LDS Library in Salt Lake City.  I am fortunate to have a son who lives there.

I also believe that Maria, Michael and James were siblings.  Often, records just do not exist for births/baptisms and we are forced to rely on lesser proof.  They certainly acted like siblings.  The 1861 census showed Maria & Michael were next door neighbors. Bernard, Michael's son, lived with John & Maria in 1880 and worked in the Plains' mines.  John and Maria were godparents for the birth of Mary Ann Oliver McDonough, born 3/20/1859, and for the twins Caroline & Patrick, born 2/2/1863.  Forget the 1816 birthyear for the senior James. 

I don't know what "PM" means.  What do I have to do on my end?

John, Maria, Mary & Jane left for Pennsylvania in 1865.  Anne died in England, on April 21, 1862, of pneumonia.  Mary was my gm, but I never knew her.  She died on July 21, 1920.  (other dates: Maria died 3/31/1897, Jane April 19, 1910, all were in Plains.  I was born in April 1934, but had aunts who knew Maria.  John Burke died shortly after 1880 - there does not appear to be any record of his death, but his age in the 1880 census was in parentheses and his occupation was "none".)

You are right about there being other John & Mary Burkes in Bilston.  There was also John & Mary Kane Burke.  (But could Kane and Coyne be the same?) I do believe that a Mary or Maria may have "worked" at the church, since the name appears so often as a sponsor, with many different male godparents. 

The records that I hand-copied for Bilston - about 300 entries - were in English, as were the Burke records that I photocopied from the alpha listing.

[DudleyWinchurch]

This is great,

The Burkes were too difficult for me to trace forward, so I didn't know that they too had emigrated, so all of that is new.  I had found Michael and Winifred (I wonder if they had to lie about their ages as they were really over sixty when they went)  and a couple of their girls on the passenger lists but had not been successful in tracing them beyond there immediate destination.

I have done a lot of research at the Catholic archive in Birmingham as I have a son who lives close by.  I think that I have copies of all/most of the baptism records for all three families.  My transcriptions are a bit of a mixture, English for those I am reasonably sure of, but keeping Latin for those that seem to be ambiguous.  However, I am allowed to use a digital camera there so have copies of many records.  Recently I also found many family records in the Bilston cemetery films at Wolverhampton archives but if your family emigrated too then that explains why I did not find any of them.

To use the Private Message (PM) system - when you are logged in there should be a note by your name at the top of the page saying you have messages (I have already sent you a couple).  If you click on it it will take you to the Private Message system and you can read and reply.  It should be used for discussing anyone who may still be alive or for sending any personal information like exchanging email addresses.

Alternatively, while you are logged in you can just click on a user name and it will disclose any listed information about the user and give the option to click and send a PM.