Richard Dowd 1814 Mullingar/High Park

[shanew147]

If the Richard's family were Church of Ireland and he was born in Mullingar town or parish then it does not look promising for parish records as the only historic records listed that I see reference to are for marriages only, and for much later years (1840s) ...

I'll see if I can find where High Park is located in relation to Mullingar, in case that's a different parish.

RC records for the parish of Mullingar go back much further and partial transcriptions of these are available on the pay-website of the Irish Family history Foundation at www.irish-roots.ie


Shane

[shanew147]

There's a townland named Highpark about 12km east of Mullingar that may fit the location described. see google map : Mullingar to Highpark

It's in a different Church of Ireland parish - Killucan, and early records do seem to survive for this parish : Baptisms from 1696, Marriages from 1787, and Burials from 1700

These are available to view in the Representative Church body Library in Dublin. Unfortunately they dont seem to be included on on the IFHF website.

just looking at this a bit more -I'm not sure that parish is the correct one as it seems to be in a different part of the county and to the east of Mullingar, rather than the west where Highpark is... I will investigate this further...




Shane

[atticus]

Thank you Shane for your time and help, it really is appreciated.

Atticus

[shanew147]

The area indicated on modern google maps as Highpark does not seem to appear on the 1st edition OSI maps (1820s,1840s) but is near to a distinctive kink in the nearby canal - see :

  modern google map showing Highpark
  1st edition map showing Highpark (click historic or historic bw to see the old maps)

There seems to be two possible townlands that could fit the location, if the the modern location is the same ...

 Balroe, in the civil parish Kilbixy
 Kildallan North, civil parish Templeoran

There's no sign of any surviving CofI records for the parish of parish Templeoran, but records do seem to have survived for Kilbixy, but only from 1815 for baptisms, 1815 for marriage, and appear to be kept in local custody. The RCB Library just have marriages from 1848. Unfortunately these do not seem to be available online at the moment.


Shane

[atticus]

Thank you again. It was so interesting seeing how close the two places Highpark and Mullingar are to each other, which tallies with the seaman's ticket locations. Looking at Kilbixy there seem to be a lot of Dowds there, I am not sure how poplar the name Dowd is in Ireland. You say the records look like they are kept in local custody, does that mean at a record office ?

Atticus

[shanew147]

In this case local custody means the parish church... I'll see if the location of parish church of Kilbixy is mentioned in any listings etc

Dowd is quite common - probably more frequent in counties Galway and Kerry
variants and equivalents include O'Dowd and Doody


Shane

[shanew147]

there's some details of the parish of Kilbixy included in the 1837 Topographical Dictionary of Ireland by Samuel Lewis. see : http://www.libraryireland.com/topog/k.php

The town at the center of the parish appears to be Ballinacargy ..which is spelt as Ballynacargy on modern maps and just 4km north west of the location labeled Highpark. see Highpark to Ballynacargy

There's an entry for the town on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballynacargy - I dont see any mentioned of a CofI church in that article, but it might be worth following that up..


Shane

[J Melia]

I have just found a Dowd in my family tree I still need to find his first name(poss richard) but he married my Grandfather's Sister Mary Melia from Mullinghar, West Meath.