identifying one out of many

woody1

ok so ive got my great grandfather nailed down in the 1911 census,patrick brien living with his wife alice conroy in duleek with my grandad and his sister
and possibly even in the 1901 but where i cant make any headway is going back any further than that..
the 1911 census says he was born in monaghan , at age 30 in 1911 thats 1880 approx, needless to say theres more than 1 patrick brien in monaghan at this time, especially given that ages in the census are a little bit unacurate to say the least..
i dont have parents names, or siblings names,
whats the best way to look, try to get a marriage cert for patrick o brien and alice conroy and see if theres any detail on that, any chance therel be mothers name or even just maiden name..
where to look, local church ? national library or whats the best place..
any other ideas are very welcome..
nothing showing up online re marriage cert anyway

pinkypinky

Hi Woody,

The next step is most definitely to find their marriage cert. This will give you both fathers' names, and their addresses at the time of the marriage, which is often (but not always) their parents' home. From the census, you should already have an approximate year of marriage (but do not get too hung up on it, even young people could and were wrong about ages and dates).

Have a read of our sticky to get the details of how to search for marriage certs on family search.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056388162

shanew

census shows them married 6 years, so c1906. Patrick was born Monaghan and Alice and all the children born in Meath - so Co. Meath is the first place to search for a marriage, followed by Monaghan and neighboring counties if that doesn't work out.

Start the search on the BMD Index on FamilySearch with the least common name - in this case Alice. There are just two Alice Conroy marriage between 1903-1907, one of which is in Clonmel district, so unlikely. The other on is in Drogheda district, so Co. Louth or Meath.

name: Alice Conroy
registration district: Drogheda
event type: Marriage
quarter and year: Apr - Jun 1905
volume: 2 / page: 441
see : https://www.familysearch.org/search/records/index#count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Aalice~%20%2Bsurname%3Aconroy~%20%2Bmarriage_year%3A1903-1907~&collection_id=1408347

you can then search for a possible cross match for Patrick, by fine tuning the search to just 1905 and Drogheda district - there's just one result, and it's a match - i.e. the district, year/quarter, volume & page numbers are the same, which means both those names appear on the same register page, so possibly married.

see : https://www.familysearch.org/search/records/index#count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Apatrick~%20%2Bsurname%3Abrien~%20%2Bmarriage_place%3ADrogheda%20%2Bmarriage_year%3A1905-1905&collection_id=1408347

You can use the references to order a research cert from the GRO by post - www.groireland.ie


Shane

shanew

dont know if you already have this ... Alice, with her brother and their parents in 1901 at the same townland as your Brien couple were in 1911 : http://census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Meath/Duleek/Commons/1609214/

and Alice's parents and siblings nearby in 1911 : http://census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Meath/Duleek/Commons/709405/

Following the Conroys.... there's a possible birth match for one of the sons in the extracted civil record collection on FamilySearch that looks promising. Parents Patrick Conroy and Elizabeth Mallon. The district is Duleek so that fits - see : https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FPYZ-SGZ



Shane

woody1

thanks shane
yeah i had the other information re the conroys, but thanks for looking into it anyway,
theres also a patrick brien on the 1911 census as a farm servant in a nearby townland, but theres so many patrick briens in this area, even now ( theres 6 families in about a 500 yard radius ) that even though the age is right, its impossible to confirm..
thats the problem with such a common name..
hopefully i can get a marriage cert now and see if theres any more detail on it..

woody1

following up on the conroy-mallon side of things
i have marriage details from the irish family history site
for elisabeth mallon marrying a patrick connor in 1869,
since i dont think that elisabeth mallon is likely to be
a common name in duleek , ( mallon wouldnt be common
at all ) , can i take it with a fair degree of certainty that
its a mistake in transcription, richard conroy born 1871 so it
wouldnt be far off in terms of dates id imagine..
cant find anything to match it on the family search

woody1

another query,
on a different line of the family,
ive got my great grandads birth on the rootsireland site,
its definite because it has a note as to who he married
so i have his parents names, and ive checked for his siblings
and the same 2 parents are there, so its correct
would an actual birth certificate have a mothers maiden
name on it, were talking 1880, 1874 and 1879 here,
parents dissapear by the census,
siblings living in a house on their own,

pinkypinky

Yes, mother's maiden name is always on a civil cert. Usually Catholic registers include it too but almost never on COI.

woody1

thanks ..and sorry for asking the dumb question without searching, found the answer quick enough after doing a search,

woody1

so i got marriage cert for patrick o brien and alice conroy, in the hope that it would have some mention of patrick o briens mother on it, but no joy..
so im kind of stuck now..
there are at least 3 patrick briens in the age range born in monaghan , 2 are dead on 1880 and one is 1875, this is just rootsireland, there may be more
any ideas on how to progress.. this is the one section of my family tree that im making no headway on at all

woody1

well having temporarily switched off my brain for a day or 2 , it seems things are clearer ( and yet again still not clear ) than i thought, of course the marriage cert i obtained has my great grandfathers fathers name, which is again patrick ( which i didnt know ) doh !
so i use this to rule out the 3 patricks i have online from roots ireland as none of their fathers are patrick, and it seems within a 10 year window, 1875 - 1885 there are no patrick o brien/brien born to a father patrick o brien in monaghan,
there is one on the census for 1901 living in rural carrickmacross, 17 in 1901, father patrick and mother rose,
and one on family search , patrick born carrickmacross 1880 ( which is dead on ) but of course the index gives no idea of a fathers name...
is there any way i can cross reference without buying the cert, anyone have any ideas

pinkypinky

Nope, not without another record set like parish registers.

shanew

have you checked the extracted collection on FamilySearch ?

this includes quite a few birth details up to about 1880 - and includes parents names. There's often a page reference number included, sometimes in the address, which you can use to locate the full index record.



S.

shanew

parents for that Patrick are - Terence O'Brien & Ann Mckenna

(Patrick O'Brien/Carrickmacross/Birth/Jan-Mar 1880/v2/p471)

see:

Index Record : https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FB77-XPV
Extracted Record : https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FGXJ-2X8
(see the volume and page numbers on last line of the extracted record)

S.

woody1

thanks.
didnt know i could do that
that rules him out too,
ok back to the drawing board,
off to chat with older relatives and see
what can be learned, did this before
with no results but will have to
try again ..

woody1

got him !
patrick bryan born 1880
to patrick bryan and sarah agar /egar
cavan monaghan

makes sense as my grandads 2nd sister is sarah - after his dads mum
1st is elizabeth after his mums mum
and third is alice after his mum

and more significantly there was a bit of chat about a sally egar visiting my grandad when he was younger , funny enough people didnt seem to appreciate that she was a relative..

so thats that nailed down finally, of course i cant find marriage details for egar/ agar and bryan but at this stage im not overly bothered about it

pinkypinky

Try Eager as a spelling variant as well. I know someone from out that direction with that surname.

woody1

tried it, got a sarah eager born in the 1830s, but no marriage with a bryan brien o brien ,
rootsireland had it as eagan, tried that as well,

woody1

making more headway with this since here last
now whos bothering me is the elusive sarah eagar.. elusive as in i cant find a birth record for her..
but
i have her marriage, death, birth record for her 3 children, and i have her mentioned on a susan eagars childs birth record as a witness in the same part of cavan that she had one of her own children in..

on her marriage cert it says that her father is william and is a land agent
on a birth cert for susan eagar in meath her father is william and is a steward ( another word for agent )
sarah brien ( eagar ) on the census in 1901 says shes born in meath
a william eagar is present at the birth of my great grandfather in cavan

so what im asking is do you think i have enough information here to positively identify susan eagars parents in meath in 1859 as the parents of sarah eagar as well...

susan eagars civil birth record has her down as church of ireland born in meath but registered in drogheda, anyone have any idea of what churches to contact to try for church birth records, im going to try st peters in drogheda for a start..any other ideas