French with Irish ancestry

Gradevole

Hello world!

My name is Kevin and I'm a young Frenchman.

Actually, it turns out I do have Irish ancestry, which can be traced back to the time of the French Revolution. How did that happen? The context is real simple; Great Britain and France were at war and in 1796, an Irish prisoner of war ended up marrying a French woman, even though he did not speak French.

His name was Jean BURNE (or most likely John BURNE), a weaver born in Dublin on 29 April 1769, son of Jean (John) BURNE and Marguerite (Margaret) CRAMBEL. Because of the context back then, no birth certificate was provided by John and his parents were not present either, all we know is that they were still living in Dublin. It is also very likely that the last name of John's mother is incorrectly spelled. Obviously, all these informations have been given orally by John. Last but not least, I do not know if John was Catholic or not since this point isn't mentionned at all in his marriage certificate.

I have been searching for his records mostly on Irish Genealogy.ie, but without success.

NB: Interestingly, his name changes and becomes Charles BURNE on the birth certificate of his children. Later on, his last name was spelled as BURN.

If you have any tip or advice that would help me find his birth certificate, that would be greatly appreciated. This subject is important to me!

cobham

Welcome to the group! I am actually a 'Burns' by marriage and it is a Scottish name originally and a lot in the north of Ireland and from where my father in law came from. The more common spelling is Byrne and that is associated with certain parts of the country. John Grenham's website does a good map showing the distribution of surnames throughout the country.

55Gem

There are no birth certificates in Ireland before 1864, you need to find his baptism.

Sadly looking on Irish Genealogy at church records in the mid 1700s I didn’t see any mothers maiden names recorded, also Irish Genealogy don’t have all the RC parish records for Dublin. Most can be found on NLI https://registers.nli.ie/ but not searchable by name, Ancestry have a free search but it has limitations, if you see a possible record you can than hopefully use NLI to view it.

You should also consider the spelling Byrne, and looking for the parent’s marriage which will of course have Margaret’s surname.

Many COI records were lost in a fire in the Public Records Office in 1922 during the Civil War.

What survive is listed here https://www.ireland.anglican.org/cmsfiles/pdf/AboutUs/library/registers/ParishRegisters/PARISHREGISTERS.pdf

They are working on putting them online but there is no date yet.

In practice Catholics were recruited into the British Army from about 1750 but the law banning Catholics wasn’t rescinded until 1793 in Ireland.

Good Luck with your search.

Elwyn

You say that the mother’s surname CRAMBEL is probably incorrectly spelled. I’d agree with that (though spelling did vary a lot in Ireland so you often come across multiple spellings of surnames). 

That said, I looked at the 1901 Irish census and there wasn’t a single person named CRAMBEL/CRAMBLE in the country then so it does seem unlikely to be correct. The name that springs to mind that it might be is CAMPBELL. That’s a fairly common name (over 14,000 in the 1901 census. 841 in Co Dublin). I cannot say the name was definitely CAMPBELL but it’s a possibility.

pinkypinky

How exciting to be able to trace back that far. It's not possible for a lot of Irish people.

Agree that Byrne is the most likely spelling, and that probably means he was a Catholic. Byrne is a very common eastcoast surname.

Campbell is a good possibility for the mother's birth name.

Gradevole

Hello,

Thank you so much for your answers.

If I understand well, I must seriously consider the fact that both names (Burne and Crambell) are incorrect or simply don't exist. I know that back then in France, the names were written according to how they sounded like to the ears of French people. But even so, it shouldn't be difficult to find the baptism certificate of John since we know when he was born? However, it is true we do not know in which church he has been baptized.

I have been lucky because most online archives have been well preserved in France. But when I saw the name of my great-great-great-great-grandmother, Anaïs Caroline Burn (born in Paris in 1831), it came to my mind that this surname didn't sound French at all. That's how I found out that her grandfather was this Irish prisoner of war, John.

pinkypinky

You need to consider that spelling is very flexible in the past, not that the names are definitely wrong. We would consider Byrne and Burn/e the same name, particularly when said in a Dublin accent.

However, records in Ireland are not as comprehensive in the 18th century as France's. It's entirely possible that he would not have a baptismal record. At the time he was born, the Penal Laws were only beginning to be loosened. These laws meant that Catholics could not openly practice their religion. This translates to not keep records on paper.

It would be a good idea for you to read some contextual history about Ireland in the late 18th century, which will help you understand better.

Mick Tator

Ireland does not have the same record system as France – we do not and never had what is known in France as a ‘Livret de Famille’.

In Ireland until the late 1800s the Protestant ‘Church of Ireland’ was the Established [official] religion so there was no official requirement on the Catholic Church to keep records and the State only started to issue certificates in the 1860’s.

Have you looked for a church marriage certificate for son Jean? Do you know which Departement?  Most are available online. It might add to the info from the Mairie.

If your ancestor was an officer he was Protestant as only those of that faith could hold a commission. If he was a soldier, he could be either Catholic or Protestant.

Several Dublin Catholic church records exist from the 1700s, as some parishes maintained and guarded their records ( for example proof of baptism is required for a marriage in a Catholic church.)

Also, the weavers had their own Guild [Confrérie] and it would be worth checking those records for John/Jean’s father.

There are some Dublin records available for Burn/variants here

As others have said above, you are very lucky to trace back to mid-1700s, a date impossible for most Irish people.