Cabin fever

Well I've been back in Bunclody since Thursday evening and I've hardly left the cottage. I went as far as the laundry room which is downstairs, but reached from outside. It's too damn cold and rainy and windy and nasty. I know, I know, it's not as bad as at home. But at least there I have the clothes for it. I would have to wear too many layers - which would not fit under my raincoat - in order to stay warm outdoors. And I have no mitts, my gloves being "good for above freezing" temperatures.

So - what to do in here to pass the time? Don't even ask. Genealogy of course. Well I did call a few friends at home. My cell roaming plan allows me to call Canada for free. Or rather, if I use the phone and pay the international roaming plan fee for the day, there is no additional charge for a call to Canada.

I still can't get many photos to upload from the little camera - still trying though. Leeds pics to come soon.

Tomorrow is promising to be sunny with a high of 10C, so Kathy Doyle and I are taking a little day trip to Castlecomer/Clogh area of Kilkenny. We will try to find the townlands that my ggg grandparents John Brennan and Ellen Walsh emigrated from. The townlands in question are Coolnaleen, Crutt and Clogh. I visited Clogh with Dad in 2008. We stopped in a shop and chatted briefly with the lady in charge. We were the only ones there. She asked the surname of the people we were researching. I asked her to guess and she said "Brennan". It's so common there that each family has a nickname to distinguish one from another. Sadly I don't know the nickname of my Brennans. Maybe I'll have more luck looking for the Walshs. Unlikely. In any case, we're sure to find a nice place for lunch.

Just now I got an email from Frank Keating and he and two siblings will be visiting the weekend of Feb 24th. Yay! I get to host somebody. Frank was a wonderful host and tour guide when Janet and I toured Ireland in 2015.

Genealogy alert:

I refer to a lot of ggg grandparents. You have two sets of grandparents, four sets of great grands,  eight sets of great great grands and sixteen sets of three greats. I know all of the great greats' names and where they are from, at least their country. I also know most of the names of the triple greats and that's about as far back as I can get on almost any line. I have the names of the gggg ones from Co. Laois - Fennell; and Kildare - Whelan; and from Tipperary - Loughnane and McGrath. I also have McGraths from Kilkenny - at least that is supposed to be where they come from.

I got all excited about nothing this evening. I took a break from working on a family tree of the Abrahams (not actually my ancestors), to change counties and go west to Tipperary. A ggg grandmother was Bridget Loughnane, daughter of John Loughnane and Bridget McGrath from Cabragh, a townland in Tipperary. Or at least that's according to her marriage certificate for the wedding to Jean Baptiste Hebert in 1832 in Quebec. While looking for the baptism of Bridget Loughnane, in records from Thurles parish in Tipperary, I thought I'd found the parents of Michael McGrath.

These records are not indexed at all, and not alphabetized. They are images from microfilm which you can narrow down by either Baptism or Marriage and by year and month to start your search. They are not typed, of course, but hand-written. I think the writers took calligraphy lessons from doctors writing prescriptions. They use abbreviations, odd script, and seem not to care where they insert capital letters. Spelling is more or less phonetic - and not necessarily how I would pronounce them. My Canadian pronunciation interferes greatly with understanding.

The first word, in this particular parish's records, around 1810, was the name of the child being baptised. Looking for "Bridget" I also had to include Biddy, Brid and other possible abbreviations. The record lists the father's occupation after his name, followed by the mother's name and possibly their townland, then the sponsors and maybe their townlands.

Visually grazing through the records, I found a record which I thought named William McGrath and Mary Maher as parents. These are the names of the parents of my gg grandfather Michael McGrath. He was supposed to be from Kilkenny, but both McGrath and Maher are Tipperary names. Quickly I did a screen capture and saved it in Evernote. Then I had a closer look. What I thought was "Mary Maher" was actually the occupation of William. The second word is "Maker" not Maher, but exactly what sort of 'maker' is still in doubt. There were lots of others with this same occupation. Is it Bronye maker? Brony maker? Broxy maker? Boory maker? nothing makes sense. This is what I took at first to be 'Mary Maher'. Rats!! The mother's name turned out to be Bridge Leany. If you are a hand-writing expert please contact me and I'll send the record for your amusement and opinion.

So, on I trolled, once again concentrating on the name Bridget. No sign has been found of her family although I do occasionally find the Loughnane name. I've never found them in records for Cabragh or Cabra. Rats! I will continue to scan the pages until I've covered several years before and after the year of her supposed birth. She moved to Quebec - alone or with her parents is unknown - and married in 1832. She died in 1835 at the age of 22. That would mean her birth was in 1813, maybe. When did she immigrate? The early censuses in Canada East (Quebec) are of heads of household. No Loughnanes - or any name starting with 'Lou' - to be found in 1825.

So, I'll get back to the Abraham's for a bit and then call it a day. I have a reason to be up and about early-ish tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the country. Who knows what route the GPS will lead us on and where we might end up.