Two for two

Genealogy alert

No fun travel or pictures and if you don't have any interest in my digging up family roots - and why on earth would you - then enjoy your day.

I mailed two letters, on Tuesday, to folks I hoped would be able to provide some information on a connection. Kudos to the Irish postal system. Both were delivered the next day. The 2 Euro investment in stamps has paid off. They were written McDonalds in Bohermore, Co Carlow and Kehoes in Corragh, Co Wexford. Figuring that a letter is non-intrusive and would not compel anyone to reply, I tried that route.

I am batting two for two. Yesterday I spoke with Andy Kehoe, from Corragh, and it seems likely that is the right family. It will be a while but hopefully his children will take the time around Christmas to send the information. Andy doesn't use computers. I did call Mary Mackey, the historian from Gorey whose name and number Andy gave me.

Mary is a human historical encyclopedia. She is connected to the same Kehoes and seems to know more than most books I've consulted. We set up a date for this afternoon at the Bookshop Cafe in Gorey. Parking will be a nightmare but I'll leave early. Apparently Gorey is a shopper's paradise so I'll have a wander about. 

I spent considerable time browsing church records for parishes surrounding Clonegal, hoping to find the marriage of Arthur Byrne and Eliza Kehoe. Brides always, well nearly always, married in the parish of their family and she was not necessarily from Clonegal. However, if she was from Corragh, then Clonegal would have been the parish. The records started in 1833 when they already had five children. I do have the baptisms of the youngest four. Among those were the Kehoe sponsors, Owen and Martin. That is my link. 

Art and Eliza's son Edward, my great great grandfather, had a son named Martin. They must have got the name from a family connection as that is how names were chosen back then. It's a small link but it's there. Sadly, Martin must have died as a young child because while he was baptised in 1876, he was not in the 1881 census. Deaths were not necessarily noted in church records. I will have to consult the Archives of Ontario for this one. But I digress.

This morning I had a phone call from a neighbour of the Bohermore letter recipient. Denis said that the McDonald I wrote to "married into that land" so is not related. The name just happens to match. However, Denis is connected to McDonalds who are no longer there. It seems from what he can remember, that several of them had no children or didn't marry or moved out of the county and they are all long gone. There is a ruin of the McDonald home on the townland.  Now I must decide if I want to go and see it. I'll wait until the weather improves - today shows little promise at the moment. 

Denis is also going to consult with his mother to see if she knows anything. I am considering the idea of meeting him for a cup of coffee (likely tea for him) as his accent is a bit difficult for me to understand over the phone. He did call back but must have been outside in the wind so I couldn't make out what he was saying and the call got disconnected.

So - here I sit with the least tasty cup of coffee I've ever made, pondering how to organize the day. So many random thoughts floating around in the empty space where my brain should be. First order of business - dispose of the coffee.

Did I mention that I'm going to Glasnevin on Monday with Mary Gilsenan? We'll take the tour and then I'll try to find the grave of Arthur Byrne and his wife Bridget Corcoran. I have the record and grave ID from the cemetery. I'll also see if I can find that of their infant son Michael who lived only two weeks and died a few months before his father. Both Arthur and Bridget were only in their 30s when they died. He was felled by heart disease and she succumbed to bronchitis. The street where they lived with her family, is no longer there so I can't visit. Then again - I wonder if it just has a different name. I guess it's time to get online with the old OSI maps and try to overlay it on the modern version.