Hello again. Six years after my initial enquiry, I am in Ireland and still searching for John Burke of Bruff and his wife Mary Dundon. I am now quite certain that they are the couple who were married in Charleville in 1835 as my family has been able to establish DNA links to that Dundon family in Charleville, including siblings of that Mary Dundon.
The Burkes of Bruff however are still a mystery. My siblings and I seem to have a lot of Burke DNA matches all over Limerick, Kerry and Tipperary, but they don’t seem to connect.
We know that John and Mary had a son Edmund who was baptised in Charleville in 1837, but the family then disappears from the records. My great grandfather William Joseph Bourke claimed on his marriage certificate that he was born in London in 1851, but his death certificate said that he was born in Bruff. The family only knew of him having come from Bruff. They were told that he had to be whisked away out of Ireland in a hurry in the late 1860s after getting into trouble in an uprising against the British and that he then changed the spelling of his surname from Burke to Bourke. It may be that he also then invented the story of having been born in London.
But I haven’t been able to trace any records of him in Bruff or in London. I have searched the online Bruff records, but can’t find a baptism entry for William between 1849 and 1853. I’ve also searched for his father John between 1808 and 1816, but there are six John Burkes baptised at Bruff in that period. It is entirely possible that I have missed something in the records, but I find the writing particularly difficult to decipher.
Does anyone have any suggestions? I am in the area until 12 September and am happy to go and look at any records that are available.
Regards
Paula
