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Brennan Clan County Sligo

I am looking for my great great grandfather, Martin Brennan born 1832 County Sligo.  There could be a connection to Tobercurry as I have had information over the past few years from  Brennans in and around the area but none with a direct line to my Martin Brennan. I have no information about his parents, siblings etc.  Martin Brennan arrived in Australia between 1853 and 1855 and married Mary Cahill, also from Ireland, in Adelaide, South Australia in January 1856.  Have not found a ship's record of his arrival.  Martin was a policeman/detective in the South Australian Police Force from 1861 to 1869.  He died aged 39 years in Adelaide in 1871 and it is from the hospital records I found the information stating he was from Sligo, Ireland.  Any information would be appreciated.  PCD  Australia

pamd7@bigpond.com

3 replies

P C D:

Brennan is a common surname in Co. Sligo. There were 280 Brennan households listed in the 1858 Griffiths Valuation head of household listing.

If your Martin was from Tobercurry then his baptismal records would not be available since church records for the area start much later than 1832.

I did search the subscription site Roots Ireland in Co. Sligo for the years 1827-1837 and there were no Martin Brennan baptismal records available.

Since you do not have any info on parents or siblings, you may want to consider taking a DNA test.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Roger McDonnell

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Hi Roger, 

Thank you for the quick reply  That was terrific!  I did a DNA test in 2018 with Ancestry after I found a Brennan from Sydney, Australia with a few similar Brennan family members and we visited South Australia in 2019 to research our Brennan Clan . This male Brennan had different parents for his great grandfather (my great granmother's brother) but I was able to convince him, with documents, photos and both of our long gathered information, that our families descended from Martin Brennan and Mary Cahill.  Sadly Ancestry does not show us as cousins but Gedmatch and many distant matches on Ancestry prove we are indeed Brennan cousins. He had a trip planned to Ireland in 2020 but due to the pandemic he does not see a trip happening for sometime. I know it is very difficult to find documents from Ireland going back to the time of my Martin Brennan's birth.  I have not found any birth/baptismal info. on Martin's wife, Mary Cahill, born 1836 Ireland and only have her father's name, John Cahill, which was listed on her 2nd marriage certificate in Adelaide, South Australia 1882. I am hoping I might find some further information from other Brennan families on this wonderful site. 

Cheers from Australia,

PCD (Pamela)

pamd7@bigpond.com

Pamela:

If you go to our main message board page, you can search for all Brennan messages. As you would expect, there is quite a few. I would page thru and look for the ones which involve Co. Sligo. Possibly you might see a connection. FYI. My mother was a Brennan. Her family came from near Lifford town in Co. Donegal.

I also did a search for Mary Cahill baptismal records on Roots Ireland where the father was John. I searched for the years 1831-1841 for all of Ireland. There were 54 records.

Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

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