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Connells of Offaly & Quebec

Offaly

I'm looking for information on my 3rd great-grandmother, Catherine Connell.

She was likely born around 1827, and 1851 Canada Census lists her as being from King's County, Ireland, which I understand to now be Offaly. My info is very limited, but I have been able to find a marriage record listing her parents as Michael Connell and Ann Hansley. The marriage was in 1847 in Quebec when she married a Michael McDermott so I know she emigrated in the summer of that year at the latest. The marriage also notes a sponsor, Ann Daly, as a 'friend of the bride' so she may have lived with or emigrated with members of the Daly family.

She also had at least 3 children whose names may or may not run in the family - Hugh, Edward Patrick, and Michael. The latest she shows up anywhere I've been able to find is the 1852 baptism of son Michael outside Ottawa in Ontario.

I know it's not much but unfortuantely I only have a 5 year window of her presence in the records to work with, so appreciate any input you might have. I checked the Griffiths Valuation in '38 and saw 3 possibles: Michael Connell in both Ballyegan and Cloniffeen and a Michael Connelly in Cloncollog. I didn't see anything that jumped out at me in Irish Roots, and not sure what a good next step is.

A translation of the marriage record is below:

September 21 1847, in the parish of Quebec Michael McDermott son of John McDermott and late Margaret McDermott and Catherine Cornell daughter of Michael Cornell and Ann Hansley, both from the parish of Quebec. Witness were Thomas McDermott friend of the groom and Ann Daly(?) friend of the bride.

Only Ann signed the others didnt know how to write.

tripstakepeopl…

1 reply

Hello, I searched your various surnames starting with Hansley and can find no reference to it at all, tried various spellings and the nearest I am aware of is Hanley which along with Daly are too numerous for an educated guess, you can use this site for limited searches but subscription after so many searches. https://www.johngrenham.com/surnames/ 

I do not understand your reference to 38, the tithes have entries to about 1838 but the Connell entries for Offaly are earlier, 1823 I think, found two Michaels in Griffiths, not a lot of Connells in Offaly, the years in question are 1851 and 1854, found no McDermott nearby, both Connell are in Parsonstown which is now Birr, and McDermott in Durrow, not far now but at the time a fair bit, about 32 miles, there are too many Daly names to even guess at. Griffiths was done from 1847 to 1864. 

I looked at registers NLI to get a handle on record start dates and at least one where there is a Michael Connell postdates your given birth year, this is the same for a number of parishes and if the earleir ones had the proper record you would have found it on Roots Ireland. https://registers.nli.ie/ is the known ones and I think Roots has some that are not on this site, you can only search by month and year and can be tricky read.

I answered a query receently on Offaly,am familiar with the geography there but not local history or books produced etc but this lady found someone to assist her, a relative on the County Offaly genealogy Facebook page, now these pages are private so apply, and those joining may not be in Offaly but you just might get lucky as Connell was not too common there in the records

Good Luck

Pat

St Peters LouthIrelandXO Volunteer

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