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Daniel Higgins and Catherine Aylward

I'm searching for my great-grandfather, Daniel Higgins, who was married to his first wife Catherine Aylward. He was in New York State by the mid 1850s but I cannot track him down in Ireland. I am thinking he and Catherine married in Ireland, but I am still searching parishes where both family names exist and progress has been slow.  They may have married in the US, but I'm also tracking that down. In New York, they lived in Corning and after Catherine Aylward died, Daniel married my g-grandmother, Catherine Sally in Corning.

If anyone is researching these family names and has any suggestion, I'd appreciate it!

jrussell

2 replies

jrussell:

I searched on the subscription site Roots Ireland and did not locate a Daniel Higgins/Catherine Aylward marriage. I looked at surname distributions based on Griffiths Valuation date from the mid-19th century. One of our volunteers, Shane Wilson, has this site which provides the surname data by county based on Griffiths data  https://www.swilson.info/sdist.php ;  Higgins was a much more common surname than Aylward. The counties in Connaught province: Mayo, Galway, Sligo, Roscommon, Leitrim have the most Higgins records but there were Higgins in almost every other county.

The data for Aylward shows that Co. Kilkenny has the most Aylward records by far. I displayed the data for Aylward below but stopped at any county that had less than 10 Aylward households in the Griffiths. So I would start with Kilkenny for Catherine. Have you considered a DNA test? You may get matches on this line who have more info on the origins of the two families. My guess si that they married in America.

Roger McDonnell

Surname Distribution :aylward
(including 4 variations)
County
Number
Kilkenny 179
Waterford 23

Wexford 13
Carlow 10
Roscommon 10
Galway 10

 

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

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