Hello, Looking for help with trying to find parish, placename and county to research my Great Great Grandmother Mary McMahon. I found the baptism information below on Ancestory.com. The birth year is correct, parents names are correct, so I am hopeful the baptism place may be their parish. Any help is much appreciated.
Thank you!
Liz,
Kilcornan is on the road to Askeaton from Limerick City and according to the attached records she was baptised in that village.
Regards,
Liz,
Some information on the area of Kilcornan.
Happy St. Patrick's Day
Regards,
Thank you McCoy!
For further research on the McMahon family, I would assume that Limerick is the county and the parish is Kilcornan?
Do I need a place name as well? If so, how can I find that.
I appreciate your help as I am new to this process.
Thanks,
Liz
Liz,
Unable to find a marriage record for Michael McMahon and Johanna Griffin.
I did find baptisms for - John on January 10th 1841. Sponsors: Thomas Rourke and Hana Gibbons;
Michael - on October 10th 1843. Sponsors: John Fitzgibbon and Bridget Bourke;
Those baptisms were in Kilcornan. No address recorded for the family.
Baptism of Patrick McMahon in Croagh on June 14th 1846. Sponsors: Denis Hayes and Ellen Hayes.
No family address.
Details of Croagh attached.
Best Wishes,
Thank you so much for taking the time to look for other information on my McMahon family!
I appreciate the detailed information you provided.
Regards,
Kilcornan is the name of both a civil parish (which developed into an administrative district) and a Catholic parish. The boundaries of the two types of parishes do not always coincide, but in this case they appear to be roughly the same.
You can search the parish register for the Catholic parish online here: https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0874
You can see a map and some more info about Kilcorrnan at this link: https://www.logainm.ie/en/1556/
Further information is normally available at this link: https://www.townlands.ie/limerick/ but that link is not working at the moment (it stops working from time to time).
Croagh is not in the parish of Kilcornan, but is a bit further south (as you can see from the interactive map at the parish register site mentioned above), so perhaps the family moved at some point. The time period discussed above was just before and also during the famine, and people did move around then.
Croagh is also the name of both a civil parish and a Catholic parish with roughly the same boundaries, as well as a townland within those parishes. Townlands are the basic address unit in most rural locations, and that is the location usually given in a baptismal record, though marriage records often omit it. Townlands varied in size and in the number of residents (which gradually declined in most cases, as the famine and emigration took their toll). Note that the anglicized version of a townland name may have changed over time, since the priest or official was trying to write the Irish name in a way which he thought represented its sound (or its meaning, in some cases). The spellings (and even the boundaries, in some cases) were not standardized until the late 1800's.
You can search the parish register for Croagh at this link: https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0880
And you can see a map and more info about the townland of Croagh at this link: https://www.logainm.ie/en/32048
and also at the townlands.ie site mentioned above, when it is working.
Thank you Kevin!
Living in the USA, I am trying to wrap my head around they way information is set up and obtained in Ireland.
My Great Grandmother X2 is Mary McMahon (born 1838) who came to the USA at around 16 yeas of age (approximately 1854). The story she recalled to my Grandfather was that she came by herself as a young girl on a steamer around Cape Horn. She was sponsored via the Catholic Church by a family in San Francisco, California by the name of Riordan. She stayed with this family in San Francisco for a short time and then made her way to Chinese Camp (Tuolumne County) where the gold rush was underway. Does that mean they paid for her voyage?
I am trying to find further information on her family (McMahon) and assume her parents were either dead due to the famine, or stayed in Ireland. My grandfather recalls Mary stating she had a brother, James McMahon (born approximately 1836) who came to California and lived with them for a time, and another brother, John McMahon but she did not know what happened to him.
My Great Grandfather X2 is Thomas Smith (born 1824) and came to the USA via Elis Island in New York by ship, signed up with General Fremont and came west, across the plains with him ( I don't know the year but the range is 1840 - 1855). I assume he was born in County Monaghan Ireland as his grave marker states a "Native of County Monaghan Ireland". During the gold rush mining was big in the west and Thomas ended up at Chinese Camp (Tuolumne County). That is where he and Mary met and married in around 1858. Thomas had two brothers that came to the USA, Michael Smith and James Smith.
I am going to start researching Thomas Smith in County Monaghan, but I don't have much to go on.
Thank you again!
Respectfully,