Searching for Malachy Cox - please help!

Rel,

You wrote, "I only discovered his name on his son's birth certificate"....did you mean his marriage record that you attached? I looked at the Malachy Cox in Roscommon, and it appears that he only had the one daughter Kate. My Cox relations are also from Roscommon...Ballymagrine to be specific, but I cannot find John William's birth. Are you sure he was born in Ireland? Perhaps his father went to England, and he was born there. The Irish civil records should have a record of him around 1918, but I could not locate one anywhere in Ireland.

Regards,

Thank you both so much for your replies. Yes, I mistyped, I did indeed mean I discovered his name on the marriage certificate - apologies. I shall look into your suggestions - I really appreciate the help! I'll get back to searching. Many thanks! :)

Rel,

This might seem a bit of a long shot, but I thought I would run it by you. I looked for the birth of a Malachy Cox between 1870 & 1890 in all of Ireland, and only two came up. One born in 1870 with a father George, and that Malachy married Ellen with the daughter Kate. The other Malachy was born in 1888, also in Strokestown civil district, Roscommon. He was employed in the RIC, and lived in Dublin, Cork, married in Sligo in 1920, then died in Belfast, Antrim. His tree is well documented on Ancestry as the McColl family tree by Brendan Heading. If you are on Ancestry, take a look. This Malachy's parents were Patrick Cox and Kate Walsh. He was one of 11 siblings with two siblings named John and William...maybe a coincidence? Could it be that John William was born out of wedlock prior to his 1920 marriage and his birth never registered civilly? There are 8 children of his listed on Ancestry with his wife Philomena.

You never mentioned whether or not John William had siblings or what his mother's name was. Is John William still alive to ask him these questions?

Regards,

Thank you for looking that up for me. Unfortunately, John William died in the 1960s. His daughter is alive but will not talk about anything related to her family. We know nothing apart from him apparently coming from County Antrim, however, I'm becoming inclined to believe that he is from one of those two families you mentioned from County Roscommon. Unfortunately, we don't know about siblings either. I had the same idea that perhaps John was born out of wedlock. He certainly doesn't seem to be on any official records. However, I have found a potential school record of him aged four, which gives a date of birth and address, although searching with those details hasn't yielded any further results either (file attached, he's mentioned near the bottom left.)

I am on Ancestry, I'll look again at those family trees. Someone else suggested that perhaps John was the son of the Kate Cox you mentioned and that he gave his grandfather's name on his marriage certificate because he was born out of wedlock. I hadn't realised that was something that was done back then. Kate did marry but between leaving school and marrying there is certainly enough time for her to have had a child.

There are so many unanswered questions and a lot of what-ifs!

Hi,

I was not saying that Malachy was his grandfather...I thought that maybe Malachy fathered a child prior to his 1920 marriage to Philomena.

Anyhow, I was very interested in the school record document because while I mentioned that my Cox relatives were from Ballymagrine, Tarmonbarry, Roscommon; my Regan line is from the RC parish of Cootehall (Ardcarn, Tumna), Roscommon. My Cox and Regan ancestors met and married in the SF Bay area, but the Regans were from Loughil (Laphoil), Cootehall. The two names above John Cox's on that school record could be my Regan family....there were tons of them, and I am still sorting it all out.

I looked on the irishgenealogy.ie site for the two Regan boys, and they are there...the civil registration district is Carrick-on-Shannon, but when I looked for John Cox in that same district, there was no record. It says he was from the town land of Foxhill, and the 1911 census records have two Cox families in houses 1 & 2. Of course, this is prior to his birth, but it gives you the idea of their names. In house 1, the head of the house is William Cox with his wife and children. House number 2 is John Cox, his wife Margaret Mary, and brother. Patrick.

However, the records I mentioned before about Malachy Cox are from the RC parish of Strokestown which is adjacent to Tarmonbarry This school record you found for John is from a parish much further north in the parish of Cootehall, so I think you have to concentrate on one or the other. With no Malachys found in Cootehall records, I'd stick with the Strokestown Cox family. If you are unfamiliar with the RC parish locations, the site johngrenham.com shows you where in relation they are to one another. You can search a few times before the pay wall comes up. Once on the site, go to browse, maps, RC parishes, then select the county.

Regards,