Searching For Richard and Philip Heery
Richard Heery is my 3rd great grandfather, born in Ireland in around 1839. At some point he moved to Hartlepool, England, and we have his marriage certificate from 1870 there. He married Hannah Gleeson, and they had seven children. He worked as a labourer and lived in Hartlepool for the rest of his life, dying in 1911. On the marriage certificate, he names his father as Philip (and says that Philip is also a labourer), but we can find no records for a Philip Heery with a son called Richard at all. The English censuses don't say where in Ireland Richard was born, they literally just say Ireland, so we can't narrow down a place. We have found some baptism records for Richard with a father called Patrick, and Richard and Hannah's first son was called Patrick, so we are wondering if Philip is the right name? We don't seem to come across people called Philip often in 1800s Ireland. Also, often when we are searching on family tree websites, the sites seem to have a problem with the surname Heery and just come up with nothing at first. When records do appear they're often for people in County Cavan. Is Heery a rare surname, and does it come from County Cavan? We are very stuck, so any help would be really appreciated