Seeking help tracing Mills family – St Peter’s Parish, Dublin (mid-1800s)

St. Peter's Church of Ireland is a large parish located South of the Liffey and covers parts of south city and also parts of county Dublin (at the time).

The parish Church was on Aungier street.

The other streets are the opposite side of the city, i.e. Northside, with Henrietta Street split between St. Michan and St. Mary's parish and Mountjoy Square in the parish of St. George

I've marked approx. location of each on the map image below :

St. Peter's CofI - Red

Henrietta Street - Blue

Mountjoy Square - Green

The distance from Mountjoy Square to Aungier Street and St. Peter's is about 2km (~1.25 miles) as the crow flies.

In Thom's 1852 directory the occupants of 1 Mountjoy Square East are John Fenton Esq., principle householder, along with a Trevor Alexander Fenton - possibly the family that your George Mill was employed by. The same directory shows that the householder at 6 Hennrietta Street was a Charles Geoghegan a solicitor - the street is adjacent to King's Inn and later many of the formerly grand houses became tenements..

You can view the full map here (right click and select open link in new window or tab).

Message from Andrew Fest:

Hello,

Thank you for the responses so far on the message board.

I am currently gathering and organizing the supporting records (baptisms, marriage records, and emigration data) and will upload them as soon as possible. I wanted to share this update by email as I’ve been unable to post the reply from my mobile device.

I appreciate any guidance in the meantime.

Kind regards,

Andrew Bryce Fest

See below for a map of St. Peter's Civil parish boundary overlayed on a modern map from the townlands.ie website, this uses Openstreetmaps (OSM) as it's basis. You can also view the other parishes on the same website - see this link : https://www.townlands.ie/dublin/ (right click and open link in new tab/window or copy link) scroll down for the civil parishes, in many cases these are the same as the Church of Ireland Parishes.

St. Peter's Civil Parish - OSM/Townlands.ie

It looks like your Mills/Smyth family moved around quite a bit, possibly related to the occupation of George - married at St. Peter's South city/county giving residences at Pembroke Place and Herbert Street which are to the east of the city - but just inside St. Peter's CofI parish. Giving residences at Henrietta Street and Mountjoy square "North side" at the time of children's baptisms…

Thom's 1880 map - St. Peter's CofI Church (red), Herbert Street (blue)

I looked into the residences for George and Catherine at the time of their marriage - 3 Herbert St. for George is off Baggot Street Lower in the east of the south city, in 1840 (Pettigrew & Oulton) the principle occupant is listed as a Joseph Kincaid esq., he is listed as a land agent in later directories. The houses on this street consist of a terrace of large red-brick houses with 4 stories over a basement/kitchen level - probably large enough for servant quarters on the top floor. Catherine's address at 15 Pembroke place is nearby and the householder is listed as Lord Viscount Netterville.

Working back on the Mills side without some further clues could be difficult as George snr. will probably not be included in directories or land records as he likely lived in accommodation provided by his employer. The Smyth side is probably a better option for further searches a) the bride's father is a farmer so likely to have held or leased some land, and b) he has an uncommon name , Nataniel - although it's uncertain at this point that he was alive at the time of marriage. Nathaniel is not likely to have been a farmer in the area of the marriage as it was built up even back then. A check of Griffith's primary Valuation records shows under 20 possible matches for him, but none in or even near Dublin city - most in Co. Cork, some in Co. Antrim followed by Co. Cavan Co. Waterford and Co. Kerry , these date from 1853/56/60.

Two possible further clues on the marriage records are the witnesses - Herbert Smyth and Elizabeth Smyth, likely relations of the bride … possibly siblings ..