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William Tunny, County Mayo

Mayo

I have been trying to track William's origins and also his first marriage.

William fetches up in the English 1841 census with (I presume) his second wife Honour, and his two daughters from his first marriage, Mary (1837ish) and Margaret (1838).

By the census recorder, the children were English born (I have not found their baptismal record). N on the census normally meant native of the county at least, and I have seen recorded the county of origin if persons were not of the county where the census was being taken.

William lived out the rest of his life in Bilston, Staffordshire, which appears to be quite a gathering spot for Irish of the diaspora.

His occupation was a basket maker.

His children by his wife, Honour (nee Flinn), were William (1844) and Bridget (1847). Sadly Bridget passes away in 1852, three years after her mother.

William's third wife (1850) is another Irish woman, Mary nee Deasy. She has a daughter, Mary Nicholas, Irish born (father likely one Thomas Nicholas or McNicholas). William and Mary Deasy do not have any issue together.

I don't know how comprehensive the transcription is of the parish records, nor how complete they are likely to be anyway.

I am kind of hoping that William was a traditionalist and stuck to the naming pattern that had been popular for generations : first son, named for paternal grandpa; second one maternal grandpa; first daughter maternal granny, second daughter paternal granny.

I have done the Ancestry DNA test, but so far no match has been able to provide anything to progress past William, and certainly into the family of wife number one from whom I am descended (through daughter Margaret).

Any insights from the hive mind will be greatly appreciated.

Best wishes to you all

Robyn in Western Australia

...

RobynM

4 replies

Robyn:

There are very few RC records for Co. Mayo back to 1830. I checked the subscription site Roots Ireland and the earliest William Tunny baptismal/birth was in 1866. 

Also, the earliest Tunny baptismal record with a father William was in 1862. 

The Griffiths head of household data from 1855 shows that most Tunny/Tunney households were in East Mayo.

Roger McDonnell

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

This transcription of the baptismaI record of Mary McNichoIas, from rootsireIand, shows she was baptized in the parish of Kiiconduff/Swinford.

Name: Mary McNicholas

    Date of Baptism: 10-Jun-1842

Address: Unknown  

Parish/District: KILCONDUFF/SWINFORD

Gender: Female County Co. Mayo

Denomination: Roman Catholic

Father: Thos McNicholas Mother: Mary Deacy

Occupation:

Sponsor 1 /

Informant 1: Patt McNicholas

Sponsor 2 /

Informant 2: Mary McNicholas

Notes:

glanvil3@aol.com

Patricia:

Great find!  Looks like East Mayo is the area for William Tunny.

Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Thank you, both of you.

I had found the information about the McNicholas connection in my file, but this is a side quest for me because Mary Deacy is no relation to me at all.  She and William married in Bilston in 1850.  William had been living in Staffordshire for around 15 years when he married her.  

His four children, born to two different mothers, were also born in Staffordshire, as outlined in my original query.  Frustratingly, I can't find either birth registrations or baptisms for Mary (1837 ish) and Margaret (1838ish - 2x great granny), but we do have the registration information for the youngest two, William (1844) and Bridget (1847-1852).  Their mother was an Honour Flinn, who died in 1849.  I think I have found her in the Irish records perused in Roots Ireland.

My frustration is trying to work out where William is from.  

Another consideration is with digitisation of records, and even the work of the amazing volunteers, that these records can be misread and therefore mistranscribed.  I have found one record transcribed as Tierney, but examining the digitised copy of the register, it is clearly Tunney.

One record I have for a William Tunny marriage in Mayo is 12 February 1832, Aglish parish, to a Mary Fleming.  Which would make William's year of birth more like 1811 than 1816.

For the underclass that the working poor were, just how important were birth dates, apart from knowing if you're old enough to marry by banns rather than licence anyway?

The English census of 1841 used rounding of five years for adults on age.  And sadly, death certificates of the time are very poor on genealogical information, if the informant knew what it may have been anyway.

Again, thank you for taking the time to consider my post and respond.

Kind regards

Robyn

RobynM

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