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Martha Cassidy and James Dugan

DerryMacosquin (Derry)

Greetings,

I have been searching for birth and marriage information on Martha Cassidy and her spouse James Dugan, my maternal 3x great grandparents.

Martha was born around 1819 and James Dugan around 1917. They married around 1839. They had one son and five daughters between 1841 and 1953 with Sarah, Mary Jane and  Matilda being born in Ireland.

They are first found in The US in Brooklyn, Kings, NY in the 1850 census. I see a Martha Cassidy in the 1831 Londonderry census, but I have no way of knowing if this is my Martha.

Any help you can offer is appreciated.

Patty Hodge

Phodge111

2 replies

Patty,

The 1831 census just lists heads of household who are invariably going to be adults.  Since your Martha would have been about 12 in 1831, I’d safely assume the one in the census is not yours.

However I did find a baptism for Sarah J. Duggan on 3rd July 1842 in St Columb’s/ St Columba’s (aka as Long Tower), in the city of Derry. Sponsors were Gerard (?) Cassidy & Catherine Donaghy.

https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000633057#page/13/mode/1up

So that places your couple in that year. I did not see baptisms for the other 2 children nor the couple’s marriage. So it’s possible they came from outside the city, possibly from a parish which does not have records for the 1830s or 1840s. On the other hand St Columb’s has a gap in it’s marriage records for 1837 – 1841 so they could have married there, and there’s just no surviving record. But the baptism records are complete so that wouldn’t account for the other 2 children not being found. Hard to know.

http://longtowerchurch.org

Assuming James & Martha both died in the US, have you found their death certificates, to get parents names from that? 

Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘IrelandXO Volunteer

Hello Patty,

Have you looked at all the U.S. records for the family? Censuses, church records, cemetery records, birth/marriage/death records, probate records, newspapers, etc.? One of these may include information about the family's place of origin in Ireland. Good luck!

glanvil3@aol.com

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