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Researching the Duffy/Callaghan family in Donegal

DonegalClonmany (Donegal)

I need help over there! I have been researching the Duffy family in Donegal for over 40 years. I keep running into a 'brick wall"!! Brothers John Duffy, DOB 1835, William Duffy, DOB 1848, and sisters Bridget, DOB 1855 and Ann Duffy, DOB 1949, left Donegal and their parents John Duffy and Catherine Callaghan Duffy in the late 1860s or early 1870s to come to America. I have every known american document, and all just state for place of birth "Ireland'. No townland is mentioned. I'm searching Donegal because my father anf grandfather were both told by William that they all came from Donegal " where they eat the potato skin and all "!!!! Through a review of the Griffith's Valuation from 1857, I've narrowed it down to 42 John Duffys living in 18 civil parishes in 31 townlands. I believe that one of these 42 John Duffys is my great-great grandfather. Clonmany parish has the most John Duffys with 7 of those 42, so that is why I started with this parish. What do I do next? I do not have access to the Catholic Parish registers. Do you? If someone could please help me out on this, Pleae see the attached listing of the 42 John Duffys.

Thank You

William J. Duffy Email: wduff48@hotmail.com

IrelandXO member

16 replies

William:


In general, Co. Donegal does not have early RC records available compared to many other counties. For example, Clonmany records are not available until 1855 and they are not online that I can find. Roots Ireland www.rootsireland.ie has some records for Co. Donegal (they don't have Clonmany records) but I just looked for baptismal records for the Duffy siblings and got no matches. Below is a link to a very good Donegal genealogy web site that may be helpful.


http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~donegal/


Roger McDonnell

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Thanks Roger. Do you live in Ireland? Where? Eventhough this is frustrating at times, is very enjoyable. My next move is to fly to Ireland and actually go to the National Archives, the National Library and the General Registry Office in Dublin. I will have to look at the micro films one by one!. John Duffy and Catherine Callaghan Duffy had to of died after the Civil Registration Act of 1864 and I will hopefully find their death certs and get the townland then. Were you able to see the documents I think I attached correctly? I'll try it again.Please let me know and any other suggestions you may have.

Thanks

William J. Duffy

IrelandXO member

William:


I live north of Baltimore so I'm not too far from you in northern NJ. I was able to look at the 5 attachments. You have done a lot of analyis. I thought about looking for civil death registration records but there are a little more than 100 John Duffys who died in Co. Donegal from 1864-1899. Presumably John was born around 1810 if he had a son in 1835. However if the John born in 1835 was not the oldest then the likely year of birth would be earlier than 1810. Usually you named the 3rd son after the father.


Once you look at a record, how do you know you have the correct John Duffy? The death record will show date of death, cause of death, where he lived and a name of an informant. Unless the informant was a Catherine Duffy, wife, you would not know know if you had the right record. Even if it said Catherine Duffy, can you be sure?


If you want to let me know your e-mail address, I will send you all of the John Duffy civil death index records that are possibilities out of the 100 or so that I located.


Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Roger,

Thank you. I now feel like I'm getting somewhere! If out of those 100 John Duffys there is a Catherine Duffy, as the informant, then I'm narrowing it down further. Right? And if it matches Griffith's, then I may be getting closer. Your right though, being correct on "my" John Duffy. Also, there may be other brothers and sisters who stayed behind and I'm unaware of any. The 100 John Duffys, where did you get the list from? Family Search or Ancestry? Please end to me at: wduff48@hotmail.com.

You've been a big help!

Thanks again

Duff

IrelandXO member

Duff:


Just got back from a play. I will get the list to you tomorrow. I belong to www.findmypast.ie which is a subsciption site. I forget what I pay a year--$100? Find my past allows you to sort events ( births, marriages, deaths) by person, county and registration district. In your case, I requested all John Duffys who had died and the death was registered from 1864-1958 in Co. Donegal. I think there were 208 and I manually counted the ones from 1864-1899, Find my past provides you with the year of birth provided at registration. That way you can separate the records for people who lived a full life from infants who died soon after birth. It is very helpful to me because I spend a lot of time responding to the messages on the board but may not be as useful to the average person researhing their ancestors. www.familysearch.org is also very helpful and free but less flexible than find my past.

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Roger,

Great. Will be leaving my house for the Jets game up north today. J-E-T-S!!!!! Will be eagerly awaiting your list. Is it just an index or a copy of the actual registration? The John Duffy list will hopefuly have a Catherine as the informant, provided he died before her. Could you also send me a Catherine Duffy listing, in case she died first and hopefuly John was the informant. What else does that web site provide? I may want to join it.

Thanks

Duff

IrelandXO member

William,

Apologies for not getting back to you sooner.  I am the admin for Clonmany Parish, however I have been offline for a number of weeks unfortunately.  I have been in the States doing a genealogy lecture tour which took up alot of time.

 

However, I'm here now and I can send you some information on the Duffy families that I have in the parish records if you can bear with me for another few days.  I have a note of your email address and will contact you by email if that's okay.

Kind regards,

Jennifer Doherty

Clonmany Genealogy

Email: ClonmanyGenealogy@gmail.com

Find us on Facebook:  http://www.Facebook.com/Clonmany.Genealogy

Website: http://www.ClonmanyGenealogy.com

IrelandXO member

Hi there,

Just a small correction to the note you made Roger.

Clonmany Parish records began on 1st January 1852 for baptisms and marriages only.  The death records are available from the early 20th century onwards.  Some of these records are available online, however these are not the edited copies of transcriptions made that I have in my possession.  Should you wish to do concise lookups, I suggest that you contact our group, Clonmany Genealogy in the first instance.

Kind regards,

Jennifer Doherty

Clonmany Genealogy

IrelandXO member

William,

I used Donegal Ancestry (which DOES have the Clonmany civil and parish records, Roger!) http://donegal.rootsireland.ie/ and found the following information in the death records:

Deaths between 1864 and 1920 in Clonmany Parish:

John Duffy (12 matches):

  • 1864 - aged 15mths
  • 1866 - aged 86 years
  • 1869 - aged 65 years
  • 1876 - aged 2 years
  • 1886 - aged 58 years
  • 1893 - aged 70 years
  • 1902 - aged 65 years
  • 1914 - aged 30 years
  • 1914 - aged 2 years
  • 1917 - aged 14 days
  • 1918 - aged 63 years

 

Catherine Duffy (8 matches):

  • 1864 - aged 19 years
  • 1869 - aged 14 days
  • 1875 - aged 44 years
  • 1876 - aged 3mths
  • 1879 - aged 80 years
  • 1885 - aged 60 years
  • 1904 - aged 26 years
  • 1916 - aged 77 years

Obviously you can narrow this list down by taking out the infants and younger people that don't fit the criteria.  How do you know for a fact that they didn't die before 1864?  Just a thought.....

Regards,

Jennifer

IrelandXO member

Jennifer:


Thanks for the clarification on Clonmany records. I went into the Roots site and now noticed that there are two sections of Donegal RC records. The Clonmany records are in the second group under Inishowen. Once the first group finished and I saw the section for Methodist records, I moved on.


Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Jennifer/Roger,

Thank you to you both for helping me. Since Roger sent me the Duffy and Callaghan "possible" death lists, I,ve requested from Family Search ( The Mormon Church ) all those deaths from 1870 and before back to 1864. Family search will send them to you, 5 at a time, up until 1870. Then I could see if the "informant" may match to either John or Catherine. I know it could be hit or miss, but that is all I have. I then hope to match the town of death to the 42 John Duffys' on the narrowed down Griffith's Valuation list. The deaths after 1870, I will have to order from the Office of the Registrar General in  Roscommon, right? Since Clonmany has Roman Catholic Parish registers since 1852, I may be able to locate their 2 daughters, Ann and Bridget, Right?

Can either of you suggest anything else? I don't know what else to do. Do I have to go to Ireland myself to do research at either the National Library or Registrars Office?

Pleae get back to me. You two are the first and only persons to ever have assisted me.

Thanks Again

William Duffy

IrelandXO member

Duff:

I would mail your post 1870 requests to the GRO. No other suggestions. Good luck,

Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Hello Roger/Jennifer

Do you have any experience with ordering records from Ireland? Do you trust someone over there useing your debit card number? That's what I'm worried about. What do you suggest on this? Maybe a new debit card with only $100.00 bucks on it!

Also, I've only signed up with Clonmany Parish on this site. Should I do other Donegal parishes?

Thanks

Duff

IrelandXO member

Duff:


I always give the GRO my credit card number and I have had no issues. I've probably had 20 transactions over the last few years. The last time was a month ago. You can ask the GRO to e-mail back the copy or in your case copies.


If you don't know the parish, I would sign up with the general Co. Donegal page.


Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Ok Roger. I wil do that.

Duff

IrelandXO member

Hi William,

I would suggest sending the index information to the GRO in Roscommon.  Explain that you require the copies of the relevent certificates for genealogical research purposes.

Address:

GRO Roscommon
Government Offices
Convent Road
Roscommon
Co. Roscommon
Ireland

Charges:

A particular search of an index (for a period not exceeding 5 years): €2
Uncertified copy (photocopy) €4
However, if you have the index information then they waive the €2 search fee.

 

Payment Methods:

Cheques, Bank Drafts, International Money Orders and Irish Postal Orders will be accepted but must be in Euro (€).  Cheques, Bank Drafts and International Money Orders must be drawn on a branch of a bank located in the Republic of Ireland.

Cheques should be made payable to the Civil Registration Service.

Credit Card/Debit Card payments can  be made in person at the General Register Office, Government Offices, Convent Road, Roscommon , by post to this address or by fax to 00353 90 6632999. We accept MasterCard and Visa credit cards and Laser / Visa Debit cards.

They are very safe and I have used them myself on a number of occasions.

Regards,

Jennifer

IrelandXO member

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