Mortimer Somers, Hotel Keeper & potential resident of Dublin 1880

Florence Ethel Somers birth was registered in Dublin North Jan - Mar 1884 Volume 2, page 587. If you order a copy of that cert you will get the couple's address at that time. I looked for other Somers children born in Dublin North 1880 - 1890. There were about 20 so no easy way to determine which was this couple's other child.

I also searched for a death for Mortimer Somers 1864 - 1901 but did not see any listed. The marriage cert simply records his name and occupation. It does not mean he was necessarily alive, or in Ireland.

There’s no one site that has everything. You need to pick and choose depending on the type of record you are after, and in some cases, where in Ireland the person lived. For example there are a couple of sites that contain a lot of records for what is now Northern Ireland. Excellent if your ancestors came from there. No use if they didn’t.

Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church (which should be on the marriage certificate unless it was a registry office ceremony). I would start the search for Phoebe’s family there.  She was born before the start of statutory registration (1864) and so baptism records are probably the only way you may trace her birth. You might also find her siblings there too. You say she was Church of Ireland and married in Roscrea. Roscrea Church of Ireland records 1792 – 1911 are on the rootsireland site. I assume you have searched them for her? If she originated somewhere else, then be aware that a lot of Church of Ireland records were lost in a fire in 1922 in Dublin, so not all baptisms from the 1850s/1860s still exist.

If her father was a farmer, and alive in the 1850s, you would expect him to be listed in Griffiths Valuation. The site is temporarily closed for maintenance so I haven’t been able to search it myself today but you can search for Robert Jackson in Co Tipp generally, and also in Roscrea parish (assuming that’s where Phoebe married).

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/

If you get more than one match then, it’s a question of investigating each to try and work out which is the right one. You say that Phoebe’s address at the date of her marriage was the Mall, Roscrea. That doesn’t sound like a farmers address, so was she working away from home at the time? Something to consider. Griffiths will have the heads of household there listed so you can search for any Jackson households. But if she was working as a servant in someone’s house, then you won’t find her listed.

You can search to see if Mortimer Somers left a will in Ireland, on the National Archives site. The name is sufficiently unusual that you are unlikely to get many matches. If you can find where Phoebe’s father lived, then you can do the same for him too.

http://www.willcalendars.nationalarchives.ie/search/cwa/index.jsp

If you think Mortimer lived in Dublin, then it might be worth searching the Dublin street directories for a listing. (Just because his son was living there in 1880 doesn’t necessarily mean the father lived there too).

Part of the 1851 census of Dublin has survived and is available on a pay to view site. You could search for Mortimer there too.

http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/indexinfo.aspx?ix=eneclann_dcc

I had another look at the births and deaths in Dublin North 1880 – 1890 and I may be able to narrow the search a bit for the missing daughter.  There were only 2 born and died in that period. The most likely was Maria Somers b 1882, died Jul – Sept. 1882, Vol 2, page 384. There was also an Anne Summers b 1886 and died Jul – Sept 1886 (Vol 2, page 353) but the spelling makes that probably less likely.

There are a range of Irish records on the findmypast site, but again it depends on what you are looking for.

Elwyn