Foley's of Castlecomer, Kilkenny

Patrick,

I checked the paid site Roots Ireland, and the two children you found for John Foley and Eleanor Kavanagh are Patrick (1813) and John (1815). I did not find any other children for that couple, and the baptism and marriage records for the RC parish of Castlecomer began in 1812. I'd say that James Foley in the Griffith's record is John's brother, not his son. The residence given for the two sons is Moneen, and there is an adjacent townland to the townland of Clogh called Moneenroe.

Regards,

Hi Carolyn,

This is the baptism of Ally I was referring to and a reply from a query.

The biggest problem with Castlecomer is the missing baptisms from 1818-1828. That is the timeframe (1822) when Edward Foley (my 2x grandfather) was born. How many other children could have been born to John and Eleanor? Was James one?

Hi Patrick,

Yes, I did see the missing baptism years, and didn't know that your ancestor Edward was born in the time frame. It is hard to predict how many children the couple had....some families were quite large, others not so. The problem I see with Ally being their child is that if she was baptized 21 Jun 1812, and the next child Patrick was baptized 25 Jan 1813, that is only a seven month age difference. I'm not sure an infant born at 7 months gestation would have survived in 1813. However, the town land given for Ally is also Moneen like Patrick and John. It's not out of the question that Patrick was born early, baptized, and then maybe died as an infant. Who knows? Eleanor was both a tenant and a landlord as shown in the 1849 Griffith's record. James could have taken over the tenancy if his father was deceased I suppose, but why not the elder two brothers...if they were still alive in 1849? John's baptism record shows his mother was Nell Kavanagh, and in the notes it shows Elionor. Elionor is also in the notes of Patrick's baptism record.

I looked on Ancestry, but the trees were not much help...they do all have Alice (Ally) as their first born though, so maybe it's true. However, a word of caution...it looks like the trees all copied the information from an original tree, so it might be an error. The trees also show a Catherine born around 1817 who married Patrick Conville in 1842 in the RC parish of Clough - adjoins Castlecomer, and they had children in Ireland, and eventually emigrated to Pennsylvania. I don't know if you are aware of her.

P.S. your Edward was not on the Ancestry trees, but that doesn't mean anything...the original tree was most likely created by a descendant of Catherine Foley Conville.

Regards,

Thank you, Carolyn. I had noted the short time frame between Ally and Pat. That would be taking "Irish twins" to an extreme. However, I suppose it would be possible they didn't baptize Ally until she was a few months old. All sorts of reasons come to mind, health of the child, church delays, lack of a priest... I haven't found an Ally marrying in any of the neighboring parishes, nor as a sponsor for a baptism or witness for someone else's marriage. So, she's a bit of a mystery.

At some point, I had looked at Catherine Foley Conville and decided there were too many "wrong" parts to the tree. I can't remember where it was, however. I just looked at my spreadsheet on Clough marriages, and there are no records prior to 1859. So, unless they have an original marriage certificate (if there even were any at that time), I don't know where they got that information. There were many emigrants from the Kilkenny/Laois border area that moved to a mining area in Pennsylvania, Edward Foley being one of them. He's listed in the 1850 census there, declared his intention to become a citizen there and his citizenship papers in 1860 (in Illinois) has Schuylkill Co, PA as to where he had declared his intention. I'm pretty sure I have the right Edward.

Edward is definitely on my tree, pjkfoley1 and his descendants are correct.

I just noticed in my spreadsheet, in August of 1818, it looks like an E. Kelly and Cath. Foley baptized a child in Castlecomer. The date is not there, nor the name of the child. I keep finding more connections in my spreadsheet, on 16 July 1813, it's so faint, I had the record as Alice ?, parents Edw ? and Catherine Foley, with a Brenan as a sponsor. I think that the ? is Edward Kelly. A different Brenan was a sponsor for the 1818 baptism. Pure speculation on my part, but could the Catherine Kelly and James Foley be siblings of John Foley? Here we would have John Foley, James Foley and Catherine Foley Kelly all living near each other, with John Foley having left his wife Eleanor to live where they did? So, in 1849, Eleanor Foley, John's brother and sister were living next to each other. James Foley and Catherine Kelly seem to be connected as much to each other as to with Eleanor.

Next question would be, was this land where their (John, James and Catherine) parents lived? I'm guessing there will not be any records of tenancy back into the late 1700's?

Final question, are there records of tenancy between Griffith's and the 1901 census?

Thank you so much for your help.

Pat

Hi Pat,

A better look at Catherine Foley Conville on Ancestry, and I too would not include her in your tree. I found her 1842 marriage record on Roots Ireland, but then looked at the NLI site to see the original, and could not find it on that date. Clough and Castlecomer parishes are variants of the same parish, and Castlecomer's marriage records began in 1831. Even though the Roots record stated Clough parish, I looked in Castelcomer but did not find it. I don't quite understand how there can be a transcription, but no original record....unless the date is incorrect. I have seen this before with Roots. Anyhow, since she's not a match, not to worry!

Regarding the Kelly/Foley births, this is what Roots shows:

Alice Kelly 16 Jul 1813, Castlecomer, parents - Edmund Kelly (Edward is same name) & Catherine Foley, sponsors - Andrew Brenan & Catherine Brenan

Catherine Kelly 8 Apr 1815, Castlecomer, parents - Edmund Kelly & Catherine Foley, sponsors - Martin Kelly & Mary Brenan

NR (not recorded) Kelly, 15 Aug 1818, parents - NR Kelly & Catherine Foley, sponsors - John Morrissey & Margaret Brenan

This one, not entirely sure of due to date and residence, but possible....

Anne Kelly 26 Apr 1830, Castlecomer residence - Banygara, parents - Edward Kelly & Catherine Foley, sponsors - Pierce Comerford & Margaret Mealy

I agree with you that James, John and Catherine were probably siblings, and given the name of Alice for the Kelly's first daughter, I now think that Alice was the first born child to John and Eleanor. Catherine was perhaps the oldest of the siblings, and named her first born in honor of her niece who died in 1812/1813.

I am not that knowledgeable on land/tenancy records. Maybe another volunteer can answer your question. You might need to create a new post asking specifically about that because they might not see this thread.

Good luck!

Hi Carolyn,

I found the NLI record for Catherine Kelly 8 Apr 1816 (not 1815). I had missed that one because Cathy Foley does not really stick out as Foley. See attachment.

Also, I looked for Anne Kelly in April of 1829, 1830, 1831 and 1832 and could not find that record. If there actually was a birth in those four years to that couple... that's what I would call an oooops! lol

Interesting that each of the Foley's, John, James and Catherine had a Brenan as sponsors. James actually married a Brenan and had a Brenan as a sponsor. Yet, when I checked for Brenan's in Griffith's in Castlecomer or Muckalee, none show up. I was kind of hoping they would have shown up as neighbors. I just looked at the Eleanor Foley, James Foley and Catherine Kelly page in Griffith's and there are a bunch of Brenan's on that same page (just not the ones that were sponsors). Strange!

I will still work up a tenancy post about all this.

Thanks again.

Pat

Pat,

I too had difficulty finding the baptism record of Anne...when you search on the NLI in April 1830, you have to scroll down two pages and she is on the bottom of the third page, the fourth from the bottom. It was not uncommon for women then to give birth from the time they married until they entered menopause...that is a time when pregnancy is very possible. Many women had children every one or two years over an 15 to 20 year time span back then. On that Griffith's record, there are three Comerford individuals...the surname of one of Anne's sponsors. The Brenan sponsors you are searching for might not have held a tenancy - they probably lived in Clough but were agricultural laborers on a farm or did some other job besides farming. They are probably related to the Brenan tenants you see. You mention looking for Brenan's in Castlecomer or Muckalee (I don't know where that town land came from), but the Griffith's record you posted is from the town land of Clough, not the town lands of Castlecomer or Muckalee.....all three are different places, and Muckalee is not in the Castlecomer civil parish.

Regards,

Carloyn,

Wow, that register is really messed up! I did find it. Thank you.

Muckalee is the RC parish just south of Castlecomer.

I'm still confused why, when I type in Brenan in Griffith's in Castlecomer, I get nothing! I just figured it out. Most of the registers have the name as Brenan, not Brennan. There are 355 Brennan's in Castlecomer during the Griffith's valuation. Time to start looking for the specific Brennan's and find out if they lived near the Foley's.

Thanks, again.

Pat

Pat,

Something else to look at, but not sure if it is helpful...when you enter Clough townland in Griffith's, the townland of Croghtenclough also appears...both places are in the RC parish of Castlecomer CIVIL parish, even though the RC parishes are different....Clough shows up in RC parish of Clough whereas Croghtenclough shows up in the RC parish of Castlecomer. The site johngrenham.com is good to see the RC parishes, civil parishes, and the map I like is the overlay of the two. They let you click on the site a few times before the pay wall comes up. Anyhow, you will find MANY Brennans, including Andrew Brennan a baptism sponsor to Alice Foley. There is also a Patrick Comerford in Croghtenclough. I wonder if

"Clough" is an abbreviation for Croghtenclough instead of the town land of Clough further north in the RC parish of Clough. The two town lands are not adjacent...there are two town lands in between them. People selected as baptism sponsors were not necessarily neighbors having adjacent tenancies.

Just an aside, in my own Irish genealogy research, I typically find siblings as the first choice for baptism sponsors. It is interesting that there are no Foleys or Kellys as sponsors. If a woman was a married sponsor, she still went by her maiden name in the record in most areas.

Regards,

Carolyn,

I do use Grenham's RC/Civil parish overlay. I wish Grenham's maps and the Griffith's maps had some scale to them. I had found Andrew Brennan in Croghtenclough and it's in the far north of that townland and the Foley's are in the SE end of Clogh. I don't know if this is one kilometer or 10 km or 25 km! What would be a reasonable distance that people traveled to visit friends, family, go to weddings, sponsor a baptism in 1810-50?

In reading through years of baptisms and marriages in Castlecomer, I've found residences listed as Comer (I figure this is just short for Castlecomer), Moneen (for Moneenroe?), etc. You can tell when they got a new administration person by the differences in cursive and abbreviations.

Regarding, no Foley sponsors...does seem strange. I did find the Catherine Kelly baptism in 1816 did have a Martin Kelly as a sponsor. Unless there were multiple Mary Brennan's, she seemed to be everyone's choice for a sponsor.

Thanks again for your insights.

Pat

Pat,

Yes, my error saying there were no Kellys as a sponsor! I even wrote Martin Kelly was one....I too think that back in the early to mid nineteenth century folks did not travel too far from their homes for many occasions, but I cannot say for certain that was the case.

Good luck in your research,

Hi Pat,

I wanted to get back to you with the reply I received from the Kilkenny genealogy center as to why there was no record of the Conville/Foley marriage on the NLI site, but it was on Roots Ireland. I know that you excluded this Foley from your family, but here is the reply..."records from all parishes are not available in the National Library digitized files since some registers just were not micro filmed at the time these were collected, many years ago". Roots Ireland has collected records after the NLI did. You still might want to exclude these folks, but I think that Patrick Conville was from the town land of Kill, Rathspick (civil), Kilkenny as that is where their two firstborn daughters Anne (1844) and Ellen (1846) were born. Kill is only one of two town lands in Rathspick, and not very far from the town lands of Clough and Moneen....take a look at the Grenham map. Interestingly, on Griffith's for Kill, there is a Pierce Comerford....the Conville there is Terence. Anyhow, these folks are probably all related in some way to each other!

Regards,

Thank you, Carolyn. So many inter-connected names and I still can't find that missing link! The search continues!

Pat

How does the search go? Did you ever make the trip? It seems we might share relatives (John Foley / Eleanor (Ellen) Kavanagh).