Dee Dee:
The Griffiths Valuation survey was conducted in Waterford in 1850 and Kilkenny in 1849 probably right after your family left Ireland. If you go to this Irish Times web site, you will see where the name Scurry was found in the Griffiths. http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/
You will see that the surname was primarily in Kilkenny with four records in Waterford City. The most common civil parish in Kilkenny was Kilkeasy.
When you go to the Tithe listings, www.titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie
there are 11 Scurry records mostly in Kilkeasy. There are three Michael Scurry records in different parishes although they are in proximity to each other. I would look at these records as leads.
There were two Catholic churches in the Kilkeasy area. Agahaviller has records starting in 1847. Ballyhale church, however, has baptismal records starting in 1823. I went to the Roots Ireland indexes and there are 11 baptismal records in the Ballyhale church for Scurry children between 1825-1845 where the father is Michael. Likely there are multiple Scurry families with Michael as the father.
Roots is a subscription site. However, later this summer the National Library of Ireland plans to put RC parish registers online for free searching. You could search the Ballyhale records at that time.
Also, it would really help if you could find the name of John's mother. Do you have his death record?
Roger McDonnell
