Catherine O'Connor married Patrick Dooley

Hello Art.

If the elopement tale was true, they could have married anywhere. There's a similar story in my family, except I doubt mine owned a carriage. I couldn't find a marriage for mine either.

You have suggested a date for their arrival in U.S.A. Do you know the name of the ship and departure ports? Is there a passenger list?

Have you searched for a marriage in Britain? Some Irish people went there first before emigrating. 

As Roger said, civil registration of births began 1864, decades after Catherine and Patrick were born, so they didn't have birth certificates.

If Catherine's parents were alive in 1864 and if they spent the rest of their lives in Ireland, their deaths would have been registered. You can search for free www.irishgenealogy.ie   Results can be filtered by selecting Superintendent Registrar's District. 

Roger,

Thanks for the quick reply and additional information.  The Frenchpark mention tickles my memory, but can't pull it to the front as yet.  I expect the two were married at a later date, maybe in the rectory somewhere but told the offspring a different story.

I've yet to work on another 4 great grandparents - One from Limerick another from Laios, and the last two from Wicklow. Have no idea on a 7th, somewher in Ireland and the last is out of Herfordshire, north of London thus the Pratt surname. Such maddening fun !

Art Pratt

You may already be aware of this, but records for Patrick and Catherine have been created in the Family Search database, with essentially the same info you already have for them, plus ten of their children living in LaSalle, Illinois..  The records appear to have been created by a descendant of their youngest daughter, Catherine Josephine, who married a Peter Doyle (no marriages for the other nine children are shown thus far).  Most of the ihe information appears to have been input by a Jonathon Simon, but some other contributors are also shown.  At the site, you are able to send messages to those people, so you might compare notes if they are not already known to you.  The names of Catherine's parents are shown, and also a sister of hers named Fanny. 

FamilySearch is operated by the LDS church, and is free to use.  The site is located here:  https://www.familysearch.org

You have to create an account to use it, but they don’t ask for much personal info, and no missionaries will contact you or anything like that.  The database does not have separate family trees, and is essentially one huge tree of linked records, in which there is a single record for each person, with a unique identification number (although sometimes people unknowingly create duplicate records for the same person, which you can merge when you spot them).  You can search by name, but also by that number, and the number for Patrick is LHK6-8X8.  Once you are at that record, you will see how easily you can move up and down the tree by clicking on their names.

Family Search automatically looks for relevant records for the family, and lists them in the upper right as things you may want to consider adding to the existing records.  It looks as though no one has been working on the family records in the last year or so, and a number of suggested records are piling up there for consideration (mostly US records).

Kevin, thanks !

I'm up to date with Family Search and most of what is my family, either side, is what I developed and shared over the years but never bothered to upload myself. However I do fine myself at times trying to correct errors but reaching a point of total frustration with some posters who ignore records and go with what fits their story.  Jonathon Simon is a cousin on my mother's side and we match through DNA as well.

Thanks again !!   

Art