Thanks McCoy. Yes, I have the marriage certificate but no parents' names or occupations or even a birthplace are listed for either John or Maria. The certificates in those days were very scant on information. The witnesses were John Hays and Ellen Crowley, so no Sweeney family as you might expect if other Sweeneys lived in Mudgee. I haven't seen the NSW Government Gazette record, so thank you very much for that.
John's parents' names were on his death certificate. I presume his wife was the informant although she is not named, only a certification by the coroner in Mudgee. It could well be that she didn't know his parents' names accurately, as I have found on other death certificates, where mother's surnames were sometimes incorrect.
Tipperary was noted as John's birthplace on his oldest son's birth certificate so I have always assumed that would have been correct. His age at the birth of two of his sons and on his death certificate indicates consistently that he was born in 1842.
I have been searching for John's birthplace for years, including trawling through all the handwritten parish records for Tipperary before they were available as transcripts. I travelled to Ireland 10 years ago and learned then how many children were given to relatives to bring up when the birth family was too poor to cope with yet another child. This may well be what happened to John and the parents on his death certificate were those who raised him, not those who baptised him. John may not even have been his true name if that was the case.
Unless there is a descendant in/from Ireland from John's family who knows about his story, I think I might be stuck with this puzzle forever.
Regards
Shelley
