My second great-grandfather, James PIERCE, was born in Garryduff, County Wexford in 1833. I know NOTHING about him. I would love to hear from anyone connected to this family. James married Selina WALTON in 1856 in County Wicklow. They went on to have six children! Thanks, Carol
Carol:
Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!
There are two Garryduff townlands in Co. Wexford-- one in Owenduff civil parish and the other Kilcormick civil parish. I was not able to find a James Pierce baptismal record from 1828-1838 in Co. Wexford which may mean that the records are not available or if available they are not online. Do you know the religious denomination?
Roger McDonnell
Based on a probable match on the 1911 census, this Pierce family appear to be Church of Ireland. James is shown as a quarryman born Co. Wexford, and his life Selina's county of birth is shown as Co. Wicklow. The 'years married' is given as 55, so c1856. If you dont have the marriage cert it's probably worth ordering a research cert as this should include useful clues such as father's names and occupations, names of witnesses etc.
There are currently very few Church of Ireland records online for Co. Wexford, RootsIreland have transcripts for just two parishes so far. I'll check the availability of records for this two parishes and update...
I recently visited the old church and graveyard at Owenduff parish, not far from the village of Foulksmills, and will have a look through my photos and see if any of the headstones I saw mention the surname Pierce. The other Garryduff townland mentioned by Roger in Kilcormick parish is further north near Boolavogue.
Based on the RCB list - historic records for Owenduff parish are available on microfilm in the National Archives, and cover baptisms, marriages and death/burials back to 1752.
The status of records for Kilcormick is a little unclear, I've seen the parish appears with several different spellings, and the RCB list shows both a parish of Kilcormack and parish of Kilcormuck in Ferns diocese - this may be a duplicate listing, or one of these parishes may be another part of the diocese and not in Co. Wexford..
1 - Baptism records for Kilcormack go back to 1877, marriages to 1845 (which would be covered by civil records), and deaths/burials for 1877 (only). Some of the records for this parish were lost in 1922.
2 - Baptism records for Kilcormuck go back to 1788, marriages to 1792 and death/burials to 1803, and appear to be held in local custody.