Daniel Higgins and Catherine Aylward

jrussell:

I searched on the subscription site Roots Ireland and did not locate a Daniel Higgins/Catherine Aylward marriage. I looked at surname distributions based on Griffiths Valuation date from the mid-19th century. One of our volunteers, Shane Wilson, has this site which provides the surname data by county based on Griffiths data  https://www.swilson.info/sdist.php   Higgins was a much more common surname than Aylward. The counties in Connaught province: Mayo, Galway, Sligo, Roscommon, Leitrim have the most Higgins records but there were Higgins in almost every other county.

The data for Aylward shows that Co. Kilkenny has the most Aylward records by far. I displayed the data for Aylward below but stopped at any county that had less than 10 Aylward households in the Griffiths. So I would start with Kilkenny for Catherine. Have you considered a DNA test? You may get matches on this line who have more info on the origins of the two families. My guess si that they married in America.

Roger McDonnell

Surname Distribution :aylward
(including 4 variations)
County
Number
Kilkenny 179
Waterford 23

Wexford 13
Carlow 10
Roscommon 10
Galway 10

There are many public trees on Ancestry dealing with this family: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/3871698/person/2466379…

I hope this is helpfull.