Kelly/Ward - Kiltimagh

Claire,

Do you mean the 1820's to 30's or the 1920's to 30's?

1920 -1930s 

Claire,

I searched the civil marriage records on the free site irishgenealogy.ie for the couple, using only their surnames, from 1910 until 1940; and only found two...neither was in Kiltimagh, Mayo. 

They are as follows:

John Kelly & Mary Ward 20 Feb 1917, Newcastle, Limerick

John Kelly & Mary Ward 20 Sept 1911, Roscommon

Regards,

Thank you for your help

Claire

There were several Kelly and Ward families living just outside Kiltimagh back then, in and around the townland of Treanfohanaun, which lies half-way between the town of Kiltimagh and the hamlet of Bohola.  Technically, the townland is in the parish of Bohola, rather than the parish of Killedan (in which Kiltimagh lies), but it's right on the parish boundary, and people who emigrated from the area (like a number of my relatives) often referred to themselves as being from Kiltimagh, since it was the nearest town of any size that people might have heard of.

You can see more info about Treanfohanaun at this link:

https://www.townlands.ie/mayo/gallen/bohola/meelick/treanfohanaun/

Note that it's in the electoral division of Meelick, and I've noticed in my own research that some official records will just say Meelick, leaving out the townland name.

There are additional links at that site, including links to the 1901 and 1911 census records.  In the 1901 census, there are several Kelly and Ward families listed.  Here's a direct link to the 1901 census record:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/results.jsp?census_year=19…

On page 2, there's a 5-year old John Kelly, and there are at least two young Mary Wards (3-5 year range) on other pages, who might just be your people.  Interestingly, the Murtagh's and Creaby's listed before and after that first Kelly family are distant relatives of mine (my grandfather grew up right nearby, over the border in Killedan).  I didn't check the 1911 census, but you can use the link to do that.

The Ward's and Kelly's were also shown as tenants in that townland in Griffith's Valuation (mid-1800's), as you can see at this link:

https://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=doNa…

Those Ward and Kelly families are undoubtedly all related, and you may be able to take things further back using the parish registers for Bohola.  They go back to 1857, and the ones for 1857-1881 are free to access online at this link:

https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0122

Families in that area lived on both sides of the Bohola-Killedan boundary, so you might also look at Killedan, using the interactive map at that site to move on to that parish.  Perusing the registers is actually not that hard, since they follow a pattern and you can usually skim through pages pretty quickly after downloading them.  It can also be interesting.

There's another site that might also interest you.  In the 1930’s, Irish schoolchildren were sent out on class projects where they interviewed mostly older people in their parish about the history and customs of the area.  Some of the interviews were conducted in English and some in Irish.  Over 250,000 interviews were conducted and they are available online at the Irish National Folklore Collection Project’s site:

https://www.duchas.ie/en

The content of the interviews varied from place to place, but they can cover local history, local place names, people known to the person being interviewed, local myths and superstitions, and other customs, such as how holidays or weddings were celebrated and even on what day of the week people customarily did their washing or baked bread.  It’s said to be the largest national folklore collection in the world, and the interviews can be fascinating.  You can download all of the stories, and there’s an ongoing project to translate into English the information which was collected in Irish.  At the time, many people in East Mayo still spoke Irish, especially older folks (my grandmother spoke it at home, and she grew up in that area in the late 1800's and early 1900's).

The National Folklore Collection Project also has folklore podcasts (Blúiríní Béaloidis. or “Folklore Fragments”) which one can listen to (in English and Irish) at this site:   https://soundcloud.com/folklore_podcast

Claire,

Do you have the birth records for Molly and Timothy?

Regards,