Looking for Nelson & Duggan, 1880s

Hi Jessica,

Thank you for your message.  You have obviously put a lot of work into your family history, hopefully you will be able to get past this brick wall!

Unfortunately though, without more information it may be hard to find a parish of birth for Catherine.

Have you tried looking at church records for Camus parish for a birth record? You could also check this records for a marriage certificate as it is possible that they may have been married in Camus parish. I know that this may be a lot of effort to put into a presumption however.

For Catholic records you can use the irishtimes website to see what records are available in specific parishes. For Camus/Clonleigh parish follow this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&CityCounty=Tyrone&parish=Clonleigh&churchid=352

Most Catholic records are held locally, so you may have to write to the parish priest for possible assistance.

For Church of Ireland records check: http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42 and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/.

I used the irishtimes website's surname search engine also. This gives you the number of households with a specific name that were recorded in each county during the Griffith's Valuation. (This was a property survey that was carried out in Ireland between 1848-1864)

The results show that there were 8 Duggan households in Tyrone. However, in order to see what parishes these households were in there is a small fee.

To see the results follow this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm?fuseaction=Go.&UserID=

You can also search the names Nelson and Duggan together, there were records of both Nelson and Duggan households in the same parish, however once again you have to pay to see the results. Here is the link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm?fuseaction=Surname2&UserID=

Unfortunately, all of this is only helpful if Catherine came from Tyrone. Hopefully you will be lucky and this will be the case. Some other websites which may help you or point you in the right direction with your research are:

The National Archives of Ireland http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/

The National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx

The National Archives UK ? genealogy search: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/

The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/family_history.htm

Family Search:  https://familysearch.org/  

I hope that this helps. Remember to post any new information that you come across as the more information you post the more likely it is that one of our volunteers will be able to help you.

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support

Thanks so much for your reply... I will keep digging :)