Mary Gibney and James Connor / O'Connor

Linda,

Looking at the 1933 marriage certificate I see that James Connor was a farmer in Clondalkin. If he married Mary Gibney you might expect them to have gone to live on his farm. They probably had a family. Clondalkin is in the Dublin South civil registration district. I looked for children named Connor/O’Connor born in that district in the period 1933 – 1958, where the mother’s maiden name was Gibney. I found 7. I am not going to give the details here because we have a policy of not giving out personal details of living people (or people likely to be living).  But you can find them easily enough on Familysearch.

You could order copies of some or all of those birth certificates from GRO Roscommon to see if they are the family you are interested in. You can get a research copy by e-mail for €4. That may take you a generation further forward.

Once you have some more specific names and addresses, you might want to hire a researcher in the Dublin area to assist with graveyard searches, wills, and marriages for the children. Be aware that not all researchers are willing to accept work researching living people due to the sensitivities involved.

Given what Rose said about not wanting Mary’s new family contacted, you should give some thought to that and whether an approach to living relatives today would lead to distress.  There are ways of making an approach through an intermediary, if needs be. Some families can be very relaxed about illegitimacy and others really don’t want to discuss it. Or you might be content to find out what became of Mary and her family via a researcher, and leave it at that.

Hi Elwyn, 

Wow thanks so much for all your help, it is greatly appreciated! 

Would it be possible for you to email me the information you have found? My email address is lindamarybreen@gmail.com 

Although we are aware of the possibly sensitivity of this matter, we are however also aware that someone has been looking for my mother as upon our recent visit to her birth place, we were told a lady had not long been in hope to track down my mother, however, she left no details. With this information, and the fact that nearly 90 years has passed, we feel it is only fair to my mother and her family that we are hoping to be able to put this matter to rest. 

Thanks again for all your time and hard work!

You have really helped us when were just about to give up hope! 

Regards,

Linda  

Linda,

I have sent you an e-mail.

 Hi there,

We can't thank you enough for all your help and information. We have followed your advice and have requested the birth certificates. 

We were wondering if you could help with one more thing. We have been able to locate James Connor's will and probate dated 13th May 1949. However, we are unable to trace Mary Connor from then and as she would have only been 38 at the time, we feel it is highly probable that she may have remarried. If this is so, do you know whether the marriage certificate would be in her maiden name or in her late husbands surname? We are wondering whether this is why we are unable to trace her after his death.

Thanks so much in advance for your help,

Linda x

If Mary remarried, the marriage certificate would normally contain both surnames. So she'd be "Mary Connor formerly Gibney", and indexed under both surnames.