Hawkes of Surmount

Hi Christopher,

Thank you for your message.

Have you tried looking for information in Church records? Unfortunately, Catholic records for Athnowen do not begin until c. 1816. You can see this at the Irish Times website:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&CityCounty=Cork%20North-West&parish=Ovens&churchid=87

Church of Ireland records may have an earlier start dates. To see what is available check:

http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42 and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/.

Church records from the area have been uploaded free of charge to Irish Genealogy website. You can search this here:

http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/

You could also try using the land records pertaining to Ireland in the 19th century to see if there were Hawkes still recorded in the area during the 19th century. There are two:

The Tithe Applotment Books (1823-1838) found at http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/home.jsp

and Griffith?s Valuation (1848-1864) found at http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/

The census records from 1901 and 1911 may also have some records of Hawkes still in the area at the time you can search these online here:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

With regards to what actually happened to Surmount House, it may be an idea to contact the Cork County Library, perhaps their Local Studies Department may be able to assist you. Here is a link to their page:

http://www.corkcoco.ie/co/web/Cork%20County%20Council/Departments/Library%20&%20Arts%20Service/Services/Local%20Studies

You could also try searching in newspaper archives to see if its demise is mentioned. The National Library of Ireland have a large collection there website is http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx Cork County Library should also have their own archives.

SOme newspaper archives can also be searched online at http://www.irishnewsarchive.com/ You can searxch the databse for free but you have to pay a small fee to view the actual article.

I hope that some of this is helpful. Please be patient - as our programme has only begun to rollout across the island of Ireland and volunteers in some areas may not yet be organized.

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support

     Because a member of the Townsend family emigrated to he United States of America in 1863 and eventually founded a renowned glass cutting factory, there is considerable research on the family's English background and their history in Ireland.  This website offers some background on the Hawkes family based largely on two books, one authored by Jane Shadel Spillman and the other coauthored by her:  http://brilliantglass.com/cutting_houses/Hawkes_1.html
     One book is American Cut Glass Industry: T.G. Hawkes and His Competitors (1999): http://amzn.to/1NR9KG6
     The other book is Estelle F. Sinclaire and Jane Shadel Spillman, The Complete Cut and Engraved Glass of Corning (1997): http://amzn.to/1Flx4dO

John Hawkes of Sirmount-note-spelling-is mentioned on page 330 of Old World Colony, author David Dickson. For his comments, he references a  'Survery of Egmont papers, 1750', and Donnelly, An Account of the Rightboy Movement