My great-grandfather, Patrick Bryan Downing, was born in Co Cork around 1821 according to his US naturalization papers. His father's name is James Downing and his mother's name is Mary O'Brien (her parents' names are Matthew and Catherine). I have searched on both rootsireland.ie and irishgenealogy.ie with no success for information on Patrick or any of his siblings that I've identified: Mary b~1817, Matthew b~1822, John b~1825, Catherine b~1830, Richard b~1831 and Ann b~1835. I suspect there was also a brother named James, based on Irish naming patterns and the fact that James Downing is listed as a witness at John Downing's marriage in San Francisco, California in 1867 but I don't have any other information about him.
The family began emigrating to Boston, Massachusetts around 1841. I was able to identify the Ovanda as the ship that Richard, Mary and Ann arrived on May 4, 1847; it departed from Cobh, and I have contacted the Cobh Heritage Center to see if they have any information. I haven't found any evidence for the father, James, being in the US, so I'm thinking he may have died in Ireland or possibly during the trip to the US. Most of the family moved to San Francisco ~1860 with the brothers working as plasterers. Existing US records I have found (naturalization papers, birth certificates for children, death certificates/obituaries) haven't narrowed down just where in Co Cork they're from.
In terms of names, here goes:
Mary Downing doesn't marry.
Patrick Downing married Bridget Barry, children (from oldest to youngest) are James Aloysious, Mary Ann, Bridget N, Mary Josephine and Teresa Frances.
Matthew Downing married Margaret McCarty, children are Mary A, Ellen, James Lawrence, Charles Joseph, Anna Easter, Richard Callahan, Mary Cecilia, and Ellen Bridget.
John Downing married Mary O'Brien, children are James Joseph.
Catherine Downing marries James Bryant, children are James Richard, John Henry, Mary Eliza, George Edward, John Downing, Catharine and Joseph H.
Richard Downing marries Johanna Maria (don't know maiden name), children are Joseph (?)
Ann Downing marries Daniel Barry, children are John A, Mary Ellen, Margaret V, Annie G, James J, Catherine M, Dennis Joseph, and Teresa Agnes.
Any help to narrow down where my Downing family is from would be greatly appreciated.
Bev Penzien
bevpenzien
Sunday 7th Apr 2013, 05:23AMMessage Board Replies
-
Do you know much about their emigration? The dates, the reasonwhy they left, who they may have travelled with?..etc..Generally more information was given atthe port of arrival rather than the port of departure. If you knew which city they arrived at (e.g.Liverpool, New York, etc.), this could be a good place to find more information. -And perhaps evenfind out an exact place of origin. Ellis Island: http://www.ellisisland.org/search/passSearch.asp Castlegarden: http://www.castlegarden.org/ US National Archives/Immigration info: http://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/ The Boston Pilot; From October 1831 through October 1921, the Boston Pilot newspaper printed a?Missing Friends? column with advertisements from people looking for ?lost? friends and relativeswho had emigrated from Ireland to the United States. This extraordinary collection of 40,743 recordsis available here as a searchable online database, which contains a text record for each ad thatappeared in the Pilot. http://infowanted.bc.edu/ The next thing you could do is find the counties and places in Ireland your family names are mostprevalent. Look at the website http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/ and perhapssomething will match some other clue you may have found elsewhere? If nothing turnsup ? it is advisable to try different variations of the spellings of the names. If you have a possiblefirst name you could try the Irish Census 1901, 1911 at www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ or the landvaluation record called Griffiths Valuationhttp://askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml The reality of finding documentationpertaining to births/baptisms/marriages/deaths in Ireland prior to 1800 ? particularly in rural areas? is that they simply may not exist. Some registers for urban areas pre-dating 1800 may exist ?though often these can be fragmented- as there was an increased need in cities or larger towns todocument the population. Please also note that the Church of Ireland was the official church of thecountry and therefore the bulk of information that does survive for earlier periods is often fromthese registers. ROMAN CATHOLIC: Most Catholic records are held locally - One site which might be of use is -http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/ - where you can ?browse? an overview of availablerecords per county. If you have any difficulty, you could try writing to the parish priest for possibleassistance.
Connaught Ireland
Thursday 11th Apr 2013, 10:37AM -
Hi Connaught.
Thank you for your suggestions. All of my Downing family arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, so unfortunately I wasn't able to use the Ellis Island and Castlegarden sites . So far all of the naturalization records I have found through the US National Archives have only stated County Cork as their place of origin. I had looked at the "Missing Friends" ads once before quite some time ago so I really appreciate you passing on the link so I could check it again, however so far no results. Thank you also for the Griffiths Valuation link, it has more ways of sorting information than other versions I've seen.
Thanks again.
Bev Penzien
bevpenzien
Friday 12th Apr 2013, 06:22AM