Sullivan & Murphy, Cork to Boston, 1859

Hi Ruth

Thank you for your query.The reality of finding documentation pertaining 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 to document the population. Please also note that the Church of Ireland was the official church of the country and therefore the bulk of information that does survive for earlier periods is often from these registers. 

Do you have a place name of origin ( Parish or Townland) for your family in Co. Cork? If you do you will be able to search the church records which may lead you to other ancestors or living relatives. Do you know what the religious denomination of your family was? 

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 available records per county. If you have any difficulty, you could try writing to the parish priest for possible assistance.

Church of Ireland parish registers for the period up to 1870-are public records. Registers are available for about one third of the parishes, however many were destroyed in the Public Records Office in Dublin in 1922. Most are still held by the local clergy, although some are in the National Archives of Ireland and others are in the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin. A list of all surviving registers is available in the National Archives. http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42 and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/.  The Anglican Record Project is has created an index to their records: http://ireland.anglican.org/cmsfiles/pdf/AboutUs/library/AngRecord/bunclodyunionindex.pdf

Presbyterian registers are held in three main locations: in local custody, in the Public Records of Northern Ireland (PRONI) http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/family_history.htm and at the Presbyterian Historical Society http://www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com in Belfast. PRONI has microfilm copies of almost all registers in Northern Ireland and also lists of records held by the Presbyterian Historical Society. For the rest of Ireland, almost all records are in local custody. It can difficult to locate these as many congregations in the South have moved, amalgamated, or simply disappeared over the last sixty years.

Here are some other websites that may be of help to you:

http://www.skibbheritage.com/

http://mallowheritagecentre.com/

http://www.corkarchives.ie/genealogy/

http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/

I hope that this information is of help to you Ruth.

Kind Regards

Genealogy Support

Hi

Have you looked at the www.churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie  website 

I found this record  

Area - CORK & ROSS (RC) , Parish/Church/Congregation - MURRAGH & TEMPLEMARTIN

Marriage of MICHAEL SULLIVAN of N/R and HANORAH MURPHY of N/R on 7 November 1856

 HusbandWifeNameMICHAEL SULLIVANHANORAH MURPHYAddressN/RN/ROccupationN/RN/RFatherN/RN/RMotherN/R

Recorded Parochial AreaMURRAGH & TEMPLEMARTINWitness 1JOHN SULLIVAN (WITNESS FOR HUSBAND)Witness 3CATHERINE LEARY (WITNESS FOR WIFE)

 N/R

http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details/d2d9a90039…

this above is the link you can go to the bottom of the page and click on the link to see & save the original imageBe aware that the spelling may be different Here is the link to a possible baptism of Honora with mother Catherine Callaghan & Father Maurice Murphy- Hope it helps http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details/93340d0112…Good LuckMaureen NZ