Looking for Bridget Mary Quinn and her father John

This looks like the same family in 1901:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Donegal/Letterkenny_Rural/Sallaghagrane/1188257/

Birth for Hannah which tells you Mary’s maiden name was Clarke:

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1900/01975/1760997.pdf

John Quin was born in St Johnston in 1897

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1897/02117/1805298.pdf

Labourers often moved around a lot to follow the available work and it can make them hard to trace.

John & Mary married in 1890, when they were both living in Cormakilly, in the parish of Urney:

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1890/10707/5903454.pdf

Have you checked with GRO Roscommon to see if they can find a birth certificate for Bridget Mary Quinn, father John, in the Letterkenny area c 1926? You can order a research copy (photocopy) of the civil certificate from GRO Roscommon for €5 (euros). https://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/Apply-for-Certificates.aspx 

John Quinn is a very common name which may make tracing him quite challenging.

Hi Elwyn,

So kind of you to give of your free time in helping us with this quest.

We have done the GRO thing and gott all the Bridget, Mary, Bridget Mary and Mary Bridget  Quinns, but frustratingly the returns only give the mothers name and that we do not know as we have yet to find any record of marriage of John Quinn, who was 13 in the 1911 Census, and we are not sure where to go in asking GRO for a search for this John Quinn as the number of years in which he could have married must be great. I suppose now I need to do another GRO search for John citing delimited by his parents names, John and Mary, and giving Johns age of 13 on the 1911 Census. 

Please find attached the outcome of the GRO search for Bridget for around 1926.

All this is new to my wife and I, quite mindblowing to navigate so many sites, and are so grateful for the kindness of folks like yourself, so thank you again Elwyn.

 Kind regards, Stuart and Kathleen Webber

Stu,

You say that Bridget used to write to relatives c/o Letterkenny Post Office. I'd therefore be inclined to assume she was born in that area. That being so, the huge list of Bridgets can be reduced to about 2. You could research those 2 and see if either might fit. For example, if you get the birth certificates, you could then search on Ancestry to see if anyone has them in their tree (which might help eliminate the wrong one). And with a father's name and occupation, you could search for marriages. Obviously yours was single until she married in England. So if you find a marriage in Letterkenny, then that probably isn't the correct lady. You could also search for marriages for her father - those records are searchable free on-line - on the irishgenealogy site. Looking for a John son of John, obviously.

The only fly in the ointment is if he married in Northern Ireland. (He lived very close to the county border). Their records 1922 onwards are not on the irishgenealogy site. You need to use the GRONI website for them.

There is always the possibility that Bridget's parents weren't married.

Hi Elwyn, and thank you for getting back to us on this.

Indeed, I have whittled the list of Bridget’s to Letterkenny and nearby, as I have a heat map in mind for the surrounding districts, but the initials of those otherwise potentials have the wrong initials.

I take heed of your advice and see the way is more likely through finding any marriage record of Bridget’s father's marriage and a big thanks for the heads up on the Northern Ireland issue and will use the GRONI of which I have not been aware of till you educated me. I was hoping that Bridget, being born in 1925/6 may have been one of many and perhaps John, assuming he got married, was before 1922. I have applied to the GRO for a search on any marriage of a John Quinn (13 in 1911 Census) and parents of a John and Mary.

I have just had a quick look at the GRONI site and it appears not to support on-line searching and is a devil of a site to make such a query so have need to go to the complaint section to make that simple enquiry. It could of course just be a thick/grey moment on my behalf, now 73, but I shall await the outcome. 

I can see how some folk can get hooked on these "BMD" mysteries and take the challenge of joining the dots, but this lot makes my eyes water with such a steep learning curve before me which is why you people are so marvellous and appreciated. 

King regards, Kathleen and Stuart down under.

Kathleen & Stuart,

The GRONI site is the same as irishgenealogy in that it doesn't allow you to search for births within the past 100 years. The records are available to the public, just not on-line. However you can search for marriages up to 75 years old (ie 1947, at present). You have to buy a couple of credits and search 5 years at a time. Likely registration districts are Londonderry & Strabane, both of which are very close to where your Quinns lived. In deed the St Johnston marriage was registered in Strabane (pre-partition when the Strabane district included part of Donegal).

Hi Elwyn 

Again, good education and I was wondering about the Straban and Londonderry thing, as they are on my spot area surrounding Letterkenny. 

OOps not sure if I have done the right thing as I tried to attach a file to this message and the "Post Reply" first line message have characters on either side, perhaps I should not have hit the "Post it" radio button. However, I am trying to keep an open mind but given the only clue to Kathleen was that she wrote C/o the Post Office at Letterkenny I am staying with that area till I have exhausted the John Quinn (Bridget's father) trail. I do have a match for a Bridget born in 1926 and the father was listed as a Hawker, which may fit the bill as Bridget had him listed as a shop proprietor, though we think they may have been travellers, and indeed this record of Bridget's with her mother listed as Johanna Collum, have travellers of no fixed address listed in their line. I am tempted to go with this line but they are way down in Ballyshannon and I will stay with Killkenny at this time. Again, Elwyn an appreciated thank you from us down under.