parish of Martin and Mary Fleming

Dear Jim

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out and apologies for the delay in replying to your message. 

As you can see from the link below, Boyounagh is a Civil Parish in Galway:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/townlands/index.cfm?fuseaction=TownlandsInCivil&civilparishid=991&civilparish=Boyounagh&citycounty=Galway

Records for the corresponding Roman Catholic Parish of Boyounagh/Glenamaddy begin in 1838.

If your ancestors were born in this parish you could search the sites suggested below for their marriage record and the baptism records of their children:

There are some places where you can search online, however these websites do not have complete collections and many do not cover the period after 1900:

www.familysearch.org has a huge database of genealogical records including some church records for Ireland.

www.rootsireland.ie have a large collection of Irish Church records, however you have to pay to use this site.

http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/ have begun a project to upload Irish church records to their site free of charge. However, so far only Counties Dublin, Kerry, Carlow and parts of Cork have been covered.

At this point, it would be difficult to ascertain what connection, if any, there is between those you list on Griffith?s Valuation. In your position, I would continue gathering as much information as possible about the Fleming family, without making any judgments yet as it how they are related. As records in Killererin don?t begin until the mid-1870s, there would be no church records for the Fleming family if they were born in that parish.

Is there any way you could find out more about their actual place of birth? Do you have any documentation pertaining to the family that mentions any place names at all? This can include wills, marriage/death records, census records, letters, diary entries etc. Have you tried searching Ancestry.com for any mention of your ancestor?s name in member family trees or messages? Ancestry is also hosting ?webinars? on their site. The latest focuses on how to use Irish records when you do not know where your ancestor is from. 

If you do manage to find out more or are interested, you could contact the Boyounagh/Glenamaddy Heritage Society. This address is for the Community Development Company located in the same building. They could pass on any message to the Heritage Group: http://www.glenamaddy.com/contact-us.asp

Best of luck with your search

Clare Doyle

Genealogy Support  

Hi Clare Doyle

 Thanks so much for your response. I'll try to be brief in my comments. I have (on loan from a cousin) the family (RC) bible of Patrick W. Fleming (g/grandfather). He is the son of Martin Fleming and Mary (Haverty) Fleming. There appears to have been several different generations making notes in the back of this book. Patrick was hit and killed by a train in 1906. I think his bible went to my grandfather or possibly one of P.W.'s sisters. There is a notation that Martin And Mary were married in 1848 in Loughrea, Galway. There is also noted that their first child Anna E. Fleming was born Nov. 1850 and second child, Patrick William Fleming was born in 1852 (no month noted). These state Loughrea as birthplace. In investigating naming patterns, I'm reasonably certain their next son James H. Fleming (born 1856, USA) was named for Mary's father. I also tried to associate Patrick W (first son) with the name of Martin's father. This left me searching for a Patrick Fleming and James Haverty somewhere near each other, and near Loughrea. Does this make sense to you? Using the 1855 Griffiths data I found both in Boyounagh, but some distance from Loughrea. I also found these names in Kilconickny and Kilchreest parishes, and they appear to be within walking distance of Loughrea. If Martin was born in 1820 and Mary was born in 1825, their families could have been from Loughrea or that area. I'm leaning toward the Kilconickny theory.  I'll try some of the links you suggested, I believe I'll have to get lucky with finding RC records in one of these parishes. I need Martin and Mary's marriage or either of their first two children's birth in 1850 and 1852.

  An unrelated note, this family had 5 more children born in West Virginia and Martin and Mary are buried along side of 5 of their 7 children. They must have been a very close family.

Thank You for your help

Jim Fleming

Hi Jim

I think you are correct in your line of thinking. Records for the RC Parish of Loughrea begin in 1810, so you should be lucky in your search.

Let us know how you progress

Clare Doyle

Genealogy Support