Attempting to find the parish of my ancestors, John Hartnett (b. abt 1815) and Ellen Farrell Hartnett (b. abt 1821) from County Limerick. They left Ireland for Boston about 1850. At that time they had three children, Richard, Patrick J., and Catherine. I have seen on-line references to Abbeyfeale but I have nothing to confirm that Abbeyfeale is where they were from.
Ellen Farrell was the daughter of John Farrell and Bridget Murphy.
Any assistance will be appreciated.
I will be visiting Ireland in March 2013 and hope to be able to visit Abbeyfeale if I can confirm the above.
Thank you.
Paul J. McCool
Spruce Head Island, Maine USA
Monday 10th Dec 2012, 02:49PM
Message Board Replies
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Hi Paul, thanks for your message.
Have you tried searching for any record of John and Ellen in church records? Perhaps you could confirm Abbeyfeale if you found a birth/baptism/marriage record for them in the Abbeyfeale parish records. The Irishtimes website can be useful as it gives an overview of what records are available in each parish. For Abbeyfeale, follow this link:
You could also check the Griffith's Valuation for some record of them. This is a land survey that was carried out in Ireland between 1848 and 1864. This acts as a good census substitution as there are no census records prior to 1901. The information in the Valuation is recorded according to parish, so perhaps if you do a search of Abbeyfeale parish you may find some record of them. You can do this at the following link:
http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/
Do you know much about their emigration? Generally more information was given at the port of arrival rather than departure. If you knew which city they arrived at, this could be a good place to find information-and maybe even an exact place of origin. The US National Archives is a very helpful website in terms of immigration information. You can access this here:
http://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/
If the arrived in New York you may be able to find a record of them either in the Ellis Island database or the Castlegarden database. Here are the links to these websites:
Ellis Island: http://www.ellisisland.org/search/passSearch.asp
Castlegarden: http://www.castlegarden.org/
Also, between 1831 and 1921, the Boston Pilot printd a "missing friends" column with advertisements from people looking for "lost" friends or relatives who had emigrated from Ireland to the US. These have been placed in an online database. You could check this in case such a message was ever posted for John and Ellen. THe weblink is: http://infowanted.bc.edu/
Other websites that may help you in your search are the National Library and the National Archives.Their websites are http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/ respectively.
I hope that these websites will help you to confirm a connection with Abbeyfeale before your trip. If you would like to share the details and dates of your visit with us via our contact form at info@irelandxo.com , please do so and we will endeavour to find a volunteer that may be able to assist or advise you during your visit.
Remember to post as much information as you can with regard to the people you are researching. The more information you post, the more likely it is that one of our volunteers will be able to advise or assist you. Also include information concerning which sources you may have already used so others may further your search.
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
Monday 4th Feb 2013, 04:14PM