Searching for Considine townland

Hello Barry,

I went to www.rootsireland.ie and searched for your Thomas considine c. 1820? in the Co. Tipperary genealogy site but had no luck.

However I broadened my search area as all the counties border records  can often be found straddling two counties.

I found a record for Thomas Considine born 1814 in Co. Limerick.  When I narrowed the search to parish level I found that the record is in the parish of Pallasgrean and Templebredon.  This is a church parish and so doesn't respect county borders.  Pallasgrean is in Co. Limerick but Templebredon is in Co. Tipperary.  So your ancestor may have been living on the Tipp LImerick border?

I know you say he might have been born in 1820 but from experience I've found that many dates (even from tombstones) are incorrect.  Most people when the emigrated were illiterate, undocumented and didn't know their birth date (as they never celebrated birthdays).  Many of these details were guessed at in the port of arrival.

Anyway I believe it's worth a look.

Regards,

Anne Dennehy

Hi Anne-

Thanks for your researching that for me. I have tried rootsireland, familysearch.org, ancestry.com and many other sources. Very interesting to me that birthdays are not celebrated in Ireland. I am also interested in how the parishes that straddle county borders usually kept their records. That is to say, it's possible that the Church baptism was in Limerick, but the townland of birth was in Tipperary. That makes sense. Of course that goes for other adjoining counties too.

This a puzzle I am unlikely to ever solve. Only three weeks to go  I am going to check a little further into Templebredon/Pallasgrean and see if it warrants a stop.  I am going to try to visit the most likely spots and hope my heart tells me.  

Again, thanks so much for your time and effort.  

Regards, Barry Considine

Barry, we do now celebrate birthdays in Ireland but my point was that during the 19th century and earlier, people had no work, no money, no housing, no food.  Celebrating a birthday was unheard of (except for the very rich) and it was all they  could do to feed themselves and their children. You must really try and put yourself in their shoes.  They left Ireland in the clothes they stood up in, had no education or qualifications.  They had probably never seen their names written down, hadn't a clue about their date of birth.  They carried no form of documentation at all.

All these details were guessed at port of arrival.  Ages were guessed, names spelled phonetically by the person taking the record.  That's why so many surnames changed slightly in America and Australia.  They came from abject poverty.

Hope you find your ancestor,

Anne