Seeking information about Spellmans

Births/Baptisms/Marriages/Deaths ? pre1790-1800 ? The reality of finding documentationpertaining 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 todocument the population. Please also note that the Church of Ireland was the official church of thecountry and therefore the bulk of information that does survive for earlier periods is often fromthese registers. ROMAN CATHOLIC: 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 availablerecords per county. If you have any difficulty, you could try writing to the parish priest for possibleassistance. CHURCH OF IRELAND: Church of Ireland parish registers for the period up to 1870-are publicrecords. Registers are available for about one third of the parishes, however many were destroyedin the Public Records Office in Dublin in 1922. Most are still held by the local clergy, althoughsome are in the National Archives of Ireland and others are in the Representative Church BodyLibrary 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 Projectis has created an index to their records: http://ireland.anglican.org/cmsfiles/pdf/AboutUs/library/AngRecord/bunclodyunionindex.pdf PRESBYTERIAN: Presbyterian registers are held in three main locations: in local custody, in the PublicRecords of Northern Ireland (PRONI) http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/family_history.htm and atthe Presbyterian Historical Society http://www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com in Belfast. PRONIhas microfilm copies of almost all registers in Northern Ireland and also lists of records held by thePresbyterian Historical Society. For the rest of Ireland, almost all records are in local custody. It candifficult to locate these as many congregations in the South have moved, amalgamated, or simplydisappeared over the last sixty years.

Mary In the parishes  of Doon and Pallasgreen Co. Limerick on the Tipperary border Spelmans had small properties rented in the Tithes valuation 1823-1837. I had Fox ancestors from Doon that had Spelman relatives. 25-30 miles away Spelmans had much bigger properties rented in Dromineer near Lough Neagh, Tipperary.see attached My e mail is foxseamus@gmail.com

Diane,

the name Spellman is most unusual here so I searched www.rootsireland.ie for William.

I found a baptismal record for a William Spellman, father Patrick Spellman bap. 1832 in Co. Limerick.  I then went to the Limerick genealogy site and searched to find out in which parish he was baptised.  He was bap. in Doon RC.   this is on the border of Limerick and Tipperary.

I think it would be worth viewing this record as the surname is so unusual.   I don't know how sure you are of your dates, but I would advise you to keep a very open mind.  Dates found on census records and tombstones have in the past turned out to be inaccurate in many cases.

Most people who emigrated were illiterate and undocumented.  They didn't know how to spell their names and hadn't a clue as to what age they were.  At the port of arrival their names were recorded phonetically, their ages were only guessed, and this is the information that followed them for the rest of their lives.

The proof of this occured in 1909 when the old age pension was introduced into ireland.  People had to prove their ages and were forced to go through baptismal records to establish when they were born.  That is why there is such HUGE discrepancies between ages in the 1901 census and the 1911 census of Ireland.  Dates were found to be out by many many years in some cases.

Hope this helps you in some way,

anne Dennehy