Hensons in Bunnahinley and Cloonbonny

Kathy:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

The free site www.irishgenealogy.ie has images of civil records as follows: births 1864-1918, marriages 1864-1943 and deaths 1878-1968. Your Henson family lived in the Athlone registration district. I located the January 17, 1937 death record for Margaret for you. https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1937/04789/4287059.pdf  James is shown as the informant so he was still alive and in the area in 1937. 

I am more than willing to search for records for the children who remained in Ireland but I figured you would want to look for the records using the site mentioned above. Let me know if you need any additional assistance with the site or if you would like me to search for the records.

Roger McDonnell

Hello Roger,

Thank you so very much for finding this information for me and for your quick repsonse!!!!  My sister and I are visiting Ireland at the end of the summer.   We will  be staying in Shannonbridge in order to be close to Bunnahinley (my grandmother's family) and to Clonfinlough, Co. Offaly (my grandfather, Martin Condron's side).    To prepare for the trip, we have been doing a lot of online research.  We're trying to find out as much as possible beforehand so that we don't spend our entire vacation looking through archives.   We also hope to avoid a trip to Dublin.

We have had some wonderful help from Ireland XO for the Condron side of the family.   Just today, I decided to make an inquiry about the Henson side, and am pleasantly surprised that there is infomation available about them.  This is great news, and I will certainly look for more family information on the online site you mentioned!

One thing we have been wondering about is if it's possible to find out which cemetery (or cemeteries) our Henson relatives could have been buried in.   Would greatly appreciate if you could advise us on how to get started on that.

With deepest gratitude,

Sincerely,

Kathy

Kathy:

I will alert our HQ about your trip (September?) and let them advise you about your cemetery question. Have a greta trip!

Roger

Hi Roger,

Thanks for letting HQ know about our trip.   We will arrive in Ireland on the 27th of August and will depart on the 9th of September.  

By the way, I don't know if Jane Halloran Ryan is at HQ, but she has been extremely helpful regarding my inquiries about County Offaly. 

Thanks again.

Sincerely,

Kathy

Thank you, Kathy C for the very nice compliments.  I am at HQ and I was delighted to hear that you are making good progress with your upcoming trip.  Please keep us posted on this thread about your trip and how it proceeds.  We would love to hear how you get on.  If there is anything further that you need, please let me know.. 

All the best, 

Jane

Hi Roger,

Hello, again, and thank you very much for your previous assistance!  Was wondering if you could help me with some additional questions about the areas in Roscommon and Westmeath where my father's mother's family lived.   My great grandmother, Margaret Shine, was born in Cloonown (Clonown), County Roscommon.    Apparently there were a number of Shine families living in that area, and my cousin (in the USA) told me that we were related to the John Shine family (house number 52 in the 1911 census).  She got this information many years ago from Rosaleen Fallon, co-author and editor of a wonderful book called "A Sense of Place Clonown, A County Roscommon Shannonside Community".  Unfortunately, the book is out of print, but I was able to buy a copy online.   My sister and I visited the area late last summer, but were unable to find anyone who could bring us to Clonown, or to tell us anything about it.  I tried to contact someone by way of the Clonown website. but apparently it is no longer being maintained.

Our great-gandmother, Margaret Shine married Michael Henson of Bunnahinly and they raised 14 children in Bunnahinly, one of whom was my grandmother, Ellen Henson.   During our visit, my sister and I couldn't find anyone to bring us to Bunnahinly or to tell us anything about it.   We have a general idea of the location of the house in Bunnahinly, based on Griffith's Valuation.   We also know from looking at Google Maps that the area is currently very sparsely populated.   We plan to visit the area again this summer and are continuing to do research online.  We will visit Dublin this time to view the Catholic Church records for Roscommon and Westmeath.  We tried to view the records during our visit in the summer, but were told that the records for these locations are only available in Dublin.   Of course we have researched what we can online, but the records are not complete and are often difficult or impossible to read.  

Would greatly appreciate any advice you can provide!

Sincerely,

Kathy (Condron) Shinopoulos

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Hi Kathy:

Many thanks for your email.  I will be forwarding this query to a few volunteers in the areas that you have mentioned and one of them will reply to you.

As I stated in my reply email.  please get back to me with any further questions.

All the best,

Jane

Hi Jane,

Thank you very much!!!!

Kathy