“Ned”/William Ryans in Adamstown & Enniscorthy Parish Districts

It's important to keep in mind that few Catholic parishes have records back as far as the dates you would need for Ned's bapstism, the average starting date for records in rural parishes is about 1830, so it's quite possible that your Ned was baptised too early for there to be a written record. e.g. baptism records for Adamstown parish go back to 1807.

That said, of the two records mentioned I would think the one in Enniscorthy is a slightly better possibility (Enniscorthy happens to be one of the parishes which has particularly early records back to the 1790s), as it's closer to Adamstown. Templetown parish is in South County Wexford, Hook peninsula, and some distance away from Adamstown.   

Dear, Shanew147, Thank you very much for your constructive & helpful reply.  I am wondering if Parishes have Confirmations records of around that time; finding a ‘William’ Ryan taking ‘Edward’ as a Confirmation name could support a ‘William’ adopting “Ned” as an aka?

Rob

Only a small number of historic parish registers include details of Confirmation, the closest I've been able to locate is with these entries is for Enniscorthy (NLI RC registers), but the Confirmation entries in this register include few details, e.g. no residences, and few middle names.

Dear, Shanew147, Thank you very much again for your reply.  I scanned a few pages before checking the likely confirmation age of the "Ned" Ryan.  He was born about 1797 so would have been about 51 in 1848, the year the confirmation records began.  As the two possible "Williams" were baptised in (Roman) Catholic churches, they would most likely have been confirmed about 10 - 20 years of age (i.e. years 1807-1817) and not likely "late converts".  Besides as you say, there are few 'middle' names listed.  In desperation anything can be worth trying!  It would be useful to find a marriage registration for a “Ryan” to a "Judy Clarke" in Wexford around or before the year of 1826 when their first child was baptised.  On-line marriage records have been searched, without success.  I would be happy to reimburse a researcher for checking original parish records before visiting Wexford in a few months.  Does IrelandXo allow you to make recommendations?

to be honest I would suggest saving your money for your trip - since very few Catholic records exist for the sort of timeframe you need, and the vast majority of the Historic Catholic registers were filmed back in the 1960s and 70s and now available online on the NLI website, and with searchable transcripts of these on FMP and Ancestry.  Getting back as far as the early 1800s is doing very well in terms of Irish Research, especially for Catholics in Rural areas. Dr Jim Ryan, a professional and published researcher, has some notes on his website noting the various reasons for the lack of early Catholic records which might be of interest - see . Catholic Church Records: Lecture Notes for WDYTYA Live, Birmingham April 2015

I suspect that if anything additional could possibly be found it would probably be general in nature rather than specific details on individuals. It might be more interesting to look into the history of that part of Ireland - going back to the Norman invasion, Penal Laws, rebellions etc.

The National Library website includes a list of suggested researchers - see the document link on this page

Thanks shanew147 for your last reply & links. Dr Jim Ryan's talk is a good summary.  Looks like DNA results are a remaining possibility!  Rob