John & Edward Conlon - Athlone

Hi there,

Do you know what religion he was?

There are Roman Catholic church records for the diocese of St. Mary's, Athlone (Ardagh and Clonmacnois). These date from 1813 for baptismal, marriage and burial records. You can find these at the National Library of Ireland, Pos. 4242, or the Church of Latter Day Saints, film 1279224 and 1279226. If you have any difficulty, you could try writing to the parish priest for more assistance.

You have done well to find out the army records. These should offer some clues.

As he was (possibly) a boot maker, you could check for his name in the trade directories. You can find some of these in the Failte Romhat website here: http://www.failteromhat.com/slater/0352.pdf and http://www.failteromhat.com/slater/0353.pdf This particular one is from Slater's dated 1846, but there are more trade directories than this one. There is another called Pigot's too. Both directories date from the 19th century and both have more than one issue.

1820, 1824 J. Pigot, Commercial Directory of Ireland

1846, 1856, 1870, 1881, 1894 Slater's

You could also try checking the land records called the Tithe Applotment Books (1823-38) or the later Griffith's Valuation (1848-64). Griffith's is freely available here: www.askaboutireland.com or here: www.failteromhat.com Failte Romhat has lots of other useful links you could try looking at.Tithe Applotment Books (1823-38). Microfilm copies of the books for all of Ireland are available at the National Archives of Ireland (NAI) http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/tithe-applotment-books-and-the-primary-griffith-valuation/ or the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS).

The Tithe Applotment List might be of use to you, or at least interesting for you. These lists constitute the only nationwide survey for the period, and are valuable because the heaviest burden of the tithes to the Established Church, the Church of Ireland, fell on the poorest, for whom few other records survive. The information in the Tithes is quite basic, typically consisting of townland name, landholder's name, area of land and tithes payable. Many Books also record the landlord's name and an assessment of the economic productivity of the land. the tax payable was based on the average price of wheat and oats over the seven years up to 1823, and was levied at a different rate depending on the quality of land. For Parishes where the registers do not begin until after 1850, this information can be useful, as they are often the only surviving early records. They can provide valuable circumstantial evidence, especially where a holding passed from father to son in the period between the Tithe survey and Griffith's Valuation.

Civil registration records are available from the General Register Office (GRO). These start from 1864 however. You can access the website here: http://www.groireland.ie/research.htm

You can check for information about the frequency of the name in the mid-19th century and any other variant spellings of the name here: http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/ If you know the maiden name, then you could do a search using both names to find results.

Other documents you could look at include:

1837 Marksmen (i.e. illiterate voters), Athlone Borough. 'Parliamentary Papers 1837, Reports from Committees', Vol. II (1), Appendix A.

1861 Athlone Voters.Westmeath County Library.. Also Church of Latter Day Saints film 1279285.

Please make sure you link anyone else in your family who is interested in their Irish heritage to our site - and indeed anyone else you know of Irish heritage.

Kind regards,

Sinead Cooney

Genealogist (Ireland XO)

Thank you! I'll see what further info from the sources you listed - hopefully some of the records will be digitised! 

I'm afraid we don't know what religion he was - on the Conlon side they seemed to swap and change depending on their mood!