My irish ancestry

Lots of Sheean in the time frame in Tipperary but no Varyd/Fardy. You can use this technique to seach for free.

In this example I was looking for a Minnie and Catherine Wiley sisters parents unknown.

How I did it was to use the pay to view site

http://rootsireland.ie/

I did firstly a national search for Minnie which threw up a couple both in Antrim. I then switched to County Antrim.

By playing about with the date range I was able to narrow down the baptism to a specific year. I still have not used the pay to view option yet nor used up any of my limited number of free previews. Once I had a Minnie I had to find her parents first names. I started with father first name a - this would bring up any firstnames starting with "a". Working through the alphabet got me to H when I got a hit adding further letters and worked out father was Hugh. Search then for Wiley children no firstname father Hugh within ten years of Minnie. Got 6 hits and using same technique was able to work out the 6 names - but no Catherine. Minnie is a common nickname so reverted to Catherine. Broad search found two which narrowed down to one in 1868 and one in 1872. Was able to work out 1868 was daughter of John and Mary. Broad search found no other children to this couple. 1872 Catherine was daughter of John and Jane and a broad search threw up 9 children. Plodding through the alphabet got me Alexander, Eliza, Catherine, Eleanor, Francis, John, James, Samuel, Wilhemina, which was more complicated since it is usually spelled WilheLmina.  Catherine I knew was 1872, and bit of playing about with date range got me 1881 for Wilhemina. Age gap fits the two sisters although the ages are well out - no surprises there!

You can play about with the dates until you match up the other 7 children. You can refine it a bit more by choosing one child then working your way through the drop down menu of the various parishes until you get a hit. Then you can see if all the other children were also in the same parish. Bearing in mind couples did move about as well as changing churches. It is quite possible that these 9 children were born to more than one couple named John and Jane.  Getting one transcript should give mothers maiden name and doing a broad search for baptisms to John and Jane with new surname hopefully should confirm 9 children. However many older records do not list mother's maiden name. Using this technique you can gain a lot of data without using up your limited number of free searches or having to buy any transcripts.

Bob Graham (County Fermanagh XO)

Thank you so much for your advice, I will certainly follow it up. It does appear to be time consuming but worthwhile

Thanks agaib

Norma Hambly(Sheean)

There is an irishbabyname site which suggests Fardy/Farghy is another form of Fergus. You may want to check for this name in your search.

Bob Graham (County Fermanagh XO)

Fardy/Vardy Sheehan married my great great great grandmother Mary Kelleher.  Mary was born Mary Sullivan in Cork in 1791 and was transported to Australia on the convict ship Canada arriving August, 1817 with her 2 year old daughter Catherine, (my great, great grandmother)  Mary was sent to Female Factory in Parramatta. In 1820 she married a Samuel Higgins( bigamously) and had a son John born 1823. Anecdotal family stories say she married Fardy/Vardy Sheehan on August 24th 1826, and again in 1834, her children Catherine and John both used the surname Sheehan.  They had three more children Thomas Randolph, born 1 January 1826 Cornwallis, Windsor died 8th August 1860 Lucknow Victoria, Bridget born 1828 Windsor, New South Wales, death unknown and Michael born 1830 died 28th August 1914 Boorowa New South Wales. Fardy is listed as a farmer in 1828 Census, and Mary his house maid. He died aged 62 on 27th February 1842 in Cornwallis and is buried inSt Matthews catholic Cemetery Windsor with Mary who died aged 47 on 8th April 1939. 

Vardy Sheehan & Mary Kelleher are my 2x GGrandparents their son Michael is my GGrandfather I am interested in finding any others who are descended from them.Would love to learn anything I can about their lives here or back in Ireland.

My name is Pauline Wood-Bradley and my email is onj1966@hotmail.com