Lisnaskea

Dear Kathy

We are prevented from offering assistance about living individuals without their express consent (due to privacy laws). In most cases our advice stems from knowledge of genealogy sources that finish in 1911 (the 1911 Census is the most recent online record available). The site irishgenealogy.ie has recently provided access to the index of births, marriages and deaths from 1864 to the present. You can access this site here:

http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/

However, you could get in touch with the parish priest in Lisnaskea and ask that he place a notice in the parish newsletter (he may or may not).  In that way if anyone from your father?s family wishes to contact you they can do so directly. Do you know what religion the family were? The local newspaper might come in handy too:

The Northern Standard: http://www.goldenpages.ie/northern-standard-newspaper-monaghan/3/

With best wishes

Clare Doyle

Genealogy Support 

Hi Kathy,

My name is Damien O’Connor and my grandfather was James Joseph O’Connor (Connors). He was born in Lisnaskea in 1901 and had a brother named William Connors, who I believe is your grandfather.

William Connors lived at 6 St Patricks Terrace, married Mary Coyle and had 3 children - Joe, Des and Kathleen. I think Des was in the Navy and visited my grandfather in Sydney at some point (my grandfather moved to Australia and married in Sydney).

I’m not sure how confident you are of your grandfathers name (Joseph) - it appears our stories correlate other than this one point.  If we are related I have traced the family back to the mid 1800’s to Patrick Connor (gg grandfather) and Bridget McRoe’s family from Moorlough back to a similar time (ggg grandfather).

I do have a bit of detail around the family so I hope we can be in contact soon.

Regards,

Damien

Hi Damien,

I was so pleased to receive your message. Yes, I believe we are related. I wasn't sure about my grandfather's name, but once I read your message it came back to me that it was William!

My father was Des and he was in the Navy and I know that he spent some time in Australia, as he used to talk about it. He died in 1976 in a work related accident when he was 54 years old. Joe died a few years later. Kathleen died back in 1965. This is the reason I have so little information and no photographs or details about our grandparents or their families. My mum had very little belonging to my dad, and for some reason gave away what she did have to Joe when my dad died. Joe had 6 children, and again I know that they have very little information about the family.

I am the oldest in the family (being named after Kathleen) and have a sister - Lorraine and a brother Des. I live in London and they both live in Hertfordshire.

My sister was very excited to hear that you had written - to be honest, I thought it was a long shot posting anything on the website, so it was a lovely surprise to read your response - we would both love to find out more. We had planned to visit Lisnaskea some time this year to see if we could find out any information, so its amazing that you already have information. 

I regularly go to Ireland - Wexford - as that is where my mum came from and I have a lot of cousins there, but have yet to make the  trip North.

I look forward to hearing from you. Where are you based?

Kind regards

Kathy

Hi Kathy,

I have emailed you the infromation I have re William and I will follow up with further information. I hope this helps get you started.

Damien