Dwyer and Kelly Ancestors

mjz824:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

I looked at the 1850 Griffiths Valuation for Kilflyn and Darragh civil parishes which correspond to the RC parish of Glenroe and Ballyorgan. Dwyer and Kelly are found in both civil parishes but in small numbers whcih shoudl allow you to narrow down the possibilities. See the Griffiths links below.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Roger McDonnell

http://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths/limerick/kilflyn.htm

http://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths/limerick/darragh.htm

Yes, I agree with Roger
I just looked up the Dwyers in Griffith's and there were two each in Ballintober(Honoria & Thomas) and Clovers (John & Patrick).  There are Dwyers still living in Ballintubber and there were definitely Kellys living there until relatively recent times so my bet would be Ballintubber.  In the Valuation Office land books for the period Thomas Dwyers held Ballintober Lot 43 and John Kelly sub let a small holding Lot 45a from Elizabeth Lee.

I also have Kelly ancestors from the townland of Spittle.  They also emigrated to Chicago as did many from our area.  I believe many of them worked for the Chicago Street Railway.

Regards

Tim

Thank you very much, Roger and Tim!  I thought the same about Ballintubber based on there being both Dwyers and Kellys there.  I also checked the historicgraves.com website to see what I could find.  I did find some Dwyers, and fewer Kellys.

Can either of you tell me which registration district would have been most likely for residents of the parish to use in the 1880s?  My grandma has an estimated 3rd cousin DNA match with Noonan and Fox ancestors in their tree. I noticed both of those surnames were well represented everywhere I looked, and I have found paper trails for both the Noonan and Fox that lead to Limerick, but no exact parish as of yet.  Since I have birthdates for both in the 1880s, Ibhave looked at the indexes and identified some possibilities but I don't know which registration district was closest or most likely to have been used.  Limerick, Cork, Clonmel, Clogheen, Kilmallock, Macroom, Croom, Lismore, Rathkeale, and Mitchelstown are all returned in the list of most likely entries.

Thanks again!  It is really hard to make that kind of a judgement call without having a good working knowledge of the area!

Tim - Funny that you mention the railway.  My grandma's father, a Sullivan from Knocklong, Limerick, also worked in the railway industry here in Chicago.

Megan

The registration area for the civil parishes of Darragh and Kilflyn (which equate exactly to Glenroe and Ballyorgan) was Kilmallock.  If using the online civil record transcripts on https://rootsireland.ie/limerick/ you should search on Kilfinane which had it's own dispensary district within the Kilmallock structure.
Tim (darragh@IrelandXO.com)

Megan:

I see Tim has provided the info on Kilmallock. 

I don't know if you tested DNA with Ancestry or Family Tree or 23 and Me but I wanted to make sure you were aware of Gedmatch www.gedmatch.com   Gedmatch allows you to upload your raw DNA data and see if you match with someone who tested with the other two DNA testing companies (and loaded their data to Gedmatch). It allows you to expand your match base. Gedmatch also has some good analytical tools. Let me know if you have questions on Gedmatch.

Roger

Thanks again for the helpful information.

Roger, yes, I am very familiar with Gedmatch.  It was in trying to triangulate a completely different match that I spun off on this tangent.  I tested my family at Ancestry, then uploaded to Gedmatch, and have transferred to FTDNA as well.

And now it seems I am back to Darragh again.  I took out another month's subscription to rootsireland, as I didn't fancy my eyes bleeding from pouring through the registers, and it was a more expedient way to get some answers.  So, I found that the mother of the Noonan ancestor of my match, who I traced back to Ballynahinch and Ballinvreena, was a Kelly from Ruppulagh.  I am speculating that that Bridget Kelly might be a sister to my Catherine Kelly.  Given that the match is an estimated third cousin, their fathers' generation is where I might expect to see an MRCA.                          The only problem is, I have run out of paper trails to prove it.  Bridget Kelly (match's Ruppulagh ancestor) would have been born 1845 - 1850.  If my ancestor Catherine were her sister, she would have had to have been born even earlier, as her son was born in 1860.  And there is no marriage record that I could find for Catherine, as the register notes (at least it looks like it does) that her son was illegitimate.  I can't believe that wouldn't have caused her quite the problem back then.  But I have run out of places to look, at least that I know of.  If you have any other suggestions, I would truly appreciate them!

Megan

I just had a look at the manuscript record on NLI.  The Latin entry says Bap (in E de G) Michaili (F Illegitimus) de Michailis Dwyer et Catherinis Kelly.  I think "E de G" means Eglasia de Glenroe (Glenroe Church) which seems to discount the Clovers Dwyers.  Looking at the sponsor names Ryan allso occurs in Ballintubber in the 1860's and Danaher appears in nearby Griston.  There are plenty of descendants of Thomas Dwyer & Mary Hennessy of Ballintubber still living around these parts.  I am guessing that he would be a brother to Michael (the father) based on what we know so one of them might be a suitable DNA subject.  I believe I may also know people who are related to Kellys of Ballintubber. 

Tim (Darragh@IrelandXO.com)

Hi Megan -  I just remembered seeing this Census search form  a couple of years ago.  It was sent by a Mrs Bridget Noonan formerly Kelly who was applying for a pension in 1915.  The from indicates that her parents were William Kelly and Norah Danaher.  Danaher was the name of your relative's baptismal sponsor so I think he would probably have been a cousin of Catherine Kelly.  The form indicates the Kelly family lived in Ruppulagh in 1851 and the comments would seem to indicate that the search was successful and a transcript was made.  These searches were necessary because there was no civil registration in 1851 and this was a way to prove one's age.

Oh wow!  Thank you, Tim!  That is incredible.  It does seem more and more likely that Bridget and Catherine were sisters.  

I would love to be able to test some of the descendants of the families that are still in the area today.  I will have to start setting aside for a DNA scholarship for them, if any would be willing.

I found entries on the 1901 and 1911 censuses for a Catherine Kelly that lived in Ballyvarra.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai002738446/

I have no family story to tell me what became of her, or where her son was raised.  I only know that Michael came to America between 1875 and 1885.  I am still trying to pinpoint which arrival and naturalization records are his.  Since the Catherine Kelly in the census was an old age pensioner as well, would there be a file similar to the one for Bridget, to maybe confirm they were the same family?  It seems like an awful lot of long shots, but you never know. Is there a publicly searchable database for the extract information?

Thanks again!

Megan