MARTIN

If you look at the 1911 census, you’ll see that the Glassleek couple don’t appear to have had any children. (They left the box blank anyway which completing the adjacent one that asked them how many years they were married. And that tells you they married around 1863. However your Thomas was born 4 years before that. So it looks to be as though they are unlikely to be the right parents, both because they married too late and didn’t have any children).

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Cavan/Taghart/Glasleck/336441/

You could double check by searching the RC parish records for their marriage in case they were actually married a few years earlier, and also for a birth for Thomas around 1859. RC parish of Bailieborough, I think. The records are free to view on the NLI site:

http://registers.nli.ie/parishes

Patrick Martin died 31.12.1912. The National Archives site lists a probate grant and there should be a will. You could order a copy of that. The will and the accompanying documents should list how many children he had, and whether they were alive or dead.

http://www.willcalendars.nationalarchives.ie/search/cwa/index.jsp

Thanks so much for your reply and advice. Unfortunately I've not been successful in accessing the information from these sites that I want. I'll keep trying......

After receiving the info/advice from Elwyn, I've looked further into the census records of 1841, not being able to find any records for 1851. Known facts are that Thomas Martin was born in Cavan between 1855 and 1859 and that his father's name was Patrick (Pat/Patt). Thomas immigrated (alone) to Australia in 1878 as an assisted immigrant, arriving in NSW 10th March 1878. His point of departure was Plymouth.

Looking for Tom's father, Patrick (Pat/Patt) in 1841 records in Cavan, my best bet seems to lie in Killashandra, Tullyhunco, where there are a number of possbilities in the townlands of Drumalt, Drumbess, Drumkilroosk, Ned, Drumroe, Cappagh and Drumcarey.

I'm unsure where to go from here. I cannot find any birth records for a Thomas Martin, whose father was Patrick and who was born between 1855 and 1859.

Any ideas???
 

Something to bear in mind is that there are no complete Irish censuses earlier than 1901. The censuses for 1861 – 1891 were all pulped during WWI. The 1851, and sometimes the 1841, were used for age verification purposes when the old age pension was introduced in 1909. (To check whether an applicant was 70 or over). They were lost when the Public Record Office burned in 1922, during the civil war, along with the 1831 and 1821 censuses.

Some fragments have survived, either because parts of the originals had been copied, or from pension application information but they are far from complete. So the 1841 census of Cavan that you have been using is only for part of the county. There could well have been many more Martins in the county than you have found there.

Can’t really suggest anything new with regard to locating Thomas’s birth.