Graley family

Do you know what denomination your Grayley/Graley family were ?

The Catholic parish for the area was known as the "District of Tomacork" or the "Union of Carnew and Crosspatrick", the parish also covered parts of Co. Wicklow. Historic registers for this parish cover records of baptisms back to 1785 and marriages back to 1793. Images of the Catholic registers are available on the National Library of Ireland website. A search of the Tomacork baptism records between 1814 and 1834 (on FindMyPast) do not show any promising matches for your William, and the only close matches I see by surname are a Samuel Grealy baptised July 1828 to a George Grealy & Anne Hefrom, and a possible brother Js. (James?) James Grayley baptised December.1832 to George Grayley and Nancy Hefron (Nancy is often a variant' for Anne), and a sister Jane Greely baptised September 1830 also to George Greely and Ann Heffran.. There are a few gaps in the records but the registers for the 1820s all look ok..no obvious gaps

Do you have a marriage cert for William ? This could include details of his father's name & occupation which could confirm or rule out any possible matches ...

p.s. did your William marry a Margaret Flynn ?
If so, thy had a son Thomas born at 29 Bishop Street Dublin City on the 23rd June 1874 - William is recorded as an Army Pensioner.

Hello!  Really really kind of you to take all this trouble. I’m inclined to think that the other spelling of Graley as Greeley IS the same name. The births which you found of his potential siblings all tie in with my William's date of birth.  In answer to your question, William Graley did marry a Margaret Flynn in 1756 out in India. He would have been an army pensioner having been discharged from the army in 1873. On his army papers it said his new place of abode would be Kingstown. That would tie in with a birth in Dublin I suppose. Later on the name Graley morphs into Grayley in a census for 1891 and some of his descendants have it now as their middle name!  I shouldn’t think they knew how to spell the name when he joined the army in 1850 and it was put down on his papers then as Graley. I believe he was Catholic because his daughter Mary married my great grandfather Thomas Murphy, who was definitely a Catholic, which is why I was brought up as one.  He came from Ardfinnan but was also in the army in India. Thanks again so much for your great help. Really appreciated. Do you know Tomacork? Or Ardfinnan? 

Further to my last two posts, I’ve made a mistake with William's date of birth. He was born in 1833. 

I rechecked for possible baptisms of your William in case I might not have missed his baptism due to revised date - but unfortunately still no promising match... just the three children I mentioned in the reply above. I'd be fairly certain this is 'your' Grealy/Graley/Grayley/Greeley family - it's the only family of this surname in the parish at the time. William's baptism was either omitted from the register in error, or is still there somewhere just faded or illegible, or partially obscured under an ink blot.

I located a probable match for George Gealy on Griffith's Valuation leasing a house in Coolroe townland, Co. Wicklow in 1853. Coolroe is in Crosspatrick civil parish - one of those included in Tomacork Catholic Parish.

That’s incredibly kind of you. I must have a look at Coolroe. So would Tomacork have had the nearest Catholic Church to Coolroe? 

On his army discharge papers it says he was planning to go back to Kingstown. Is that far? Do you think he said Kingstown because it was more well known? Having said that he actually seems to have had a child born in Dublin (as you discovered as well).

Thanks again! 

The closest Catholic Church to Coolroe townland seems to be the one at Coolafancy townland, in Crosspatrick village, but the parish church at the time would likely hacve been the one at Tomacork townland, as that's the name of the parish, so that's where most recordable events like baptisms and marriages would have taken place. Most of the time the family would have probably had attended the nearer church at Coolafancy townland, not far from Tinahely town.

I've attached images of the two churches as seen on Google Street view - the Church at Coolafancy is now St. Mary's same location and name on the c1890 OSI map, the older maps c1840 show a smaller chapel on the same site a short distcne to the west. The larger church at Tomacork, is also shown as St. Mary's on the c1890 maps and seems to be a bit older as the same general general outline on the c1840 maps..

The town of Kingstown is located in south east County Dublin, and has now reverted back to it's original name of Dún Laoghaire, it was a major maritime centre and has a large harbour. The daily mail boats to England (via Holyhead in Wales) left from here twice a day. Kingstown would be about 75km north of Coolroe townland Co. Wicklow, and about 11km from Bishop Street, Dublin city where Thomas was born in 1874...

Hugely grateful you’ve taken all this trouble. So kind, Jenny