FINDING FAMILIES

just read the email about using Griffiths Valuations to find family. I can tell you how this helped me tremendously.
To begin with I was lucky enough to already know from my grandfather that my families came from County Galway and that my 2nd great grandfather (raised by his grandparents Tadgh Coyne and Catherine Lydon) has hooked l joked to my grandfather that "we were so far west in Ireland that the next parish over was America!"
Also my families immigrated to a close Irish community in the little village of Marcellus in Upstate NY.
My Coyne 2nd great grandfather has 2 brothers and a sister there and his wife Catherine Lydon has a brother, sister and their parents who all came they're.
"TADY'S" brother Rodger married Ann Gannon and his sister Sarah had married Philip Gannon (Ann's brother!) . A brother Patrick had married a Mary Coyne.
Tady's wife Catherine has a sister Jane who who married Thomas Thornton in 1869 and then they and the Lydon parents (Patrick lydon and bridget coyne) came to join the rest in Marcellus.
Catherine's brother Patrick jr had also married a Mary Coyne.
So I'm trying to find where in Galway they all came from I had 5 families to place in the same area since in those days, the Irish rarely moved from where they were born.
I knew Tady and siblings father was John Coyne (from Tady's death cert) and his mother was Ellen "Nellie" Walsh/ Welch. (The name seems to have been Walsh in Ireland and somehow morphed into Welch in Marcellus. )
So I had Coyne, Lydon, Walsh, Gannon and Thornton who likely lived in the same parish. I also knew the Gannon father was named Thomas.
Using Griffith was a big help. I searched civil parishes in western galway and found Thomas Gannon and John Coyne rented plots next to each other, Lydons lived nearby and so did Thorntons.
Thomas Gannon and John Coyne both rented "disparate" plots (crossed townland lines) between townlands of Ross and Tievegariff. The Lydons were in townland of Ungwee and Thornton in Moyard townland all in the civil parish of Ballynakill.
I later found Jane Lydons marriage record which confirmed their townlands and later (with great help from Irelandxo staff) find the lydon brother John who remained in Ireland. I had found him in census in 1911n still in Ungwee. And also was given the baptism records of John's 10 daughters which helped me to find that 7 of them had come to Syracuse NY much later than the older family and that 6 of them died here. One, Catherine lydon, returned to ireland to help her mother honor Corbett and married a James Joyce and died in Ungwee in 1968!
I got to visit the parish 3 years ago and it's gorgeous and recently had a closer dna match to the SON of the family who owned the hotel where I stayed in Tullycross. Wish I'd known that when I was there!
Hope this helps someone on their journey!