Mulry (Mulharay) and Donnelly (Donnelan) families

Marilyn:

I searched the Tuam parish register for September 25 1833 and did not find the baptismal record for John. I searched the subscription site Roots Ireland and did not find the record. I did not locate any other baptismal records for children of Michael Mulry and Bridget Geraghty.

I did see the marriage record on the Lusmagh parish register and the surname for John was Mullearay. I did not see any baptismal records for children of John and Sarah.

Roger McDonnell

Actually, John's baptismal record is in the Tuam parish register, but I think I can explain why Roger didn't find it.  See attached copy of the relevant pages.  John's record is the last entry on the right side of the image.  [Roger:  I'm not trying to one-up you on this!  It's just that I've faced this same issue several times when doing research, and I was initially attracted to this query because I have Mulroy relatives from Mayo, not too great a distance from Tuam).

The problem is that the baptisms in Tuam are not all in sequential order (at least, not for that time period).  In one place they run through to September, and then later jump back to August and then go again to September.  Actually, September is covered in at least three places.  I know of two reasons why this sort of thing could happen.  One is that there might be more than one church in the parish (a main parish church and one or more outlying chapels), and the records from each location were periodically copied into one register, without resequencing them into one logical order.  Another reason could be that the priest made notes of baptisms at the time, then later compiled them into the formal parish register, sometimes overlooking some of the notes and then having to cover the same time period in later pages.

Unfortunately, John's record does not state the name of the townland where the family lived.  Some priests did not do that, and some did it at times and then failed to do so at other times.  What I have done myself is literally read through the entire register, noting down all potential relatives, and then sorting them out afterwards.  If you do that, you might find another child of Michael and Bridget whose record does state the townland name.  I've seen that happen a number of times in my research, either because a different priest was in office at the time, or because the same priest started to state the names.  Going through the register is often fairly easy.  At the link below, you can access all of the available pages and download them (one by one) as images which you can then enlarge, for easier reading.   The arrangement of entries varies from parish to parish, but in Tuam they seem to be consistent (at that time period, anyway) with the child's first name all the way to the left, and then the father's name after it, so I was able to skim down each page looking for John's, and then check quickly what the father's name was.  Since you don't know the names of his siblings, you'll need to train your eye to look just a bit to the right for the father's name as you skim down the page.

Here's the link for the Tuam parish register:  https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/1082

If you find the townland name, you can learn more info about it at this link:  https://www.townlands.ie/galway/tuam/

Note, however, that at that page there is a list of all the townlands in the civil parish of Tuam (an administrative division).  The Catholic parish is larger, and contains parts (or all) of several civil parishes, so there's a chance that the townland will be in a different civil parish.  However, you can use the search field at that page to search for the townland name itself, and get to it that way.

Here's some additional info that might help.

A wedding in Lusmagh is not totally surprising.  It's not extremely close to Tuam, but not all that far away, either - 8 or 9 parishes away.  Among my ancestors, people sometimes married spouses who grew up several parishes away.  My grandmother explained that people often met people from other parishes at fairs or dances, or while visiting relatives.  Weddings were usually held in the bride's home parish, so you might be able to find a baptismal record for Sarah in Lusmagh, since the Catholic parish records there go back to the 1820's.  You can search the Lusmagh parish register here:  https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0337

If you find a baptismal record, then it is likely to state the name of the townland where Sarah was born.  If so, then you can learn more about that townland at this site:

https://www.townlands.ie/offaly/lusmagh2/

Since you're likely to find variants of the surname in different records, note that there are two Irish surnames which were often anglicized as Mulry:

(i) One is the name Ó Maolruaidh ("descendant of the red-haired chief"), which originated in what is now Mayo, but can also be found in Roscommon (probably also in Galway).  Its more common anglicization in Mayo is Mulroy, but Mulry can also be found.

(ii) The other surname, Ó Maolmhuire (figuratively, "descendant of the devotee of Mary", although that's not the literal translation), which originated where Roscommon, Mayo, and Galway now come together (the area where Tuam is located), was usually anglicized as either Mulry or Mullery.  Given the form Mullearay which Roger found in that marriage record, it seems likely that your Mulry ancestors were from this second family line.

Kevin:

No problem! I'm just glad you located the record. I went back in and searched and did find the record. I agree that there were likely different chapels and the register was not revised to keep all the records in order. Thanks again!

Roger