Anne Duffy

Laurence:

I forwarded your message to our local volunteer in the area. Two comments. I could not locate the 1852 marriage record and have you considered a general DNA test?

Roger McDonnell

Marriage of Henry Oxon and Anne Duffy in the parish of St Peter, Drogheda. Writing is poor but is Henry a widower?

v

Henry's address could be Nuns Walk Drogheda and Anne's address North Strand Drogheda

Many thanks for forwarding my enquiry Roger, appreciated.

Yes I've done the Ancestry test and uploaded to LivingDNA and I was on Gedmatch for a while too. A chap on Gedmatch, who knows a lot more than me, said he thought my results were consistent with the Summerhill area, although I'm not sure how he arrived at that. He also said he saw a Roscommon connection but I'm guessing that would be further back and even harder to track. My matches on Gedmatch were lower in Louth and Meath so I guess that might support an origin more to the west. 

Many thanks for the document and the address details, Eileen - yes that's their marriage certificate. Henry was a widower following a first marriage in Liverpool. I hope to visit Drogheda at some point but on the Google maps I think those addresses are quite close together - I wondered what that area would have been like in the mid-1800s. 

Anne's daughter Catherine was baptised RC but for some reason they misrecorded the mother's surname as Doyle. I wonder if it was common for first daughters not to be named after their grandmother. 

Hi Lawrence, if Anne was from Meath it is likely she was born to the south of the river which is in the diocese of Meath and incorporates both Louth and Meath. RC baptisms only commence there in 1835 or records are only found from 1835, the Protestant church of St Marys in not online except via Roots Ireland but a lot of Church of Ireland (Anglican records were lost in the Civil war) The church graveyard is still open but the actual church is now a funeral home / civil marrige centre etc

I can find no Thomas Duffy father that appears to fit in the area though lots of Duffy names in the parish and no Duffy burials in th.e old St Marys cemetery. 

At the time Drogheda would have been a highly industrialised town, railway arrived in 1844, viaduct completed in 1855 etc Major linen mills; engineering works; brewing and distilling and the port was the 2n largest port for migration during the famine with regular services to Liverpool. The National Library of Ireland digital photos has a large collection of old photos of Drogheda online on their site.

Regards

Pat

Many thanks for looking into this and all the information about Drogheda, Pat. I'm guessing Anne would have moved to the town at some stage - I wonder why someone would choose Drogheda, rather than say Dublin, but guess that could be to do with family, friends etc.

Thanks for describing Drogheda, I'll follow up on the National Library of Ireland collection and hope to visit at some stage although I appreciate it must have changed quite a bit.

As far as I can find, Henry Oxton was a labourer for most of his life but his father was a brewer in Liverpool so that might be another possible connection to Drogheda, I guess. 

Thanks again,

Laurence