Waterford County Library Online Resources

    For those with ancestors in County Waterford, there are several useful databases available online from the wonderful people at the County Library.  http://www.waterfordcountylibrary.ie/en/.

     On the homepage, look to the sidebar on the left, then skip down six links to Family History and select that.   On the page that comes up you will find goodies like Death Registers and Burial Grounds along with other databases like OSI maps and the 1901/1911 censuses that are also available elsewhere on the net.

     For the longest time, until yesterday actually, I had no idea what had become of my third great grandmother Honora Crotty Power’s brother David.  I knew he had stayed in Ireland and was listed in Griffith’s Valuation, but that was all I knew about him.  Since I’m always interested in finding living relatives in Ireland, I searched all my favorite sites for him and his possible descendants with no luck.  Then I remembered the library had some death records I hadn’t looked at since discovering David’s existence last year.  Almost immediately I found his family:

Name :	Crotty, David Crotty, Bridget Connolly, Bridt. Connolly, David Connolly, Patrick
Inscription:	Erected by Nellie Crotty, Cullencastle in memory of her father David died Nov. 1st 1892 aged 70. Her mother Bridget Crotty (nee O' Brien) died Sept. 11th 1878 aged 57, also her children Bridt. Connolly died Apl 15th 1898 aged 21. David Connolly died May 3rd 1907 aged 28. Patrick Connolly died in America. R.I.P.
Note :	21 A 6. Cross shaped headstone.
Graveyard:	Old Cemetery, Holy Cross Church, Tramore
Source:	Memorials of the dead in the Old Cemetery Church of the Holy Cross, Tramore: Andy Taylor; 1994.

     Those Irish headstones are great, and there is so much genealogical data contained on this one!  I found David’s death date, his wife’s maiden name and her death date, the name of a daughter Nellie who remained in Cullencastle and the names of several of her children along with her husband’s surname.  I later checked the IFHF site and found the baptism of her son David Connolly in 1876, and managed to guess the name of her husband, (see my blog entry- Using the Irish Family History Foundation Site).  He was also named David.  Interestingly, her son Patrick Connolly did emigrate and died in America though no date is given.

     My joy at finding all this was tempered by the realization Nellie, or Ellen as she was known in official records, lost three of her children, an incredibly sad thing.  I was unable to find any other baptisms of children of Nellie, or her marriage record, but I know from earlier research a large chunk of Tramore RC records from that time period were destroyed.  I truly hope she had more children than the three she lost.

     Be sure to check out the Local History section on the site also, with links like “Waterford Places”, Waterford newspapers, (not searchable, darn), and digitized copies of The Journal of the Waterford and South-East of Ireland Archeological Society.