Saturday, October 10, 2015

The Source Of Knowledge Is Experience (And Original Documents)

    
     
      I've been sifting through some records I received years ago from a distant cousin who is also researching my Hore/O'Hore line.  She commissioned a search in Ireland long before we met and was generous enough to share the resulting documents with me.  This morning I finally got around to going through the images of church records at the NLI site to confirm the dates in those documents, and see if any additional information could be found.  Always a good idea, and boy was there more information!

     Awhile back I wrote about my search for the parents of my 3rd great-grandfather Daniel McGarr, theorizing that Garretstown in County Carlow seemed to be a likely spot for his birthplace.  This morning I looked up the 1814 marriage of my 3rd great-grandparents on the Hore side, Michael Hore and Mary Travers, (their son James married Daniel McGarr's daughter Maria). I did look at Michael and Mary's marriage record briefly when the web site first came online, but back then I hadn't formulated my Garretstown theory.  Today when I studied the image those words jumped out--Michael Hoare (sic) Garretstown!  Just one address is given, so I'm not sure if Michael and Mary were both from Garretstown or if the PP only noted his address.

     There were other discoveries waiting-- in 1830 John Hore,(suspected brother of Michael), of Garretstown married Sarah Doyle of Ricketstown, (future home of Michael and Mary), and in 1841 Pat Hore of Ricketstown,(son of Michael and Mary), married Margaret Lawlor of Garretstown.  None of these addresses was mentioned in the report sent from Ireland, nor was the fact that when Pat and Margaret were married, along with witnesses Tim Lawlor and Anne Nolan there was a third witness to that union, Pat's sister Winny Hore.  With the dearth of genealogical information pertaining to that period in Ireland, bits of information like addresses and names can be so important, I can't understand why they weren't included in the report?  The fact that Michael and John Hore were both from Garretstown really bolsters my theory that they were brothers.  Similarly, Winny Hore being part of Pat Hore's wedding tends to confirm that Pat was Michael's son since Michael had a daughter named Winifred.  That information would have been nice to have and is very pertinent.

     It's really true, even if you have multiple sources for church events, or any event for that matter, it's always worth the time to seek out the original if possible.  I'm so grateful, and still amazed, that these records are available at my desk!  Thank you NLI.

2 comments:

  1. What wonderful discoveries! And how encouraging to see things that seem to support your theory. This is a lesson I seem to learn over and over (it takes some of us more than once apparently.) Very exciting!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I seem to relearn it all the time too. And I'm always amazed, haha.

    ReplyDelete