A while ago I mentioned here that I'd received the death certificates of a James White and his wife Margaret who died at Ballycoolid in Queen's County. They were prime candidates for parents of my 2nd great-grandfather James White Jr. Now I'm not so sure. In fact I really doubt I have the right James and Margaret.
I often see if I can disprove my theories as well as prove them, in the interest of accuracy. The names, dates, and location all lined up for the individuals in my certificates, but since maiden names or parent's names don't appear on early Irish death certificates I couldn't be positive these were my people; James and Margaret are not uncommon forenames in Ireland. Today I did a search at Find My Past's free database of Catholic Baptisms. For search terms I used Queen's County for the place, the surname White for the subject, and only the forenames James and Margaret for the subject's parents. I didn't use surnames for either of the parents. Several hits came up in the White's home parish of Rathdowney, all of which were probably a bit too late to be the correct James and Margaret.
I clicked on the first one and held my breath...please don't let the address be Ballycoolid, please don't let the address be Ballycoolid...the address was Ballycoolid. Damn. So was the second hit, and both gave the mother's name as Margaret Duigan. My 3rd great-grandmother was Margaret Keyes, Duigan didn't cut it. It appears the James and Margaret in Ballycoolid are not direct ancestors of mine. Of course there could have been two James and Margaret Whites residing there, but it doesn't seem likely. I did have a sneaking suspicion that my great-great-great-grandparents probably didn't live into the 1870's, life expectancy being what it was in 19th century Ireland. I repeated the search using County Tipperary as the place since Rathdowney is right on the border of Queens and Tipperary but nothing promising came up.
While it's disappointing to discover one's supposition is incorrect, what you find to be untrue can also be helpful. I've now been able to rule out the James White in Griffith's Valuation of Ballycoolid as my man. That leaves only two other possibilities in Griffith's, James White in Errill and James White in Knockardagan. In Knockardagan there is a James White Jr. along with a James White Sr. That's useful since I know from marriage records that my James White was a Junior. The surnames Kayes, (a variation of Keyes), Fitzpatrick, Lawlor, and Delaney, all names associated with my Whites, also appear in the townland. Interesting too is the presence of a William White, ( I strongly believe my James Jr. had a brother named William), and a Bryan Ford who could be the father-in-law of my James Jr.'s oldest son, who was named James White, (of course he was).
Errill is slightly less interesting name-wise with several Fitzpatrick's and a few Hennessy's, a family who settled in the same area as James in America and one of whom married a Keyes here. The fact is, with no early census records, no Catholic burial records, a huge gap in Rathdowney church records precisely in the period needed for my research, and no civil registration in the 1830's, I may never find exactly which James White is the right one, but then again, I had all but given up on finding a home county, let alone a parish for James. And after all, as can be seen on the map above, the two places are only a little over a mile apart, I guess I can live with that.
At least they've helped you hone in on good potentials. And, as they're only a mile apart, they may still be your 'cousins'.
ReplyDeleteRight you are. I would bet they are indeed relatives of some sort.
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