A Clue In A House Book

     

House Book Town of Errill 

     As things stand now, six of my Irish great-great-great-grandfathers have a county and parish.  Four of those have a definite townland and the other two a strongly suspected townland.  In three cases, I have found the actual plot of land upon which they once dwelt.  I've also found several fourth-great-grandparents; one set, Patrick Crotty and his wife Ellen Keily lived in Cullencastle, County Waterford. The other, Andrew Dwyer and his wife Anne lived in Tipperary's South Riding near Annacarty. 

     These progenitors of mine span the entire island from Waterford to Kerry and of these, the White family has proven one of  the most elusive members of the tribe.  It took me many years and the advent of DNA testing to find they hailed from Queens (Laois) County.  Irish church records for the relevant time period were unavailable but using older records and newer ones here in the USA I was able to determine they were from Rathdowney Parish.

     One of the DNA matches I found at Ancestry.com was from the kit of a gentleman living in Ireland.  His progenitor was John White who I very strongly believe is the brother of my James White Jr.  James White Jr's marriage to my great-great-grandmother Anna Ryan in New York provided the names of his parents, my third-greats, James White Sr. and Margaret Keyes.  Unfortunately, my cousin in Ireland does not have the names of John's parents. I was none too happy to see that John White had been a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary, but you can't pick your relatives.  While looking around to see if anything new had turned up on the White family, I again looked at the Tithe Applotments for James White Sr.  There is only one in Rathdowney Parish and he is living in Errill with 2 acres of second class land and 3 acres of third class land.

     Griffith's Valuation shows several James Whites in Rathdowney Parish, but only one in Errill.  Looking at the House Books, this particular James White had a house and shop, several sheds, and a bakery oven.  Bakery oven?  I'd viewed this entry a few times before and thought it probably wasn't mine, however, the last time I looked I was not aware of  Officer John White with the matching DNA.  This time when I viewed the page, the entry at the top leaped out at me; it read, Police Barrick!(sic)

1844 House Book Errill, Rathdowney, Queens

     Was this a coincidence or something more?  There's really no way to tell, but it is interesting.  There was a notation in the House Book that a Quarto Book existed for Errill but a search at Find My Past produced no Quarto Book for anywhere in Rathdowney Parish so it may not survive.  You can see that the original holder of the lot appears to have been a William White.  I've actually speculated that James Sr.'s father may have been named William since James Sr. named a son William.  I'm hopeful that given enough time something will turn up, after all, when I first looked at the house book the presence of that police barracks meant nothing to me.  It's just a matter of  finding the puzzle pieces and assembling them.