Still Enjoying The Hunt Or, Oliver Is That You?

      I've always been a fan of the idea of researching the friends, neighbors, and in-laws of my ancestors in addition to their close family members.  You never know what may turn up that could aid in your search.  That is why I've been looking at the Hennessey family for many years but finding very little.  The youngest daughter of this family, Anna Hennessey, married Cornelius Ryan, the brother of my great-great-grandmother Anna Ryan from Tipperary, at St. Anne's in Palmyra, New York in 1869.  Her brother Edward Hennessey had earlier married Mary Keyes, (Keyes is another surname in my tree), also at Palmyra, thus giving me another reason to be interested in this family.  I must have done hundreds of searches for the Hennessey's over the years and never found their home county, much less a townland.  I knew the names of the older generation from the marriage record of Cornelius and Anna at St. Anne's.

 They were Kieran Hennessey and his wife Bridget Gorman. Bridget and most of her children came to the United States where she died in Palmyra in November of 1868, but I've found nothing to suggest her husband Kieran ever immigrated.

     Since I now have a one month subscription to Rootsireland I thought I may as well do yet another search for the Hennessey clan.  I knew nothing would come of it after all this time, I'd long since decided they were probably from a parish with missing records, but it seemed foolish not to try.  I started with an all Ireland search for Anna's older brother Oliver Hennessey who I've been studying lately.  It's not a very common name in Ireland so I knew I wouldn't have a large number of hits to wade through even without using a place or any dates and I was right, only one came up, that in County Kilkenny.  I clicked on it, knowing it would be yet another disappointment, but to my utter shock the transcription read, father-- Kieran Hennessey, mother-- Bridget Gorman!  I think I screamed, I know my little yorkie Darby jumped, it was them, in County Kilkenny!

     How did I miss them all this time?  A little sleuthing answered that question, only Rootsireland has the parish records for the years I needed.  Just like the Tramore records that I blogged about in my last post.  I quickly did a search in Kilkenny records using only parents names and found seven children of Kieran and Bridget including two who were previously unknown to me, Johanna and Margaret.  I also found a townland for them, Michaelschurch in the Catholic parish of Ballycallan-Kilmanagh. Amazing!

     I have to admit the price of the subscription was worth it considering the new information I've found on the Hennessy and Crotty families.  One caveat however, don't use Rootsireland to search Griffiths Valuation or census records even though you can.  In reading the fine print I found Rootsireland puts a limit on the number of views that can be accessed.  In my case it's 1,300 for the month which sounds like a lot but in eight days I've already burned through 380.  Griffith's Valuation can be searched for free at askaboutireland.ie, and Ireland's census records are also free at the National Archives site.  Death records on Rootsireland are for the most part civil registrations that can be accessed at no cost at irishgenealogy.ie.  There's no point in using up one's allotted views when the records can be easily found elsewhere.