I need to reiterate that I am referring to County Roscommon in the middle of Ireland, and not the one in the USA. On a visit in May 2014 I took a lot of photographs. Many of these will appear in these blogs in due course. One is shown below. In the earlier blog “What…
All posts in Ireland
What sort of place is Roscommon?
The first thing to establish is that I am referring to County Roscommon in the middle of Ireland. There is another one in Michigan, USA. County Roscommon has an area of 1022 square miles. The population (2016) was 64,544. I live in Staffordshire in the middle of England. It has an area of 1047 square…
Irish miles
Kilbride RC church features on the Stanley family history. The church has a sizeable car park. There are very few houses nearby. Attendees are unlikely to walk there. It is located at Four Mile House. This is on the N61 heading north out of Roscommon town. Four Mile House is five miles from Roscommon. Is…
Mary Stanley
On March 18th 1887, Mary Stanley, age 19, married Patrick Muldoon, age 22, in Cams RC Church. Mary was the daughter of John Stanley, a labourer. This is the second child of the Stanley & Ormsby marriage. (See ‘The Ormsby connection’) The witnesses were John Stanley and Catherine Farrell. Mary is recorded as being a…
The Orsmby connection
John Stanley, born 1825, married Bridget Ormsby in 1865
Irish Geography
Patrick’s birth certificate says that he was born in Cams. My birth certificate gives the name of the road and the house number. Why the difference? It is important to understand the concept of a townland. I am indebted to Roots Ireland for the following explanation: The townland is the smallest territorial division of civil…
Narrowing the search
Patrick Stanley was born on 2 March 1883, in the Townland of Cams, in the Parish of Fuerty. The concept of Townlands is explained in the post ‘Irish Geography’. There are 2082 Townlands in Roscommon. In 1881, the population was 132,000. This means that there is an average population of 66 per Townland. In rural…
On the right track – part 2
Patrick’s military record showed that he was born in Roscommon. Following the abortive search (see ‘Off in the wrong direction’) I made another request for a search to be made for Patrick’s birth certificate. The search criteria were: Patrick Stanley, son of John, born in Roscommon, date of birth 2nd March, year of birth 1882-1885.…
On the right track – at last
In February 2007, the National Archives (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ ) started putting soldiers’ records online. They started with surnames beginning with A and B. The process was complete by the end of 2008. Because I was searching for Patrick Stanley, I had to be patient. The wait was made worse by the knowledge that there might be…