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Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland => Dublin => Topic started by: smithy12 on Monday 05 March 12 02:04 GMT (UK)
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Looking for information re-James Smith-born 1825-Dublin and William Smith born - date unknown - Parish unknown. Do I have to contact all parishes in Dublin to obtain details.
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What denomination were they?
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Thanks for your reply, Elwyn. Answering your question re my ancestors church denomination, i presume he was Roman Catholic, because James Smith my gggrandfather along with my gggrandmother left Ireland - date unknown - then went to America, San Francisco, California where they married in 1850 at the Roman Catholic Church - Mission Dolores Church. Then they came onto Australia where they raised their children and that is all i know. I realise that the gggrandfather could have been Church of Ireland but of course i don't know.
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"Dublin" can mean the city , suburbs or county.. so doesn't narrow down the search area, and Smith is quite a common surname... Any idea of which part of Dublin ?
see :
Introduction to Irish Records (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,442233.0.html)
My Ancestor came from Ireland - where do I start? (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,498742.0.html)
Shane
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Thanks Shane for your reply also. I don't know what county/parish gggrandfather-James Smith came from in Dublin, wish i did. All it states on 2 of his children's birth certificates here in Australia, is that he was born in 1825 in Dublin. Could mean actually Dublin City, couldn't it? I don't know Ireland at all. Also, thanks very much for the link too, i'll read up on it. Oh how i wish like many other people do, that the fire in 1922 at The National Archives which destroyed most of the census information didn't happen.
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The fire was in the Public Records Office at the Four Courts and only destroyed some of the early census returns - others (1861,1871,1881,1891) had already been destroyed by government order - apparently during WW1.
No Catholic records were held by the PRO, but the problem is that there are quite a number of parishes spread between the city and the county, and the boundaries changed a few times for these - especially the county parishes, also with a common surname like Smith it could be difficult to work out which records apply to your family without a few more details...
Records for most of the city RC parishes, and a few west and south County Dublin parish are included on www.irishgenealogy.ie
Shane
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Thanks Shane again. Your info is much appreciated. Your right, I forgot, Catholic BDM records weren't kept at PRO, kept by individual parishes. Then the rest were destroyed in WW1. Weren't the 1831, 1841 etc census kept at the PRO though, until fire destroyed it. I can't remember now which building was destroyed by fire. Anyway i'll take a look at irishgenealogy.ie again and try to narrow down the location re the name 'Smith'. What a task when one has the name 'Smith' to research.
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The census returns which were lost were those for 1821 to 1851. Records for a few small areas that were being researched in the reading rooms at the time the Four Courts were taken over survived. I dont think any of the these cover any part of Dublin.
Shane
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Thanks Shane again. Problem is, that still doesn't answer my original question, re my Smith descendants who originated from Dublin. Also will i have to contact every parish in Dublin if my search on irishgenealogy.ie proves unsuccessful. What a nightmare to research, having the surname-Smith combined with Irish genealogy. Nothing against any Irish people reading this post though.
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One point to remember is that not all parishes have records back to the 1820s, so there's no guarantee that anything exists for your Smith family... which is why knowing the parish, or at least the general area, is important before starting the search. Having a few additional family details could help verify or rule out potential matches - e.g. a couples full names, details of siblings, father's occupation etc...
You have quite a few parishes to check - see the map and details on the Irish Times Website, which also show dates available, location of records etc :
Co. RC Dublin Parishes (http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/counties/rcmaps/dublinrc.htm)
Dublin City RC Parishes (http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showlikerecords&parish=Dublin&citycounty=Dublin%20city)
One major city RC parish not included on the Irish Genealogy Website is St. Paul's Arran quay. Many transcripts for this parish are available on the pay-website of the Irish Family History Foundation website at : www.rootsireland.ie
It's not really a case of contacting the Individual parishes, not all of these are still open or in a position to carry out research, and for historic records you would probably be directed to the IrishGenealogy website, or the National Library - which holds historic records for most RC of the parishes on microfilm.
Shane
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Thanks Shane again. What a lovely person you are for helping me like this. I'm in Australia doing this research and I'm getting more help from you than from the Genealogical Society I joined. I'm not impressed, Grizzle! Grizzle! Anyway, do you perhaps think, that I should contact the National Library of Dublin first and ask them if they conduct searches for people, then if I have no luck with them, make contact with the parishes that you have kindly given me a link to? It did cross my mind though like you stated, that some of the parish priests or whoever, probably wouldn't carry out research for me. Also, I was seriously thinking of joining a reliable Genealogical Society in Dublin, at a cost though, because I'm not getting anywhere fast if you know what I mean.
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The National Library dont have staff to do research - you would have to either visit in person, or arrange for a researcher to visit on your behalf.
I think the problem is not in finding possible Smith baptisms, it's trying to figure out if they are 'your' Smith family or not with such limited details, and such a common surname. It was 5th most common surname in Ireland in a survey of all births carried out in the 1890s
Shane
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Thanks Shane for that info. Some Libraries I know offer a 'lookup service' and some don't. That's unfortunately the way it goes. Makes it difficult though. I think I realized a while ago, because of the such common surname, that my family research was going to be quite difficult. I think that I'll have to ask questions first and then hopefully go ahead and join/pay a reliable Genealogical Society in Ireland to do my research for me. I did this with a Genealogical Society in America and I got quite a bit of information, although they weren't able to locate my gggrandparent marriage certificate where it hopefully would have given the parents names on it making my research a little easier. Unfortunately though a lot of records were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. I'm afraid I'm not having much luck so far. Road blocks almost all the way.
Nevermind I'll keep pressing on and hoping against hope.
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one detail I forgot to mention - many RC registers have Christian names entered in Latin - so if they were RC then you also need to check for the Latin equivalents of James and William - i.e. Jacobus and Guillelmus.
These are not always spelled correctly so you need to allow for some variation..
here's a link to sample search of Irish Genealogy website for Smith RC baptisms in the 1820s where a first name begins with Ja - the search also returns results when any name on the record includes 'Ja' as part of the firstname, or Smith as the surname (i.e. father, mother, sponsor..). The search also automatically returns some variants of the surname - e.g. Smyth..
Ja* Smith RC baptisms, Dublin 1820s (http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/search.jsp?namefm=ja*&namel=smith&exact=&name2fm=&name2l=&location=&dd=&mm=&yy=&diocese=DUBLIN%20%28RC%29&parish=¢ury=1800&decade=1820&type=B&sort=date&pageSize=100&ddB=&ddM=&ddD=&mmB=&mmM=&mmD=&yyB=&yyM=&yyD=&locationB=&locationM=&locationD=&keyword=&member0=&member1=&member2=&member3=&member4=&member5=&member6=&member7=&member8=&member9=&namef0=&namef1=&namef2=&namef3=&namef4=&namef5=&namef6=&namef7=&namef8=&namef9=&namel0=&namel1=&namel2=&namel3=&namel4=&namel5=&namel6=&namel7=&namel8=&namel9=&submit=Search)
Shane
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Thanks again Shane. You are fantastic and i have to say that i'm truly overwhelmed with the help you are trying to give me. Just goes to show that there are some good people out there in Genealogy land. Like yourself, I did remember something also. It is, that on James Smith's death certificate, here in Australia, it mentions that his father name was 'Simon Smith', but his mother's names is unknown. Now if that information is correct, I did find a 'Simon Smith' as the father of 'James Smith' born I think in 1827 in Dublin at St Peter Parish on the irishgenealogy.ie website. The DOB is a little out from the DOB I have, but I'll go back and have a look, anyway. Also, I wanted to say that, do you remember when I first started posting on this website, that I was also looking for a 'William Smith'. As I've already stated to you previously, I joined a Genealogical Society in America and they were able to locate a James Smith and William Smith on the 1851 San Francisco marriage returns - Johanna Regan and Mary Ann Regan. (Not the actual Marriage Certificates though, unfortunately). Anyhow, it seems to me that James Smith and William Smith were brothers who married two sisters. Maybe when I'm asking for help from a Genealogical Society in Ireland, that information will help a little. All Helps.
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St. Peter's is a Church of Ireland parish - no RC equivalent that I know of
Many of the other Church of Ireland and RC city parishes have the same names, and cover similar areas e.g. St. Mary's and St. Andrews
Shane
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Thankyou again Shane. I realized that St Peter was Church of Ireland and not Roman Catholic, however I decided to look at all of the Smith's born about 1825 on the irishgenealogy.ie - COI website location anway. One does get desperate when one doesn't know enough. However, I didn't realize what you stated about St Peter. You seem to be very knowledgable. We can talk again in a day or two, Shane, but for now I've spent so much time on this computer today and if i don't get off it about now, then I think my whole body is going to disintegrate. I don't know what country you are you are in, but as I've stated previously I'm here in Australia and its getting quite late at night. I thankyou once again for your tremendous help and your time. Until then.
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Can any lovely genealogy people help please - Smith
I'm wishing to locate the marriage and death records of my gggrandfather's parents - Simon Smith and Hannah Smith. Because Smith is such a common surname I've had to employ a professional Irish researcher who found that that my gggrandfather was born in the 1820's in the parish of St Lukes-Dublin - Church of Ireland denomination. I can only presume that both Simon and Hannah did also live in this parish. However to this day this old church has fallen into disrepair, so I don't where to start to look for marriage and death records. Any ideas would be most helpful.
Moderator Note : Merged with previous topic
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Hi there,
Can you elaborate on what information your professional researcher has found for you as I don't want to duplicate what you already have !
Is this the son of Simon and Hannah that you are referring to ?
baptism James Smith (http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details/f251dd0110620)
Tara
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Sorry,
I have just seen that Shane has already given you considerable help with this family on another thread.
You will need to ask the moderators to link these two threads.
Tara
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...
my gggrandfather was born in the 1820's in the parish of St Lukes-Dublin - Church of Ireland denomination. I can only presume that both Simon and Hannah did also live in this parish. However to this day this old church has fallen into disrepair, so I don't where to start to look for marriage and death records. Any ideas would be most helpful.
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The records for St. Luke's CofI are available on the IrishGenealogy website, but the problem is that there's no way to know if this couple originated in this parish or moved there from somewhere else - e.g. another part of the city, county or even another part of Ireland.
The parish records go back to the early 1700s, and all seem to be included on the IrishGenealogy website. There are a couple of Simon Smith marriages in the parish prior to the baptism of James, but none with wife's name Hannah.
Shane
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....
Is this the son of Simon and Hannah that you are referring to ?
baptism James Smith (http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details/f251dd0110620)
If that's the baptism in question then there might be a problem with the dates - there's no year mentioned on the page which includes that baptism for James, but the previous page mentions what looks like the year 1746...
Shane
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I've double checked the image for that baptism mentioned above (bapt. James Smith (http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details/f251dd0110620)), and the adjacent pages, and am as certain as I can be that the date of Baptism for this James Smith was 3rd August 1745.
The pages are filmed in reverse order, but the following page chronologically begins with January 1746. The previous pages also include dates from the 1740s - see :
see mid June - Dec 1745 (http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/reels/d-155-1-1-193.pdf) (acrobat reader file - pdf)
Jan. 1746 - mid Apr (http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/reels/d-155-1-1-192.pdf)
The two columns on the page have entries for the middle of June through to December 1745 and each column is signed at the end by the minister 'Theo. Brocas'. A Thoephilus Brocas was minster at the parish from 1745 to 1770. (src: Clergy of Dublin & Glendalough)
Shane