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Wexford / Re: STAFFORDs and WHITTYs of Rathaspeck
« on: Tuesday 15 October 19 12:01 BST (UK) »You could provide some additional details...!
Do the parish records mention a townland? Probably Rathaspeck, but that is a bit ambiguous, as that is a townland, CofI parish, and civil parish.
Which parish records - Catholic, or C of I ?
What do the two marriage records say with regard to Peter’s occupation?
Was he alive or dead at the time of the marriages?
Have you checked the tythe or valuation books?
Ok, the long version: yes, I have checked the Tithes, the House Books, Griffith's and the 1901 and 1911 censuses in detail. I have transcribed all the Stafford entries I could find in the RC parish registers online at the NLI for the parish of Piercetown up to about 1858 so far. I have been using these in conjunction with Ancestry's transcriptions and also the transcripts at RootsIreland which differ substantially from the microfilm used by Ancestry and the NLI. Then, to some extent I have been mapping the families in the parish registers against the land records and as far as possible tying in the cemetery records from the book "By Bishop's Rath and Norman Fort".
Yes, the Peter Stafford who appears in the House Books in the townland of Rathaspeck is the person I believe could be my 3xgreat-grandfather and as you noted he paid no rent, although I had not observed that the squiggle next to his entry said "down" so thanks for that. As Peter's name does not appear in Griffith's and had been struck from the House Books I had assumed that yes, he was either evicted, died or moved some time between 1845 and 1853 when the two books were produced.
I have located an 1815 marriage for Mary Whitty and Peter Stafford followed by baptisms for James (1816), James (1817), Ellen (1820), John (1823), Thomas (1829), Peter (1832) and Patrick (1835) in the Piercetown registers. The earlier baptisms give their address as "Rathaspick".
Having found the two marriages - both in Wexford Town - and a possible third, earlier marriage (pre-civil records) also in town, I think it possible that the whole family moved into the town at a similar or the same time, althought whether their parents were alive at the time, I do not know.
You mention Peter's occupation on the marriage certificates - and that is key to my belief that James and John were his sons (in addition to their respective ages). When my own 2xgreat-grandfather Joseph (aka Peter) Stafford married in Australia in 1886, he gave his parents' names as Mary Whitty and Peter Stafford and his father's occupation as "tailor" this was also the occupation stated by James and John on their marriage certificates (1864 and 1872), along with the information that Peter was deceased.
At this stage, I have yet to find an earlier marriage for John who was a widower when he married Anne Walsh, but believe he may have had an older daughter (Mary Anne) who married a Thomas Walsh. (If I am correct about Mary Anne, then her husband Thomas reported what I think was John's death in 1884.) John's occupation was stated as "sailor" in both these marriages. My great-grandfather Peter/Joseph was also a sailor. I also note that Hamilton Knox Morgan Grogan Esq. who was the owner of Johnstown Castle and much of Rathaspeck (although not the landlord of my Peter) established a school which taught, amongst other skills, navigation. I don't know whether boys from the local Catholic tenantry were accepted as pupils, but with two sailors in the family, it bears investigation.
I am continuing to trace the lines of John's descendants (I've found no children for Richard) in the hope that they will lead me to some of my known DNA matches in the hope of showing a definite connection to Peter Stafford and Mary Whitty. I have not been successful at this stage.
My main concern with tying this all together, is that my 2xgreat-grandfather Peter/Joseph, consistently gave his year of birth as c1840. There is no baptism for a Joseph and Peter's baptism was 1832. Oral family history indicates that Peter/Joseph (always known as Joseph to my family) was a powder monkey during the Crimean War, which works best with a birth year of 1840ish as he claimed. By 1863 he was in New South Wales, Australia where, using the name Peter Stafford I believe he fathered an illegitimate child. He abandoned both mother and child (their "family lore" indicates that he was a sailor who was "lost" at sea). Around 2 years later, using the name Joseph he was living with my 2xgreat-grandmother Bridget O'Neill (aka Cusack). The couple had 9 children but did not marry until after all the children were born. On his marriage certificate he gave the name Peter Joseph Stafford.
So, finally I suspect (but would like to support with DNA evidence) that my "Joseph" was either the Peter born to Mary Whitty and Peter Stafford or that he was a younger son whose baptism was either lost of unrecorded.