Following Tavern's discoveries from the very difficult records of St Thomas Dublin, my George Halpin family has been quite transformed. I have attached a report reflecting the current situation. A number of assumptions and leaps of faith have been taken, out of necessity or application of judgement.
George and now discovered first wife Isabella's first known child was George junior. Death and other reports indicate he was born around 1804 but his baptism was in 1808. Therefore we can only estimate that George and Isabella married anytime from 1803 to 1807. There are indications that their marriage may not have been in the same diocese. Wexford or Waterford are possibilities, even Meath. At the time, George was tackling the modernisation of the Port of Dublin. I believe that he travelled to England and possibly Scotland to research latest dredging and harbour building techniques. It is even possible that George met Isabella in his travels within Ireland or abroad and they married at her church, wherever that was, and not in Dublin. It is my sincerest hope that one day we come upon this marriage to find out whom my ancestor Isabella was. Does the name of her second son, Oswald, contain a clue?
Isabella’s last recorded child was Isabella, baptised January 1812. George remarried in 1817, so Isabella could have died at any time between those events. It is likely that she died in Dublin and her burial record is one of the very many St Thomas records lost or damaged. However, in 1810, George was given additional responsibilities as the Inspector of Light(house)s, entailing his visiting all parts of the Irish coast. If Isabella ever accompanied him, it is possible she could have died away from Dublin and her death may yet be found.
The most difficult decision has been what to do with George’s daughter Louisa who died in Wicklow in 1834. Tavern and I have both come tentatively to the conclusion that Isabella’s last child Isabella was in fact “Isabella Louisa”. There are some date and age issues but they are explicable. From about 1814 to 1818, George would have been a frequent visitor to Wicklow designing and building his two new lighthouses there. His brother James had married in 1815 and surely George stayed with James at the Bridge Hotel on his visits, sometimes with young Isabella Louisa. When George remarried in 1817, did James and Ann offer to take the young girl and, in their family habit, call her by her middle name? (Or was she even Louisa Isabella?)
Completely unknown to me were not only that Elizabeth was George’s second wife (and not my ancestor) but also that they had more children. This may in part be because it seems that none of them survived to George’s death except Frederick, and he not long after that. Out of so many children it seems only George junior produced descendants, from his very peculiar marriage.
Junior’s first child was named Isabella Julia Villiers in honour of his dead mother and his wife. Her first child, grandchild and great granddaughter were all named Isabella Julia. The first child of Junior’s son George was named Mary Isabella, Mary being his wife’s mother’s name. So, the family did its best to commemorate Isabella, whom we have only recently discovered, thanks to Tavern.
