Rathkeevin/Marlfield- Callaghan

[Closed Account]

I'm trying to get some information on the various Callaghans that lived in the Marlfield/Clonmel area circa the 1860s-1870s.  I have an ancestor named Johanna Callaghan that was born to parents Innocent Callaghan and his wife Johanna back in 1869.  Although Innocent is not a common name, I'm having some problems pulling together the various bits of info I've found online.  If anyone can add any insight to my current research stumbling blocks noted below, I'd appreciate it.

1) What is Rathkeevin (e.g., a townland, parish, street, etc)?  My ancestor's address is noted as being Rathreevan on one of the records I ordered, and Rathkeevin seemed like the closest match per Google, but there isn't much info about the place.

2)  What RC cemeteries are located in the Marlfield/Clonmel area?  I've come across Shanrahan as a possible site where my ancestors are buried, but that's about it so far. 

3)  The baptisms for the Callaghan children seem to have occurred in a Powerstown Parish.  Some websites refer to this parish as being in Tipperary and other note that it was changed to Waterford at some point.  Does anyone know when/if this occurred?

4)  Does the use of Callaghan versus O'Callaghan indicate different families, or was this just a common confusion of the time with regard to record-keeping or self-identification?

[shanew147]

1) Rathkeevin - is a townland of about 480 acres

3) Powerstown RC parish includes part of the town of Clonmel and is shown on the RC map for Tipperary south riding on the Irish Times website, and  is located in the south of the county and adjacent to Co. Waterford. No sign that I see of any part of the parish including areas in Co. Waterford.

4) surnames could be recorded with or without the Mc and O' prefixes


Shane

[Mick_Dolan86]

2)  What RC cemeteries are located in the Marlfield/Clonmel area?  I've come across Shanrahan as a possible site where my ancestors are buried, but that's about it so far. 

Shanrahan is quite a distance from Marlfield and unless the Callaghans came from Clogheen originally they'd be unlikely to be buried there. Also you shouldn't apply a hard and fast rule to burial by denomination. A Catholic's traditional family burial plot might well have been located in a what became a Church of Ireland graveyard. Burial grounds near Marlfield include Marlfield itself, Killaloan, Newchapel, Clerihan, Shanavine, Old St. Mary's in Clonmel, St. Patrick's Clonmel, Powerstown Church, Powerstown Old Graveyard, St Nicholas in Clonmel, Rathronan, Kilronan and Tullaghmeelan.

[Closed Account]

Thank you for the above replies.  Right now I'm working with somewhat of a wide area to research as my family is many generations removed from Ireland and family history going back that far is long lost.  Some additional background is below in case this leads anyone to suggest a specific cemetery or two to focus on.

The baptismal record for Johanna Callaghan notes Powerstown Parish (1869), and the civil birth record notes the family address as Rathkeevin in the Parish/District of Marlfield.  I now have these records.  The LDS familysearch site seems to have two separate sets of records for Irish Births/Baptisms and Civil Registration indexes.  An apparent reference to the birth on the Civil Registration indexes is the source for  Clogheen reference.  Also, the familysearch site has a likely death record for the father (Innocent Callaghan) noting the place as Clonmel (1875).  I have very little understanding of how all these districting terms fold into one another for southern Tipperary.

I was not able to locate Innocent Callaghan on the Griffiths Valuation, and so Rathkeevin and Powerstown Parish are my main research keywords at the moment.

[shanew147]

that 1875 death of an Innocent O'Callaghan is on the BMD index, and is listed in the Registration district of Clonmel, which covers a larger area than just the town.

You can search the towns and townlands included in a district on the townland database at www.thecore.com/seanruad  Enter just the required registration district (with exact spelling) in the Poor Law Union search and select search. A list of the 281 townlands and towns are shown - Marlfield is included. (Poor Law Unions and Civil Registration districts are usually equivalent)

Your best bet for finding out more for the family is to search for the marriage of Innocent and his wife - I presume you already have her maiden name. Do you have any idea when they may have married ? 

If you can locate a civil marriage it would give you the name and occupation of Innocent's father, which might help find the family home on Griffith's. I suspect that Innocent may either have been too young to hold his own property at the time, or maybe lived at home and so was not listed.

Do you know of other children born before Johanna ?



Shane

[Closed Account]

Thanks, Shane.  Below is some additional information about the family (all dates approximate).  Powerstown is the only definite parish I can tie the family too.  I have been advised through some older inquiries that the wife’s family (Kennealy) may trace to a place called St. Mary’s RC Parish in Tipperary, and that the husband’s may trace to either Co. Limerick or a place known as Bansha Kilmoyler Parish in Tipperary.  I have nothing conclusive though to work with at the moment for either of these.

Parents:
Innocent James Callaghan (born 1829) & Johanna Kenealy (b. 1836)
I have located an Innocent Callaghan on the Tipperary Tithe Applotments with land references to Cappagh Glen and Cappagh Uniacke; Older records include another Innocent Callaghan born 1801 who died in Limerick in 1868, and an Innocent Callaghan on the 1766 Religious Census; I assume most of these will tie-in together somehow unless the name was not unique to one family.  I cannot locate a marriage record in the online database, but it would likely have been prior to the birth of their first known child in 1862.

Children:
Catherine b. 1862, Mary b. 1865, Thomas b. 1867, Johanna b. 1869 (immigrated to New York), John b. 1871, Bridget & Ellen (twins) b. 1874, Michael b. 1877.

[shanew147]

St, Mary's parish covers parts of the town of Conmel and surrounds, and is just west of the parish of Powerstown.

Since there were children born to the couple on the early 1860s and before the start of full registration you would have to search for parish records to find a marriage of Innocent.


Shane

[Closed Account]

I'm still working on this, which is turning out to be among the most confusing avenues of my family research. Does anyone know if it was unusual to have RC children baptized a few years after birth back around the 1870s?  I ask this because I've ordered the death certificates for the two Innocent Callaghan's noted above and learned that the one I've been tracking from Tipperary seems to have died of starvation in a Clonmel Aslyum(?) in 1875.  This would fit in with my research and make sense except that I have a last child born to him and Johanna Kennealy whose baptismal certificate notes a birth two years later in 1877. 

I feel that I've taken the hunt for marriage records as far as I can go on the Rootsireland website without success.  Assuming that these don't exist, I'm going to have to work through information on the children and assumptions based on Tithe applotments and Griffiths.  thecore.com/seanruad has been helpful in a number of instances, but I've got the same people in so many places that it's getting rather confusing (Cappagh Glen/Uniacke, Kilnacask Lower, Rathkeevin, Marlfield, etc.).  It would be nice if I could track down one of the children on the 1901 Irish census, but I haven't had any luck with that.

If someone knows of any other online resources I could consult I'd appreciate it.  I normally use Rootsireland and familysearch, but am really looking for something along the line of newspapers or legal documents to help put the pieces of the puzzle together. 

[shanew147]

RC baptisms usually took place quite soon after birth - i.e. within a couple of days. I have seen cases where the baptism took place the same day as the birth.

Church of Ireland baptisms sometimes took place months after the birth



Shane