Gallagher - Rodgers

[shanreagh]

Here is a link to the marriage of Bernard Doherty and Lizzie Bradley on 2/8/1909 with one of the witnesses being a Patrick Gallagher.

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/files/civil/marriage_returns/marriages_1909/10035/5650123.pdf

This is of the possible? adoptive parents who were older. 

Who is Patrick Gallagher?

[Neale1961]

Here is a link to the marriage of Bernard Doherty and Lizzie Bradley on 2/8/1909 with one of the witnesses being a Patrick Gallagher.

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/files/civil/marriage_returns/marriages_1909/10035/5650123.pdf

Links to the family records were posted in reply# 16.
BelfastBoys last post says he has researched this family.

I agree that witness Patrick Gallagher is worth looking at.

[shanreagh]

I'm confused.

I would have thought the placement of the wee girl with this family and possible reasons would have been relevant.  Also to see who the siblings were to the couple and if the couple themselves had any children....

There are a couple of other interesting Long Tower vicinity Census groupings that were intriguing but if these have all been investigated.

Cheers over and out.....

[BelfastBoy56]

Neale1961 Reply #16 stated that Catherine in the 1911 Census with the Bradley family ‘appears’ to have retained surname Gallagher.
If this were the case and it was her father’s surname then surely all we are missing is the father’s forename. Just a thought, not sure how it would help, as there could be all sorts of reasons why 'Father Unknown' was entered.
Although I didn’t come to any conclusions re the Bradley/Doherty family, I haven’t gone to ‘nth degree’ researching them.
Referring to Neale1961’s reply #24 regarding researching ALL births, I have found the following so far:
1900 to 1908 in Derry:
Catherine Gallagher   8/5/1900      Mother’s Maiden Name: Toner
Catherine Gallagher   16/8/1902      Mother’s Maiden Name: McElwaine
Catherine Gallagher   30/9/1903      Mother’s Maiden Name: McBridge
Catherine Gallagher   30/10/1903   Mother’s Maiden Name: Magee

At present I have only looked at the Magee family and in 1911 Census they are altogether, as I couldn’t find any death records for Hugh and Betty [Magee] Gallagher prior to 1929 marriage, I discounted this family. But did note that birth registration appears in name of Catherine but on 1911 census she is listed as Kathleen, this interchangeability certainly helps to understand why my grandmother appears to have records in both names.

Robert Frederick John Rodgers’ death being registered as Gallagher, not 100% sure why, I know that when I couldn’t find death in the name of Rodgers I looked for one in his mother’s maiden name being the only other one I could think of and came up with the 2003 death, and I know he was living in King’s Lynn.

I don’t have any memories of my grandmother, I was born in Belfast but came to England age 6 when my mother died, and my father never talked about his or my mother’s families. Only picture I do have is attached, my grandmother at my mother and father’s wedding in 1931, she is the first one on the left [wearing a fur coat]. Sorry no idea if she attended the second marriage.

I did apply for Robert Frederick Rodgers military records giving date of birth as 1903, I didn’t know his service number, and got a reply that they could not match up the name with that birth year.

Question for shanreagh: You said there are a couple of other censuses for Long Tower area that were intriguing, can you please give me some more info on these. Thank you.

[shanreagh]

The census grouping/s that I found intriguing was one where Bradley, Gallagher and Doherty people were in a census together. Not sure if any were your people but they had names you were researching in an area where your people lived.  It was not the huge listing of people at an institution that is also in one of the Censuses that has all your names but in a smaller one of 10-15 people.   

Now I know I should have put it up even if the response may have been it had been seen before or was not relevant.  Sorry.  I'll get some intestinal fortitude so I'm not put off so easily again.

I cannot instantly locate it again but I will continue to look.

[BelfastBoy56]

Thank you shanreagh...any path to follow and eliminate is better than me not having a clue where to look 

[Wexflyer]

Not sure if I would agree with Neale1961's comment that Kate/Catherine retained her father's surname, i.e. Gallagher. Perhaps she did, but would be useful if Neale could elaborate on why he thinks so?

To me, there are multiple possibilities.
Gallagher father's surname
Gallagher father's surname, but registered under an unknown mother's surname, if she was illegitimate
Gallagher mother's surname, but may or may not have been registered.

Let me give an example of how difficult this sort of case can be to track down, from my personal experience.

A great-aunt of mine from Wexford was adopted by a Bootle family in England, believed to be distant relatives.
Why? No one knew or knows - not her siblings, not her children. She was a perfectly legitimate child, the eldest even.  The family has pondered that question for over 100 years with no answer.

As for what was the actual link my great-aunt had to her adoptive family, that took me 30 years to figure out.  She was sent from Wexford to England at a very young age. What took the 30 years to determine was that her adoptive mother turned out in turn to herself be the adoptive daughter of a first cousin of my great-aunt's father, but born a full generation earlier than him. Her adoptive grandfather had been in England since roughly when her father was born - so could not have been close. Her adoptive grandfather was born in the early 1840s, so the only record of him in Ireland is his baptismal record - nothing else.

One lesson from all this? Katherine could have had a very strange relationship to her adoptive family.  Another lesson is that she may have been legitimate - some adopted children were, even though parents alive and married.

[BelfastBoy56]

Sadly, aged 70, I probably won't have 30 years to get to the bottom of my dilema  but I do thank you for giving me an insight into the difficulties there are to trace family facts. 
I am hoping to try again to find my grandfather's military records, so any info anyone has on that front would be greatly appreciated.

[shanreagh]

Thanks Wexflyer.  Your own instance reinforces a point I was trying to make also that adoptions, in close, meaning well known to each other across uncles/aunts or even gt Uncles/aunts, were often made to wider family ie cousins.   

You have brought up about generations and ages so that an adoption may be made in a wider family but the relationship cannot always be reliably inferred by the ages of those concerned.  My mother being a case in point -  arriving in the world with a set of nieces and nephews who were older than her.   

Because of this wide spread of relations her family was always very cautious about assigning a polite relaionship solely because of age.  If you were a cousin and you were 6 you called your 46 years cousin by their first name and not with an honorary aunt/uncle name. 

And the relevance of all this to the Long Tower family?  Perhaps all of those in the census were cousins but were assigned a polite relationship (of daughter) because a younger cousin was being brought up by older cousins ie in a parent-child relationship

The census says that Kathleen was the adopted child of the head of the family being Patrick Bradley. If she had been the adopted child of Bernard and Elizabeth Doherty she might have been referred to as Patrick Bradley's adopted niece?

A fascinating and intriguing family BelfastBoy56 and we'll get there, don't you worry.......

ETA Then of course the relationship between everyone may not even be as close as aunts, uncles, cousins but of 'connections'. We had connections being the relations/families of people our cousins married, that is the easy version.  We also have connections to people where the connection was back in the mists of time, most notably via another Irish family who came out on the same ship from Ireland to NZ with my gt grandfather and his family.