Cork city environs - RC Parish/Diocean history
I cannot find an answer to my specific question through the little bit of searching I have done so far.
Generally I want to know if it is safe to assume - when researching in Cork that if parish registers do not extend far enough back in timeframe - that parishioner's records would be in another parish with records for that earlier timeframe?
Since I do not know the history of the area too well - I am wondering if someone can point me to a history that would explain when certain parishes would have been in existence/created - thereby I might know if it is possible a Daniel from a later parish would appear as Daniel in an earlier parish (the same person in different parishes). From what I understand, it is very important to know you have the correct townland - but does that mean they could not have attended/lived in a different parish before that later parish was created/began recording records? Just trying to be certain I have the correct Daniel 😀
Specifically, I have records from Ballinhassig parish - 1840-70 time frame, but the Daniel is supposedly born 1800 - Ballinhassig parish records are outside of that timeframe for Daniel's birth. Well from searching on Findmypast.com there are records for possible Daniel's birth in St. Mary's parish in this birth timeframe. St. Mary's parish is in the same diocese - Cork and Ross - as Ballinhassig - so I am just wondering if it is safe to assume from the other records of birth year that Daniel's records are in this parish.
Kommentare
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John Grenham's website is a good place to start and shows what registers exist and where they can be found. And the NLI registers site gives good detail as to what they hold.
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@Áine Ni Donnghaile Can you comment as to the likelihood that if the parish 'I know' they are from later - does not extend back far enough - would that imply their parish records would be in a different parish with records from the earlier timeframe? Specifically Ballinhassig parish, Cork records start ~1821 - but St. Mary's, Cork goes back further. Would it be likely to find Ballinhassig parish people's records in St. Mary's? I do not know the history of when Ballinhassig parish was created - doesn't that basically mean they built a church in the area? Otherwise prior to a church in the area they may have had to travel to Cork?
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Travel in that time would have been by foot or, at best, by pony cart. Infants in the Roman Catholic faith were baptized within a day or two, to avoid the tragedy of limbo, in a time of high infant mortality. The mother was not permitted to attend the baptism. A nursing child could not be far from his/her mother.
Priests sometimes came to the home to baptize a child - again, difficulty of travel and fear of death before baptism.
The two sites I linked include dates of existing registers.
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In Ireland, most rural parishes started keeping records in 1828 or 1829. Persecution of Catholics before that date made it dangerous to keep records that could be used as evidence against them. But in cities, it is common to have records back into the early 19th or 18th centuries.
You mentioned you were looking at records from 1840-1870. From 1864 civil registration began, and these records mention the precise villages (or townlands to use the technical term) where people lived. This should tell you more about which parishes were closest to them.
Have you looked at the 1st page of the parish register in Ballinhassig to see if it mentions anything about the history of the parish. It might say whether they were an existing parish starting records for the 1st time or a new parish.
I think its unlikely that a rural family would make a 13km journey to an urban parish rather than travel to one of several closer rural parishes.
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Hmm, disappointing ... well 'thanks a million'.
So y'all would say a person possibly born in St. Mary's parish in 1800, couldn't hop-a-cart and the family move to more rural Ballinhassig parish ~15km away, where maybe he married possibly more than once, but that there are more 'definite' records of relation tying the family to this location, and then die back in/near Cork City in the late 1800s?
I bet they made more trips to town than we know - seems likely to me - BUT I don't know the history of the area too well. I know the rural farmers took harvest and 'goods' to market. I've been to the area and walked the countryside a little - from Halfway to Waterfall myself in my tourist shoes - didn't seem too far fetched to me. The area had newspaper(s) before 1800 so you know at least the mail carrier travelled a good bit.
All I need and am asking for - is more historical evidence about the timeframe. The parish records I am familiar with - and those alone cannot answer the question. I wouldn't put the possibility too remote to travel between birth, marriage and death - but you have those more 'experienced' say things like:
'Typically a marriage or first child's birth would occur in the townland of the bride/mother'. That alone could mean travel - I don't know that only those in the same parish let alone the same county married.
'Typically a person is buried in the parish 'that the family is from' or that they were born in'. That again doesn't preclude travel away from 'home' and 'back again' to be be buried.
I can certainly understand 'tradition' but the potato(e) famine alone threw tradition to the wind - I think they travelled a good ways - they even had trains (that doesn't indicate a population not wanting to travel), maybe even a bicycle or two, yep and even the farmer's cart to get to market, a-horseback if they had one or afoot. I do not know whether families even moved back and forth between counties Cork and Kerry for seasons/'visits'. I don't tend to think of ancestors tied to a village for their entire life meaning they couldn't travel, nor that the family moved or changed parishes.
I don't pretend to know parish history of the area - from what I have searched it doesn't state whether parishioners from the localities - specifically Ballinhassig - couldn't have travelled for sacramental rites to whichever other parish were in existence prior. What I am asking for is someone with more experience and data about the diocean history of the area, to give me their best guess or point me to histories about the locality. Other than trying to educate myself more about the history, I guess I will come to my own conclusions and enter that in the tree referencing why I am coming to said conclusion.
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I don't know how much more clearly it can be stated. It is extremely unlikely that a family would travel ANY distance for a sacrament for an infant.
Yes, a family might move, but usually not very far. When a couple married, they would generally marry in the parish of the bride, if they did come from the same parish, and then they would live in the parish of the groom. For the couple to have met and courted, they would have to have lived VERY close to each other - adjacent parishes. Again, transportation was by walking. To visit your girl in the evening after having worked all day in the fields or some other hard labor, you didn't go far.
One of my families lived on the same piece of land, in the same townland, in the same parish, for 5 generations - almost 200 years - until the last member of the family emigrated.
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@Áine Ni Donnghaile That is NOT the question I asked or at least intended to ask. I don't expect the family to have travelled for a christening - they could have lived in St. Mary's parish when he was born. It doesn't seem too far fetched to me.
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Travel for harvests, market-days, seasonal work etc certainly existed. But the typical rural family would only ever worship at the nearest church. Most of the year they stayed in the same village, working the fields and living in poverty. Even that church might be several kilometers away, a long way to travel if you have to carry a newborn infant.
Unfortunately, pre-1828 Irish research is impossible for most families. As disappointing as it, I think you have to accept that you probably won't be able to trace this family any further back. Have you checked the Registry of Deeds? Or the British Newspaper Archive?
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So your question is: what is the chance that an urban family would move to a rural village.
To which I don't really have an answer, except to comment that throughout human history migration from rural areas to urban areas has generally been far more common than the reverse.
Do you mind sharing more details of your ancestor and their family? So far the discussion has been mostly theoretical.
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@A van Helsdingen Yes, I did the best I could to trace the land, and the newspaper. I have the obituary from the newspaper which - from memory - read he was 'for' [some place I could not really determine on my visit but appeared to be more toward Carrigaline]. I assume this meant the graveyard where he was buried - but could not locate. Locating graves from late 1800s doesn't appear to be 'easy' either. If he weren't buried 'traditionally' why would he be buried 'in the middle of nowhere'? Is that the family plot from years before? I don't know.
The reason I am asking the theoretical question, is because I am trying learn more about the cultural/social aspects of the history at the time. The specifics detract from my focus. I could provide specifics offline but would like to keep the focus on learning about the 'history'.
I believe I understand the guidance of traditions - but part of my purpose in posting this question is to suggest that - there is always the exception to tradition.
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For cemeteries, local knowledge comes in handy. Try contacting a church or local historical society. One of my Irish ancestors was buried in a remote cemetery in the middle of nowhere, and the only surviving map and index of the graves was made in the 1970s by some obscure community organisation. After contacting them and then finding someone in Ireland willing to visit the cemetery, I had a photo of a 1874 grave.
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The IGP is an excellent resource for local information, as there are locals contributing details for cemeteries and other information. https://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/cork/index.htm and https://www.facebook.com/groups/corkgenealogicalsociety/
While bicycles and trains certainly existed in Ireland in the time, that doesn't mean they were accessible for most Roman Catholic Irish. The poverty was extreme. For example, when civil registration of births was implemented in 1864, there was a fine of 20 shillings for reporting of the birth more than 21 days after the birth. Because families were so very poor and made it to town, to report a birth, so infrequently, they would lie about the date of birth of a child to avoid the fine. For that reason, you will find dates of birth and dates of baptism that conflict, making it appear the child was baptized before birth.
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~Timestamp 21:49 Evva Housley, AG indicates surrounding earlier parishes are a good possible location to find relations.
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