Irish records
My gg grandparents were from Donegal. I'm looking for records for them. Their names are James Harley and Elizabeth or Eliza ODonnell. They were married in Raphoe in 1861.Their first child was born in Greenock Scotland in 1862. James was born in Bogagh 1839 and Elizabeth Greenhills 1842.
The information I have comes from English census.
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Welcome to the Community & "Irish Genealogy Research".
A quick answer to your question is that the marriage should be on irishgenealogy though a cursory search does not turn it up. Catholic Parish Registers (https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/1022) indicate that for Raphoe the registers start at 1876. This could easily explain why the marriage is not easily available where we would expect it. A full search of the available registers should indicate if other people with the same surname were in the parish area. Perhaps the marriage took place in another parish? Was Raphoe Parish Church only built circa 1876?
The availability of the parish registers is shown here
A good search strategy would be needed here; see what available records there are that cover the areas and time period. Extract all the persons with the same surname & try to build a picture of the extended family who were in the same area. Who was related to who? Check witnesses to any marriage's, registrants of births/deaths etc. Harley would be less common that O'Donnell and may be the best starting point. Check the census records (although they are not the most suitable time period), Griffiths Valuation, Births, marriages, deaths, etc.
There may not be a quick solution to your question but do not get discouraged. It has taken me a while to pursue one family line. That was caused by a poor transcription that was replicated a number of times so skewing the search process. It was only by going over and over the available records that the error was rectified.
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@AnneHughes69 it has been a few days since you posted your query in the Irish Genealogy Research group. We hope it has been a good experience for you but we were wondering how satisfied you were with the responses and if there was anything you feel could have been handled better, or differently, or if there is something that wasn't done that you feel might have helped your query.
thanks David
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You need to know what religion they were. Donegal is majority Catholic, but with a substantial Protestant minority.
If they were Catholic, then unfortunately, no civil marriage record will exist as these records started in 1864. As @Hayter David Elder as already said, the records for the nearest Catholic church begin in 1876. It is not possible to say without doing further research whether records weren't kept before 1876 (it is not unheard of in the western areas of Ireland for records to start so late) or whether the church was built around that time, meaning you'd have to find the parish they attended before this date.
The only other major set records besides Catholic records is the Griffith's Valuation. This took place in 1857 in Donegal, and lists all heads of households.
If they were Protestant, then you should find a civil marriage for them on the website irishgenealogy.ie . I can give you further information about how to find Protestant church records if you need it.
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St. Eunan’s Church Raphoe
The foundation stone of this superb church was laid in October 1877, under the most promising auspices; and the opening ceremony consisting of the solemn blessing, a most touching sermon by His Grace, Lord Primate McGettigan and Benediction was performed on 3 November 1878.
Well- now we know why 1876 was the start of the registrations.
So did they marry elsewhere?
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@AnneHughes69 , how did you know that James and Elizabeth married in Raphoe? I found the 1911 England census entry for the family, but it did not mention they were married in Raphoe (The UK census never asked about place of marriage).
Looking at the map of Irish Catholic parishes (https://registers.nli.ie/) you can see there are a number of neighbouring parishes to Raphoe that presumably served Raphoe before the construction of the church. These records are indexed, but the image and indexing quality is poor, therefore manually browsing the records is a good idea, and you can do that through the above link.
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