Feb 1881 reached, online O'Callaghan's Mills database

[smcarberry]

Newly online is the final segment of baptisms for the East Clare Catholic parish of O'Callaghan's Mills, as best I can transcribe the filmed images online via the National Library. Previously the transcriptions went through 1855, most baptisms done by Fr. Patrick Quaid, the PP since start of the preserved records in 1835. As of 1858, a new PP and curate were doing the baptisms, with Fr. Quaid still doing some. Three handwriting styles and three ideas of surname/placename spellings are apparent. The record book suffered water damage and there were ink smears/blots. Where a surname cannot be read at all, it appears in the "Unknown" listings of the final alphabetical section. Where only the initial letter of a surname cannot be discerned, it is replaced with subscript-type of line, and those appear at the beginning of the "A" section of alphabetical groupings. The names that I show as "illegible" might possibly make sense to someone with a deeper knowledge of a family. Names that I indicate as obliterated with ink are really lost, as I did discern some names with visible initial and ending letters by comparison to other similar entries. There are a few typo's but those seem limited to names that can be read correctly, such as "Glenwoos" for Glenwood and "Clonlouml" for Clonloum.

In the post-1855 years some trends became apparent among the parish's population. Surnames usually regarded as Protestant appear as sponsors or parents. People with surnames not usually associated with East Clare became commonplace. Some parents made sure the priest noted the child's full name (first and middle) and one female sponsor insisted that all of her names, including the confirmation name, be noted every time she appears on the page. Not surprising these entries seem to be connected with people of influence in the parish. No further listings of "itinerant" parents appear, but parents from outside the parish are noted with their actual residences, such as Co. Wexford, or Ennistymon, or once with the Latin term for "everywhere." There are even a few instances where a marriage place and date were inserted for a baptised child.

I found placenames that I haven't seen in 20 years of working with historical material of this parish. Fortunately while transcribing I happened across a contemporaneous reference to "Butterhole" which is called a division of Cragg, a townland (see below image). Near to that location is another obscure townland Drumminakela, the spelling of which appears variously in the parish pages. Not in this parish is a remote townland, Pollaghnumera, which is the apparent modern spelling for a place which the priests spelled as Poulanucca and other such spellings. It is on the Tulla-side of Feakle and borders Flagmount. These places must have cleared out entirely when the population left in droves during the 1800s.

These 6100-plus entries should begin a new era of family history research for this parish. There is no way to describe the enormity of the service provided by the Library in hosting the database. Many thanks to the staff for doing the alphabetical groupings, making sensible display suggestions, and getting this thing online.

I of course will move onto the marriages, but those will only add a bit more to what we now have at hand.

Sharon Carberry

Butterhole, Upper Cragg.jpg (44.55 KiB) Viewed 7818 times

[Tom]

Sharon the amount of work involved in what you have done is above and beyond!
I just hope your eyesight doesn't suffer as a result.

I had a look through the Baptismal records for ARKINS, which as you know I'm interested in.
I also found HARKINS entries which to me appear to be the same families, by having the same parents names as ARKINS entries.

Wondering whether the 2 could be connected on the webpage or linked in some manner to aid researchers.

Congratulations again!

Tom McDowell

[smcarberry]

There are several surnames which appear with more than one spelling. Arkins and Harkins is just such an pair. Connell, Halloran, and Grady are examples of surnames which can also be shown with an initial "O." It is a good question as to how much linking should be done to indicate multiple spellings. My focus was to accurately portray what the priest was writing, but I did try to show a realistic guess as to the actual townland when the spellings got too far off or the page edge was obliterated by poor filming. Maybe additional analysis is best left to appear on a posting venue such as this Forum, so that we who know the surname spelling variations can point those out to others not yet so familiar with a surname

There is another apparent obscure placename variation that seems apparent to me by seeing entries in this database: Claremount sometimes appears as Knockaclara, which is also spelled once as Knocklara.

You, Tom, have already set a really high bar in creation of databases serving East Clare research, with your many, many donations to the Library.
My eye sight has not suffered a tenth as much as what you must have endured in taking all those photos in all those graveyards and then making up the databases as well.

SMC