Looking for information on Andrew O'Connor, Bridget Droney

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Blondie
Posts: 54
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2014 6:43 pm

Looking for information on Andrew O'Connor, Bridget Droney

Post by Blondie » Sat Apr 20, 2019 8:13 pm

Looking for any information on Andrew O'Connor married ,Bridget Droney. They had a daughter Ann ,who was born about 1813. I don't know where in Clare they were from or their age,but I'm assuming in 1780's? Their daughter Ann O'Connor married Patrick Howley,b 1816. They had 3 daughters that I am aware of Susan, b 1852, Margaret,b 1854,Bridget,b 1855. They all moved to Woburn, Massachusetts.
Would love to know where in Clare they were from,did Andrew have siblings and did he and Bridget have any other children. Thank You.

smcarberry
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Location: USA

Re: Looking for information on Andrew O'Connor, Bridget Dron

Post by smcarberry » Sun Apr 21, 2019 2:37 pm

According to the webpage at http://www.flaherty.ruoffonline.com/html/flaherty.html

"MARK FLAHERTY (? FLAITHBHEARTAIGH) was born 1847 in Inis Meain, County Galway, Ireland, and died 1935 in Woburn, MA. He married SUSAN HOWLEY January 08, 1870 in Woburn, Massachusetts, daughter of PATRICK HOWLEY and ANN O'CONNOR. She was born March 1848 in County Clare, Ireland, and died 1923 in Woburn, MA."

A good starting point is to locate Susan's 1848 baptism among the many RC church records now transcribed. There is a corner of Clare around Lisdoonvarna that is in the Diocese of Galway, not fully transcribed or with records dating later than 1848. If that's the problem, then plan B is to contact either the RC church in Woburn for Susan's marriage record (which might state a former Clare parish) or use the "American Ancestors" RC churches of the Boston area at NEGHS, online free for indexing or by subscription for full images.

With Susan born in Clare, her younger sisters might have been too, in which case you can try their marriage records as well. Then try their obituaries in case a Clare location is named in those. Remember to check for any later-in-life trips back to their Clare home area.

This sounds like a fruitful search effort, because Howley and Droney are not numerous names like McMahon and O'Connors. For the latter, Andrew is not overly used so it might be useful to explore anyone naming a child Andrew O'Connor(s) prior to 1850 in Clare.

I checked the Library's New England Naturalization database (donated records section, emigration) for your surnames but saw nothing useful. However, there are other naturalization records for the Boston area that could be consulted in record offices (NARA, MA State) that may be digitized by now, and I believe that newspapers of the 1800s also printed long lists of who had been naturalized.

Finding other descendants of the Howley sisters may also be helpful. I found the above one by Googling.

Sduddy
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Re: Looking for information on Andrew O'Connor, Bridget Dron

Post by Sduddy » Sun Apr 21, 2019 7:23 pm

Hi Blondie

The Lisdoonvarna Catholic parish baptism register, page 8: https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls ... 1/mode/1up
shows the birth of a Bridget Howley on 10.03.1855. She is a daughter of Patrick Howley and Anne Connors, Fisherstreet [in the Civil Parish of Killilagh]. The sponsors at her baptism are Laurence Connors and Bridget Healy. I feel sure that this is your Bridget born 1855. The Lisdoonvarna baptism register starts at 1854, so it will not show the baptisms of her sisters.
I used a transcription of the baptisms to find her. This is available on clarelibrary.ie. Click on Genealogy and Family History. Then click on Donated Material. Then click on Births/Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths. You will find Lisdoonvarna there: http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... ecords.htm.

But first I used the GenMap on the Map page to find where the name Howley was most common. Under the GenMap you will find good instructions on how to use it: http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/maps/index.htm. First click on People in the panel on the right hand side in order to find the townlands where the surname is present. Then you can click on Features (and on Parishes) in order to find the parish that townland belongs to. The name of the parish will appear in yellow letters. When you click on the name of the parish, the parish web page will appear in the panel on the left-hand side. It’s magic. The information on the parish will include the name of the Roman Catholic parish relevant to that parish.
*The name of the civil parish is often different from the name of the Catholic parish. For instance, when you go to Killilagh Civil Parish http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... eilagh.htm, you will see that the name of the Catholic parish is Lisdoonvarna.

Sheila

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