Hurleys of Coolnagarrane, part 2

I wasn't planning to turn my attention back to the Hurleys for a while, but this has landed in my lap and I have to take what comes.  If you are interested in Hurleys from Coolnagarrane, you can read part 1 here.

My Hurley family tree can be found here.   John Hurley, son of Michael Hurley and Bridget Cahalane (married 25-May-1838, Leap, Kilmacabea), had three brothers we know about.  John (b. 1839) is the oldest.  Patrick (b. 1841) is somewhat questionable, only because the mother's surname shows up as Coughlan, not Cahalane (maybe a recording error by a priest who was hard of hearing).  Then Daniel (b. 1843) and finally Michael (b. 1849).  Notice the gap - maybe the famine had something to do with it?!?

It is Daniel that I am looking at.  There were descendants of Daniel Hurleys in Coolnagarrane early in the 20th century, according to the Southern Star archives.  Sorting them out is a work in progress.  In part 1 I said the Hurleys were a lonely bunch but by the early 20th century there were enough of them to be confusing!

A Daniel Hurley married Honora McCarthy, probably early 1852 or before, and had Ellen bap 17-Dec-1852; Catherine bap 29-Apr-1855; Honora bap 13-Sep-1857; Daniel bap 3-Jun-1860; and John bap 6-Mar-1864.  (Thankfully, these records are all online.)  My Hurley family had names Ellen, John, and Catherine so the two families do look confusingly similar.

I think this son Daniel married Julia McCarthy 22-Apr-1894 (witnesses John Hurley and Hanoria McCarthy) in the R.C. Chapel of Drimoleague.  The age recorded for Daniel was 28, when it should have been 34.  The marriage record says his father's name was Daniel (dead). 

Ordinarily I would have thought that there were two different Daniels (one age 28, one age 34), but the 1901 census shows Daniel age 40 in Coolnagarrane, along with wife Julia and children, and they show up again in 1911.  So the census corrects the age. 

Julia, from Drominidy according to the marriage record, died in 1917 and was a McCarthy-Sowney according to the Southern Star news of 3-Feb-1917.   Her husband Daniel was already deceased.

If Daniel the younger was born 1860, then who was Daniel his father?  Daniel Senior was likely not gg-grandfather John Hurley's younger brother (b. 1843), he would have been an incredibly young father, not impossible but improbable.  Perhaps Daniel Senior was a cousin of John's, his father Michael's nephew?

To add to the mystery, there is an older Daniel Hurley in the 1901 census with wife Nellie.  If the census age is correct his birth year would have been around 1832.  They don't show up in the 1911 census - at least where I looked, in Coolnagarrane - so presumably they were both deceased.  In the 1901 census is a daughter Mary Ellen, age 28.  She's all I have to go on so at some point I will look for her birth record (circa 1873), which I should be able to do at the Los Angeles FHL.  Maybe from there I'll be able to approximate when her parents married.   I was thinking this Daniel was gg-grandfather John's uncle - a brother of ggg-grandfather Michael.  But if the 1894 marriage record is correct, this older Daniel cannot be the father of Daniel who married Julia.  So how are these people all related?

Julia McCarthy may be worth my pursuit too, as she could be distantly related through my Granddad's McCarthy-Sowney lines.

This is why you must verify online information

I've been researching the family tree descended from one Lawrence Collins of Adrigole (b. 1783, d. 1867), and have been chasing Larry Collinses all over Ireland and even a few who emigrated to the US.  In the process, I discovered a Lawrence Collins b. 1878 to a Jeremiah Collins and a Mary Donovan.  So I decided to investigate.

I started in the church records, and from there turned up the following:

John,Burgatia,13-Nov-1859,Rosscarbery
Cornelius, ,8-May-1861,Rosscarbery
Patrick,Ross,4-Feb-1863,Rosscarbery
Michael,Barrack Lane,28-Sep-1864,Rosscarbery
Margt,Ross,9-May-1866,Rosscarbery
Jerry,Burgatia,10-May-1868,Rosscarbery
Jas,Burgatia,22-Apr-1870,Rosscarbery
Maurice,,9-Jun-1874,Cork South Parish

I quickly poked around in the online censuses, and in the BMD index at Family search, and found the following:

1901, in Ballynidon, Kinsale Rural DED
Jeremiah Collins, age 68, HoH
Mary Collins, 62, wife
Patrick, brother, 66
Denis, son, 34
Julia, daughter, 30
Jeremiah, son, 26
Lizzie, daughter, 21
Mary Mehigan, granddaughter, 8

In 1911 Jeremiah HoH was deceased and the family was headed by son Denis.

Patrick in Rosscarbery (from the baptismals, above) *may* have ended up in house 28, Burgatia, Rosscarbery DED.


Name      Michael Collins
Gender     Male   
Birth Date     27 Sep 1864
Birthplace     0082,ROSS CARBERY,CORK,IRELAND
Father's Name     Jeremiah Collins   
Mother's Name     Mary Donovan

So far I have found three references on volume 20 for Clonakilty.  This looks like it might be on volume 15.

Name      Margaret Collins
Gender     Female   
Birth Date     08 May 1866
Birthplace     0079,ROSS CARBERY,CORK,IRELAND   
Father's Name     Jeremiah Collins   
Mother's Name     Mary Donovan

I found one reference on volume 10 for Clonakilty.

Name      Jeremiah Collins
Gender     Male    
Birth Date     09 May 1868
Birthplace     Cork, Ireland   
Father's Name     Jeremiah Collins   
Mother's Name     Mary Donovan
Reference Number     v 10 p 113   

That one is pretty straightforward.

Name: James
Gender: Male
Baptism/Christening Place: 118, ROSSCARBERY, CORK, IRE
Birth Date: 20 Apr 1870
Birthplace: Rosscarbery, Cork, Ire
Father's Name: Jeremiah Collins
Mother's Name: Mary Donovan

Very obscure reference number, and multiple entries in the BMD index in the CLONAKILTY district.

Name      Ellen Collins
Gender     Female   
Birth Date     25 May 1871
Birthplace     Cork, Ireland   
Father's Name     Jeremiah Collins
Mother's Name     Mary Donovan   
Reference Number     v 10 p 487

Straightforward, hopefully.  She was registered in the KINSALE district.

Name      Mary Collins
Gender     Female   
Birth Date     03 Jun 1872
Birthplace     , , IRELAND
Father's Name     Jeremiah Collins   
Mother's Name     Mary Donovan

She was registered in the CORK district.  Not sure if volume 10-1 or 10-2, but on page 208.

Maurice Collins - CORK
Gender     Male   
Birth Date     06 Jun 1874
Birthplace     Cork, Cork, Ireland   
Father's Name     Jeremiah Collins   
Mother's Name     Mary Donovan
Reference Number     v 10-1 p 208   

Straightforward, hopefully.  He was registered in the CORK district.

Honora Collins
Gender     Female   
Birth Date     11 Jun 1875
Birthplace     Cork, Ireland
Father's Name     Jeremiah Collins   
Mother's Name     Mary Donovan
Reference Number     v 10-2 p 478

Straightforward, hopefully.  She was registered in the KINSALE district.

Laurence Collins
Gender     Male   
Birth Date     06 Jan 1878
Birthplace     Cork, Ireland   
Father's Name     Jeremiah Collins   
Mother's Name     Mary Donovan Collins
Reference Number     v 5 p 415

Straightforward.  He was registered in the KINSALE district, and (sadly) died later that year.

From all of this very hasty preliminary research, I believe that there were at least three different families in County Cork with parents of Jeremiah Collins and Mary Donovan in the research period from the 1850's and beyond.  Family #1 appeared to be based in the Rosscarbery area.  Their events would have been registered in Clonakilty.  Family #2 was in the Cork area.  Their events were registered in Cork. Family #3, the one where 1878 Lawrence was from, would have registered their events in Kinsale. 

All too often, I've seen family trees out on the Internet that might have thrown all three groups of children into the same family.  Without checking up on each of these references, I would end up attaching people to the family tree who weren't my people!  As it stands, I have no idea if the Kinsale family is related.  That's for further research in the years ahead.

Roggie and Pitchie of Cullomane East

My 87 year old aunt has an amazing memory.  Even though no family history has been written down until now, she has been able to tell me about her maternal granddad and his siblings.

Auntie was born in 1923, and she remembers when Denny Dan Larr Collins died in Cullomane East in late 1930.  She remembers her mother taking her and brother Humpsey (Humphrey) by horse and cart to Cullomane, and how the river was swollen, and how her mother drove the horse right into the swollen river and how terrified she was seeing the water rise up around the cart.

The visit was certainly burned into her memory.  She remembers two children nicknamed "Roggie" and "Pitchie" (that's my best shot at spelling) that were somehow associated with somebody named Dinah.  She can't remember Pitchie very well, but she remembers Roggie a curly haired boy and red-haired.

Grandmom's side of the family had many flaxen-haired and red-haired people in it, indeed, Grandmom's hair was a shade of golden red.  I reminded her that Denny Dan Larr had an older sister named Diana, and Auntie thinks that could be the association.  There certainly isn't anything conclusive about the Diana Collins, age 20, on the shiplist for "Manhattan", 10-Sep-1873, from Queenstown-Liverpool to NY, except that she was from Ireland.  If Roggie and Pitchie were related to Denny Dan Larr's sister and they were children in 1930, they would have had at least been her grandchildren.

This is something no genealogist would know, and the local papers don't print this kind of information. Only some older people locally residing in the area would know.  So if the nicknames Roggie and Pitchie are familiar to you and you remember those children living in or visiting Cullomane East, please let me know!  Better yet, Roggie or Pitchie, if you are out there, please get in touch!

Caheragh, Drinagh, and Dromdaleague Tithe Applotment Transcriptions Online

They have not been completely proofread by a local expert yet, but there are transcriptions of the Tithe Applotments for the civil parishes of Caheragh, Drinagh and Dromdaleague available.   Refer to this page.

There is work in progress on transcriptions for other parishes, though it may take me a few months to publish them.  First I want to coordinate with my proofreader and hope I don't overload him.  Second, I will be heading to Salt Lake City for vacation/genealogical research in mid-October to continue research on my own family, to get familiar with other genealogy resources, and to continue developing resources for my own County Cork pages, the tithe transcriptions being part of that effort.  Third, I have been taking a much-needed break from driving the 70 mile round-trip to the nearest open Family History Center, and am waiting for the grand reopening of the Los Angeles FHL, which is supposed to happen in late October/early November.