February was a busy month. Rather than focus on a family, I spent the month getting my taxes ready for the accountant, and also got a chance to spent a great week with my daughter, visiting from Boston. Genealogy was not completely missing, as I answered questions from DNA matches and cousins along the way.
But now it is March and my focus turns to the Daly family of Kilvine in County Mayo. This is my husband’s maternal line…his mother was Catherine Helen Daly. It is one of the early lines I researched and much of what I have dates back to the 1990s. That’s very clear as I began by printing out a report from my software going back to the oldest identified ancestor, John Daly. Looking at my source citations they harken back to a time before online records…
Bridget Daly, “Civil Registration of Ireland,” Register of Deaths, Claremorris, County Mayo, 1872, Volume 14, Page 87, Photocopy of Original, Joyce House, Dublin, File 20/21.
For those of you who are used to citing IrishGenealogy.ie for births, deaths and marriages, this is the system from the original indexes which cites the Registration District (Claremorris), the year of the event (after 1877 also the Quarter), the volume and page number. At the time, copies could be obtained from Joyce House on Lombard Street in Dublin, which housed the General Register Office. The Family History Library in Salt Lake, had microfilms of the Indexes and some of the registrations. My citation also states that a photocopy of this item can be found in File 20/21. You might want to go back to my blog on my filing system, which is an Ahnentafel or Pedigree system. In my genealogy, my daughters are #1 and my husband, Brian is #2 and I’m #3. If I double Brian’s number I get to his father (#4) and his mother #5. Since the Daly line is a female line, I double his mother to get to her parents (#10) and double the number again to get to the next generation (#20). Each generation doubles the number. Bridget (Carney) Daly was the 1st wife of John Daly, so she is filed along with him.
One of the things I’m doing as I work on each family is going through my paper files and digitizing the items. Sure enough, when I pull the file folder #20/21 (hanging folder) there is a manila folder inside with John Daly/Bridget Carney, and inside are two long narrow pieces of paper stapled together with the header from the Registration page and the one section that contains the death registration of Bridget. At Joyce House you had to pay €4 for the photocopy and since their were 10 registration on each page, they didn’t want you to see the others. For twins, on the same page you had to request each individually and pay €8. We’ve come a long way. Rather than scan this, it’s just faster to pull the copy from IrishGenealogy.ie and add an updated citation with the Group Registration ID. It's also a much better copy than the one I had which was likely from microfilm.
“Civil Registration,” Death, Ireland, Digital Image, IrishGenealogy.ie , 1872 Claremorris, Bridget Daly Death (32), Group Registration ID 7325736.
I want to point out here that the location of death was Crumlin (the townland is in the block with the date), Kilvine (the Civil Parish), Mayo (the County). Claremorris was the Registration District. When you’re looking for the location in Ireland don’t use the Registration District (which can cover more than one parish or even county). I note the Registration District in the memo line of my software and it is part of my source citation. One more piece of paper in the re-cycle bin.😀
Also in the file folder were the registrations for the births of the three children of John Daly and Bridget (sometimes Biddy) Carney. Those records were originally found at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. I checked FamilySearch.org and found them in the database, but I couldn’t view the image from home. Next time I’m at the local Library (which is a FamilySearch Center) I'll see if the images are available. I quickly found them in IrishGenealogy.ie, updated the source citation and discarded three more pieces of paper.
The folder also included a couple of photo Christmas Cards for descendants of this family, so those, too, were scanned and filed in the appropriate digital folder. My digital filing system follows the same pattern as my original paper system. I found one original old photo that I’ve already scanned and will keep.
I expect that I will spend most of the month updating my information, checking for DNA matches and identifying descendants of the Daly Cluster in Kilvine Parish. Once I get organized, my research question is how are the four Daly families in Kilvine, John (mine), James, Thomas and Michael, related?
If you have Daly's from Mayo, let me know. If not, hopefully this will provide you with a methodology for working on your own family, whether you are starting from scratch, or like me, picking back up research you've done in the past.
Happy Hunting!