Catherine Hanlon/Hanlan/Hanlin - Clifden, County Galway, Ireland to Aust

[dosborn]

Hi, my great grandmother is Catherine Hanlon/Hanlan/Hanlin who married my great grandfather Joseph Moore McMahen in Scots Presbyterian Church in Melbourne, Victoria, Australian in Sept, 1889 and died in Western Australia on Apr 29, 1936.

Catherine is also referred to in various documents as Kate Caroline Hanlon or Hanlan. Her marriage certificate gives her name as Kate Caroline Hanlan and place of birth as Clifden, Ireland, and her parents names as John and Mary Hanlan or Hanlon of Hay, New South Wales. However, the birth certificate of one of her sons describes her as Catherine Hanlin and gives her place of birth as Sandhurst, Victoria. I think the latter is unlikely and that Kate/Catherine was born in Clifden in about 1863 and emigrated to Australia between then and her marriage in 1889. Various death notices for her in newspapers I have found also say she was born in Ireland. (I am certain that Kate/Catherine is the same person as I have a number of other documents in which she is described as one or the other.)

Is anyone able to access any records from the Clifden/Galway area to help me to locate the Hanlon family in Ireland, and Catherine and her parents' subsequent immigration to Australia. I have not been able to locate any birth records or immigation records for Catherine, her parents or any siblings she may have had. It is a tremendous roadblock in our family history at present. All help gratefully accepted. Thank you.

[Darksecretz]

would you like me to move this thread to our family history research forum? You may get a better response on there..

and welcome to the Forum! :smilee:

[dosborn]

Ok. If you think that best. Thanks very much.

[Darksecretz]

Ok. If you think that best. Thanks very much.

thats ok, I have moved it for you, here's hoping someone can advise you :smilee:

[Janet]

If you have never really researched Irish records before I would suggest that you try our reference library first to find out what is available to you. There are several references but the First Steps one is as follows:

http://www.familytreeforum.com/content.php/351-Irish-Research

You are going to be interested in parish records, not statutory, that is records pre 1864 are Parish records in Ireland except for Protestant marriages that are from 1845.

I presume you know whether or not you are looking for Protestant or Catholic records?
Have you googled Clifden? There is a lot online for example Wikepedia states:

Clifden

Clifden is a town on the coast of County Galway, Ireland and being Connemara's largest town, it is often referred to as "the Capital of Connemara". It is located on the Owenglen River where it flows into Clifden Bay.

If you add genealogy into your search more history will come up.

If you are unable to access parish records by going to Dublin Library for Cathoilc parish records then your next best effort is to try some of the big Australian libraries near where you live in Australia. Australia's family hstory societies have excellent records and often have access to parish records.

Both FMP.ie and Ancestry have a very limited amount of Parish Records on their sites, so you could try a search.

Family Search.org may have some parish records but most seem to be statutory records, but worth a look as that is free.

Other fee paying sites are the Irish Foundation sites but not all the records are on here and with common names like Hanlon will be difficult to see if you have the right one, but again worth a search.

http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/index.html

https://rootsireland.ie/ifhf/login.php?redirect_url=index.php

http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/

You could try Griffiths Valuation Index(Around 1840's to 1860's) to see where the name Hanlon comes in Clifden
If you find what you want in Griffiths you could then try Tithe Aplotments( from around 1820's to 1840's)

Google Genuki Ireland Connemarra to see when the church records started in Clifden. Many church records did not start until the 1840's but some started earlier and that can be easily found. If you can home in on a church then you can send an e mail or a letter to the church concerned and pray for a reply!! I did do this recently and struck gold!

I have given you some ideas and I am sure others will come up with some more, but there is no instant look up service for Ireland. Irish parish records are really pot luck but they can often be found and often in the most unexpected places like Irish newspapers.

Other sites worth trying are as follows:

http://www.irishorigins.com/

http://freespace.virgin.net/alan.tupman/sites/irish.htm

One other problem you have is that the person may have been born in Clifden but famines from 1820's through to the 1850's forced families to move on all the time.

Janet