Lookupuk.com - Ireland Genealogy Board
Message #34484
| Board Name: Ireland Genealogy |
| M. Barbara Mulrine |
Tampa, FL USA |
Aug 11, 2001 |
I am Irish on both sides of my family, and most of my direct ancestors left Ireland during the Famine, going mainly to Glasgow and Liverpool. I have one grandfather born in Scotland and another in Bootle. One grandmother was born in Donegal, and the other was born in New York. This New York born grandmother was born of immigrant parents. Her father was born in Scotland and was half-Scot, but her mother was born in Ballymurray, Co. Roscommon. It is this grandmother or her family whom I am trying to track down because, although I know several things about her and her family, many mysteries remain. Her father, as the family story goes, was a tenant farmer in the Ballymurray area. His name was Martin Hurley, a name, I understand, that is not indigenous to Co. Roscommon but Cork area. He had at least two sons: Martin, ??, and a daughter, Bridget. When the father died, the older brother, whose name I don't know, stayed to take over the farm. He never left Ireland. Martin and Bridget emigrated to New York, where he became a Brooklyn policeman and she a serving girl in one of the "great houses" on Fifth Avenue. Bridget was young when she came over, from what I understand, and married a fellow who was also an immigrant by way of Toronto from Glasgow. They had two children my grandmother being 5 years younger than her brother. Bridget died when my grandmother was 12, which would have been in 1897. I've not been able to locate a death certificate that might have been able to clarify or verify information about Bridget. My grandmother never knew much about her mother's background. She said she never thought to ask at that stage of her life. I only have the recollections of a 17-year old boy as my great-uncle recalled them at the age of 97. It's very possible that the brother that stayed on the farm in Ireland died without marrying and producing progeny, which would be the end of that story. Nonetheless, I hold out hope that he may have married and had children. I'm hoping that he did or there may have been more relatives in the area--perhaps on Bridget's mother's side who might know a similar story.
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