Brick wall tracing immigrant ancestors back to Ireland

Question

I am trying to find records in Ireland for my 3rd great grandparents. I have what seems like a good bit of information about them, but I am starting to learn that Irish parish records, while remarkable for their existence, are pretty incomplete. So I am stuck.

I am looking for records in Ireland for the parents of my great great grandmother, Catherine Farrell Conboy. I have Catherine's baptismal record, her marriage record, some census data, and her death certificate.

She was baptised in February 1851 at Church of the Nativity in Manhattan. Her parents are listed as Bryan Farrell and Ann Farrell.

Her death certificate is also from Manhattan - at Bellevue Hospital. She died February 1, 1931, and the death certificate lists her parents as Bryan Farrell and Ann nee Ryan, both from County Longford.

There is an 1860 census that I cannot be positive is for the same family of Farrells, but they are the *only* Farrell family on the 1860 census in New York where the names match: the father is Bernard (I was surprised to learn that "Bryan" can become "Bernard" in Church Latin!), the mother is Ann, and the children are Ann, Catherine, and Bernard. The birthdate for the child Catherine on this census is "about 1850", which matches pretty well with her 1851 baptism. So I think this may be a hit.

The oldest child on this census is their daughter Ann (she vanishes from the record after this). Ann's age is given as 19, and her birth place is given as New York, so if that is correct (and I know that is not a small "if"), that means that Ann and Bryan were in New York by 1841 at the latest.

So that means that I am looking for a Bryan Farrell who was born in County Longford sometime between 1800 - 1820 and an Ann Ryan born sometime between 1800 - 1820. If they married before emigrating, their marriage would have been before 1841, but far enough after their dates of birth that the poor priest marrying them wouldn't be scandalized.

One last detail (I feel guilty about how long this is already!): I found 2 death notices for Bernard Farrell in the papers - one for 1865, and one for 1866.The 1865 death notice states the deceased is from "the parish of Abbey in Longford" (Abbylara? Abbysrule?). the 1866 death notice states the deceased is from "Ardah, County Longford". Right now, I have no way of knowing if either of these gentlemen is my ggggrandfather, but they both seem plausible.

So that's what I have so far. What I don't know is where to go next.

Answer 1

I looked up the names Bryan Farrell and Ann Ryan here:

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/

Unfortunately didn't get any hits.

I have several Irish brick walls due to lack of available documents. Those early 1800's dates are going to be a difficult wall to hurdle. Good luck.

Comments

When you think about everything that was going on in Ireland in the nineteenth century (and the twentieth!) it's kind of amazing that we have as much in the way of records as we do.

I am starting to suspect that one of the issues I may be running into is that I think my ancestors lied to government officials. Like a lot. For instance, I found a record from the almshouses in New York that might be for Catherine - except the age is seven or eight years younger than hers. It could be a different person, but it could also be that she was lying about her age - passing as younger to try to get sympathy from the admissions people at the almshouse. There's a lot of that in my family, which is probably one of the things that sparked my interested in genealogy in the first place.

I appreciate you taking the time to search - it's very kind of you!