Brennan family

Pete:

Brennan is/was a very common surname in Ireland and very common in Co. Sligo. I searched on the subscription site Roots Ireland and did not find a baptismal record for Patrick Brennan with parents James and Catherine. Many RC parishes in Co. Sligo do not have records back to 1830. Stenson is a less common surname and one of my great-great-grandmothers was a Stenson and she lived in Mayo near the Sligo border. Stensons in the mid-19th century were primarily in Achonry and Kilmacteige civil parishes in Sligo so I would focus my research in those parishes.

Suggest you add Patrick's story to our XO Chronicles site and possibly someone will recognize the connection https://www.irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/history-and-genealogy/ancestor-dat…

Have you considered DNA testing?

Roger McDonnell

Thank you for your response(s). I will continue to look at the Achonry parish. I did AncestryDNA, but have had very few hits. The one definite match that I found had no more information than I already had. But I will continue looking.

Thanks again for your help

Pete

My grandmother grew up in the parish of Killasser in Mayo, which is on the border with Sligo and adjoins Kilmactigue parish in Sligo, and there were many Brennans in her parish.  I know of several who are relatives by marriage, and am fairly sure that I also have Brennan "blood" relatives, since I've already found one Brennan with a very large (34 cM) DNA match  segment through my DNA test results.

Unfortunately for your search, the parish records in Kilmactigue only go back to 1845 (you can find them here:  https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0136), and in Achonry only back to 1865 (you can find them here: https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0117).  However, I noticed that the parish records in Templeboy parish, which adjoins Kilmactigue to the north, go back to 1815.  There are some gaps, but the late 1820's and 1830's appear to be covered well (you can find them here: https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0756).  Some parishes built churches much later than others, so people were sometimes baptized or married in a nearby parish (that happened in my own family).

If you've also done DNA testing and want to compare results, let me know.  My results are posted at FTDNA, GEDMATCH, and Family Heritage.  I have a number of second cousins from the area who have also tested, and whose results are online.

-- Kevin Jewelll

Thank you for your response. I will look into those registers. I have done Ancestry DNA and uploaded to Gedmatch, MyHeritage and FTDNA. I would love to compare. My Gedmatch # is A397730.

Thanks again
Pete

I compared our results at GEDMATCH (my kit is T780556), and we don't seem to have any match at all, nor do you have any with the Brennan I mentioned (kit A611991).  When I lowered the segment threshold, you did have matches with two of my Mayo second cousins at (5.8 cM and 6.2 cM) which I think are large enough to indicate a connection perhaps more than 200 years or so ago.

You had a much more significant connection with one of my other matches, who has the Stenson surname.  I emailed her in the past, in order to make contact, but got no response.  From chromosome comparison, I know my connection to her lies in the Mayo area, but am not sure of the exact connection.  I have a long segement match with her (26 cM), but the three of us share no overlapping segments,  Here are the results from your comparison with her:

Comparing Kit A615946 (Mary Stenson) and A397730 (*PHL)

Minimum threshold size to be included in total = 500 SNPs
Mismatch-bunching Limit = 250 SNPs
Minimum segment cM to be included in total = 3.0 cM

Chr     Start Location      End Location      Centimorgans (cM)   SNPs

7         50,991,612          75,132,211         14.2                          1,969

11      1,811,147               5,675,827           8.9                          1,065

Largest segment = 14.2 cM
Total of segments > 3 cM = 23.1 cM
2 matching segments

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, but maybe you can get in touch with Mary Stenson to see whether she has helpful info about that family.

Hello Kevin. Thank you so much for your reply and taking the time to do so. I do hope one day to be able to connect with a Brennan relative but I know it's a long shot. Please do keep me in mind should anything relevant turn up. Best wishes. Rosie.