Owen and Mary Sullivan

Denise,

The baptism and marriage records for the RC parish of Kenmare begin in 1819. Were Owen & Mary married in Ireland? Were all of their children born there? On the free site irishgenealogy.ie under the church records tab for Kerry, there are two marriages for couples with these names. Here they are...btw, the name Owen originates from the name Eugene, so you will see that name in the records for this time period.

Eugene Sullivan of Templenoe & Mary Sullivan of Templenoe, 31 July 1832, sponsors - John Sullivan & Henry Sullivan

Eugene Sullivan of Kenmare & Mary Brennan of Kenmare, 19 Feb 1824, sponsors - Daniel Sullivan & John Sullivan

When you wrote "they came over", I was not sure who you meant by "they".....if their children were born in Ireland, you will find records of their births on that same site I mentioned above....just need to figure out which of the two marriages is the correct one. Finally, Kenmare is a town land, civil parish and RC parish; so when it shows Owen is from Kenmare, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the second one above because headstone inscriptions often were very general....Kenmare could be the exact town OR the larger parish. Therefore, they could be from Templenoe, Kenmare just as easily. 

Regards,

Hi Carolyn, Thank you for getting back so quickly! Yes, they were married in Ireland and so were their children. Patrick was born around 1840?, Dennis 1843, Margaret 1844, Mary Elizabeth 1847 and Sylvester was born May 1 1850, that's what they have on his death certificate.

I'll look in Templenoe and the name Eugene. Hopefully I can find more info.

Thanks, Denise

Denise,

One correction to what I said above about Templenoe...it is not a town land. The RC parish of Kenmare is also known as Templenoe and Dourus as well. So, on the marriage record for the two couples, it has address as either Kenmare or Templenoe, I think they are just referring to the larger parish, and the exact town land is not given as it is in birth records. I believe that your Ancestry tree (Sullivan/Tubman..if that's you) has Mary Brennan as their mother. The only problem I see with that is the length of time between their marriage and their first born son, Patrick. Even the gap between the other couple and Patrick's approximated birth is a longer time than usual....although miscarriages and infertility are possible. 

I did find three of the five births to Eugene Sullivan & Mary Sullivan (her maiden name):

Denis, address Gurtbrack (Templenoe) 6 Aug 1837 to Eugene Sullivan & Mary Sullivan, sponsors - Denis White & Mary Cronin

Margaret, Gurthbrack, 5 Nov 1843, same parents, sponsors - John Sullivan & Margaret Sullivan

Mary, Gurthbrack, 3 May 1846, same parents, sponsors - John Sullivan & Catherine Sullivan

Cannot say with certainty that these are your relations, and I could not locate Patrick or Sylvester. 

Keep in mind that self-reported birth dates are approximated, and many folks did not know the year they were born as we do today; and it was not uncommon to change one's year of birth upon immigration - for a variety of reasons. 

Regards,

Good morning Carolyn, 

Yes, Sullivan/Tubman is my tree and after you gave me a "maybe" for the maiden name for Mary I put it in to see what came up in a search.

I thought the same thing about the parents DOB. I used the dates because it says the age they (Owen and Mary) were when they died on the gravestone. Like you said above, they probably didn't give the right information when they came over or didn't know their exact DOB's.

Could Sylvester have a different name? I found some information about his family on some old pictures and papers my father had, not much though.

Such a big puzzle!

Thanks, Denise

There is a "Nora" married to an Owen with kids with the same names...not sure it that's a correlation.

Also, in the 1910 census they have Sylvester's birth as 1943.

Hi Denise,

I too wondered about the name Sylvester, and if there are derivatives of it as it doesn't seem too common of an Irish name. However, in searching Roots Ireland for him, there were other "Sylvesters" in Kenmare. I see other Ancestry trees have Nora on US census records...that does look like your family though. Keep in mind that they self-reported their names to the census taker, and maybe she called herself Nora at that time. It was not uncommon after emigration to the US for folks to give themselves a middle name that was not given at birth. All eight of my great grandparents who emigrated from Ireland did this.

Good luck!