parish unknown: trying to find ancestors

Ardagh is a sub-district of Newcastle registration district, located in west Co. Limerick.

p.s. this part of Co. Limerick is right next to Co. Kerry

A possible lead for Margaret's family - the extracted civil birth record collection on FamilySearch includes a number of births where the parents are Thomas Moore and Ellen/Ellon Dalton. Not exactly the most common combination of names, so I'd say likely the same family. The names and dates are as follows :

Ellon Moore born 3rd Sept. 1869, Ardagh and Athea, Limerick   (prob. a typo for Ellen)
James Moore born 17 July 1873, Ardagh, Limerick
Thomas Moore born 15th July 1875, Limerick

The extracted collection does not include all births, and only includes some of the details from the register. The place names given can be the county or district, rather than exact street or townland.

see : Moore / Dalton children

On a search based on parents surnames, and father's initial on the Index on RootsIreland is showing a likely match for Margaret's baptism in Co. Limerick. The year is 1861, so a little earlier than her reported age would suggest (not unusual - reported ages are often inaccurate) and before the start of civil records. The match is not coming up on mother's initial E, but she may be recorded as a variation of her name.

The parish is Athea RC in West Co. Limerick, as mentioned in one of the extracted civil births above. RootsIreland is a subscription site, and the records they have are transcripts. A Catholic baptism record should show the full names of both parents, and possibly a place of residence - i.e. the name of a townland. Godparents are also usually included, these are often family or neighbours.

The search is also showing a few possible siblings to add to Margaret's family, in addition to the ones mentioned above from civil records.

Thanks for you additional fossicking.  I had previously found  the family search records to the Dalton/Moore kids and as they didn't include my direct relative or a marriage record I  couldn't be sure they were relevant. I'm not in a position to subscribe to rootsireland at the moment, maybe in 3-4 weeks.  I hope I receive some information on Margaret's husband and can track them both down during a months subscription.  Otherwise rootsireland may allow me to find him on my own.

In addition, I returned to the original document about the family produced by my aunt.  She wrote that Margaret came from the area known as The Meeting of the Waters, Kerry.  Tonight I checked the location of that place and found it in Wicklow.  Is there a chance that it was part of Kerry, or indeed, the Limerick area under discussion, was part of Kerry prior to Margaret's emmigration around the mid 1880s?  I did look for family records in Wicklow but the only likely one wasn't right. There is also the issue that people don't always live where they were born.

Co. Wicklow is nowhere near Co. Limerick or Kerry, but it might be the case that the 'meeting of waters' mentioned was a local term for another join between two rivers somewhere near where they lived in Co. Limerick or Kerry. They could in theory have moved at some point to Co. Wicklow but I dont think that's a very likely move for a farming family from West Co. Limerick.

Catholic parish records for Co. Kerry and parts of West Cork are available free on the IrishGenealogy website. 

I had a quick look for James' baptism yesterday but didnt spot anything promising online. This O'Sullivan family could be difficult to locate given how popular the surname [O']Sullivan is particularly in the south west. Also watch out for variations in spelling for Owen e.g. Eoghan, or even in Latin - Eugenius. For O'Sullivan check with and without the O, and Honora's family could appear as Keane or O'Kane 

just after I posted that I found this .... Meeting of the Waters.

extract : '....As the name implies the Meeting of the waters is where Killarney's famous lakes converge..'

The Lakes of Killarney are in Co. Kerry - so this meeting of the waters is a lot closer to West Co. Limerick.

Shanew147 Thanks for the link to the Irish genealogy website. I've had a couple of quick looks and not found anything promising. think I'll leave it till I have the time to make good use of a paid site.