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Hello,

I am tracing my Irish heritage and have found a great-great-great grandmother named Margaret Kavanaugh, who was married to a Tobias Purcell in County Wexford in 1821.  She died in County Wexford in 1877. I do not know when she was born.

I am fairly certain that she was born in County Wexford because Tobias was born in Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, yet they married in Wexford, where she died. So, I'm assuming that they married in her home town.

They had two sons, William Shirley Purcell and Pierce K. Purcell.

Tobias Purcell immigrated to the U.S. to live with his son William.

It is possible that we have relatives in Ireland who are the decendents of Pierce K. Purcell or any of the siblings of Margaret Kavanaugh Purcell.

Any information anyone can provide regarding this part of our Irish lineage, including documents, photos, and especially family contact information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for the help.

Rachel Dobbs

Monday 4th Feb 2013, 07:03AM

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    The first place to start your search is in your own home - talk to elders in the family - find out abouttheir parents, grandparents etc. Perhaps they have a story of one of your ancestors? Things to enquire about include: occupations, places of residence, who they were living with(people often stayed with others from their home villages after emigration), siblings & other familymembers, first names (important -as usually past from father to son/mother to daughter) ages attime of emigration, possible dates of birth/death, religious denominations. Also ask if there are anysurviving photographs, old documents or letters - record all the information you can find. Write/telephone other members of your family to check details -perhaps they can remember otherfacts about your ancestors? Hopefully when you have done this - some clues will emerge! After youhave identified the emigrant- begin tracing the steps back to Ireland. Do you know much about their emigration? The dates, the reason why they left, who they mighthave travelled with..etc.? Generally more information was given at the port of arrival rather than theport of departure. If you knew which city they arrived at (e.g. Liverpool, Ellis Island), this could be agood place to find more information, and perhaps even find out an exact place of origin. Shippingmanifests can be checked ?which may lead to more clues. The next thing you could do is find the counties and places in Ireland your family names are mostprevalent. Look at the website http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/ and perhapssomething will match some other clue you may have found elsewhere? If nothing turnsup ? it is advisable to try different variations of the spellings of the names. If you have a possiblefirst name you could try the Irish Census 1901, 1911 at www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ or the landvaluation record called Griffiths Valuationhttp://askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml   Ellis Island:http://www.ellisisland.org/search/passSearch.asp Castlegarden:http://www.castlegarden.org/ US National Archives/Immigration info:http://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/

     

    Thursday 4th Apr 2013, 01:35PM

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