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Hello Teresa,

I went to www.rootsireland.ie and found the marriage record for your parents in 1904 in Co Donegal.  You will need to go to this site and purchase this record approx €5.   Or you could apply to the general registrars office at www.groireland.ie to get a copy of their marriage certificate.

Once you have this certificate , it will contain the name of Jame's father and possible some details of address etc.

Once we have this name we can then search for the birth or baptism details for James.

Please get back to us as soon as you have a copy of this record and we can proceed from there.

Look forward to hearing from you soon,

Kind regards,

Anne Dennehy

Hello Ann

Thank you for email I have the marriage cert of James and Mary Ann from Letterkenny and his father

was Hugh hence James Hudie he was a fisherman

I als asked for James birth cert but there was no record

I have seen the 1901 and 1911 census and there seems to be no trace of Hugh on the island

but in 1911 James was living with family at number 13

Thanks again 

                hope to hear from you soon

Teresa Margaret

Hello Ann

Thank you for email I have the marriage cert of James and Mary Ann from Letterkenny and his father

was Hugh hence James Hudie he was a fisherman

I als asked for James birth cert but there was no record

I have seen the 1901 and 1911 census and there seems to be no trace of Hugh on the island

but in 1911 James was living with family at number 13

Thanks again 

                hope to hear from you soon

Teresa Margaret

Hi Teresa,

I have searched the 1901 census for any sign of Hugh, but only managed to find a Hugh aged 24.  His mother is listed as Nellie (Ellen) and a widow.  they lived at number 9 Inintrahull.   I'm wondering if this could be James' mother .   

I then went to www.rootsireland.ie and searched for a Jame Mc Laughlin, father Hugh Mc Laughlin, mother Ellen  ??blank.   I found two records matching this criteria.  One in 1862 which I don't believe is your James , and the other in 1873 in the CIVIL parish of Burt in Co Donegal.   I have a strong suspicion this is your James.   You would need to register with this site and it would cost you about €5 to open and print off the record.  Should you wish to do this, I hope you will get back to me with all the information it contains.  I am most curious.

You may think that the 1873 birth is not within your date range but it is not uncommon for records to be many years out.

Most people who emigrated were illiterate and undocumented.  They didn't know how to spell their names and hadn't a clue as to what age they were.  At the port of arrival their names were recorded phonetically, their ages were only guessed, and this is the information that followed them for the rest of their lives.

The proof of this occured in 1909 when the old age pension was introduced into ireland.  People had to prove their ages and were forced to go through baptismal records to establish when they were born.  That is why there is such HUGE discrepancies between ages in the 1901 census and the 1911 census of Ireland.  Dates were found to be out by many many years in some cases.

We tend to forget that people back then had no social security numbers, and were not tracked from the cradle to the grave as we are today.  They didn't celebrate birthdays, as it was all they could do to clothe and feed themselves.  So I would advise that people bear this in mind when researching.

One curious item has me puzzeled me.  The record of Nellie and her fishermen sons in the 1901 census lists one of her sons as Daniel aged 28.  I know sometimes ages were only guessed at, but James would have been the same age as Daniel in 1901.  Any history of twins in your family???

Hope to hear from you soon,

Kind regards,

Anne

Hello Ann

Thank you for the information I have taken your advice and started to concetrate on Innistral Island

I will be in touch one way or the other after further enquiries

Thanks again 

Teresa Margaret