John McCreanor

Hi Tania,

Thank you for your message.

Have you tried looking at parish records to see if you can find John?s birth record, which would give you his parents? names?

Most Catholic records are held locally so you may need to write to the local parish priest for possible assistance. One website that you may find useful is the Irish Times where they give an overview of what records are available in specific parishes. It also shows you where copies of the records are available. For Mullingar  parish, follow this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&churchid=937&CityCounty=Westmeath&CityCounty=Westmeath&parish=Mullingar

Luckily, records here have a very early start date so hopefully you should be able to find John?s. As you can see from the link also the heritage centre in Westmeath have some copies available. Here is their email address: dunnasimoate@eircom.net Please note however, that a fee may apply.

Most surviving Church of Ireland records are still held by the local clergy, although some are in the National Archives of Ireland and others are in the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin. Here are their websites: http://www.nationalarchives.ie/ and http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42

Lists of these surviving registers can also be found at the National Library of Ireland.

I hope this is helpful. Please be patient - as our programme has only begun to rollout across the island of Ireland and volunteers in some areas may not yet be organized.

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support

Hi Tania,

My Nan (Audrey) found this post and asked me (Stuart) to help her login to this website.

We've been researching John McCreanor for some time now and I'll quickly summarise what we have and let Nan get you up to date with all the rest.

John McCreanor born 1820 (or 1818 there seems to be some uncertainty as to the exact birth year).

Lived in Ireland, UK, Canada, Bahamas and eventually South Australia.  

Worked for the Royal Canadian Rifles for quite some time, also I think he worked at Chatham prison.

Eventually died in South Australia working as a gaol warden under suspicious circumstances.  Theory is here that he was drowned by some of the prisoners.  

Audrey has all the details and quite a few documents with regards to John.

All the best,
Stuart (on behalf of Audrey).
Sydney, Australia.