Hennessy: 1830 - 1845

Hi Stacie,

Thank you very much for your message.

Unfortunately, there is quite a number of Catholic parishes in County Limerick. You can use the Irish Times website again to see what parishes there are and what registers are available in each:

West Limerick:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/counties/rcmaps/limerickwrc.htm

East limerick:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/counties/rcmaps/limerickerc.htm

As you can see this may be quite an undertaking if you were to look through  them all! It may be an idea to contact Limerick Genealogy for some assistance.Although a fee may apply, it may make your search much easier. Here is a link to their webpage that shows what parish records they have available and what time frame:

http://limerick.rootsireland.ie/generic.php?filename=sources.tpl

Here is their email address:  research@limerickgenealogy.com

Best wishes,

Genealogy Support

Hi Stacie,

You can see the list of online sources for County Limerick Roman Catholic Parishes at the Irish Family History Foundation (http://www.rootsireland.ie). 

Use this link to get to the Sources page:  
http://www.rootsireland.ie/ifhf/generic.php?filename=sources.tpl&select…

Select LIMERICK from the drop down list and voila, it will show you the date ranges for records they have for each RC Parish for births, marriages, etc.

I took a quick look using the IFHF and find that there are 6 matches for the search criteria: 
Surname:  Hennessy (plus variants) 
Given Name:  David 
Dates:  between 1829-1839 (+/- 5 years from 1834)
County:  Limerick 

NOTE:  Although I used Hennessy plus ALL variants to search with it turns out they are all spelled EXACTLY HENNESSY and ALL were RC CHURCH Baptism Records as follows: 

Hennessy David 1829 Co Limerick Parish:  BULGADEN (RC)
  Father:  Philip Hennessy
  Mother:  Maria ?

Hennessy David 1830 Co Limerick Parish:  GALBALLY & AHERLOW (RC)
  Father:  Michael Hennessy
  Mother:  Cath. ?

Hennessy David 1830 Co Limerick Parish:  ST. MUNCHIN'S (RC)
  Father:  Richard Hennessy
  Mother:  Joanna ?

Hennessy David 1832 Co Limerick Parish:  GALBALLY & AHERLOW (RC)
  Father:  James Hennessy
  Mother:  Cath. ?

Hennessy David 1838 Co Limerick Parish:  BULGADEN (RC)
  Father:  William Hennessy
  Mother:  Kate ?

Hennessy David 1839 Co Limerick Parish:  GALBALLY & AHERLOW (RC)
  Father:  Roger Hennessy
  Mother:  Cath. ?

NOTE:  If you wonder how I searched for free and came up with the above, see my tutorial at 
tinyurl.com/6m525b7.  Also note that I've left question marks for the Mother's maiden names; it is not possible to "guess" maiden names one letter at a time, one must have the entire surname (or variant of the surname) in order to get the record to come up.  Sometimes one can correlate or find these SAME records over at familysearch.org (a free site) and get the maiden name from there, but I took a look and was unable to come up with anything that matched the above records.  Obviously you could spend a boatload of money purchasing all these records, so you need to try and limit and choose the most likely ones.  For instance you might take a shot at using traditional Irish Naming patterns to guess which one might be "your" David.  The first son is usually named after the father's father...so if your David had a firstborn son name that matches any of the above named fathers of David, then that record would be a logical one to select and purchase.  Other information that MIGHT be on the record would be the occupation of the father / mother and where they lived and the baptismal sponsors of the child. 

Another route to take in order to pare down your selection would be to try and find sibling groups.  Do you know if David had any siblings that also immigrated to the USA?  If so you could use the names of the Father/Mother pairs I found above, in each particular parish, and see if you can find any possible siblings of David's (this is explained in the tutorial link that I gave). 

I looked online at ancestry.com and found the following family tree:  
Holland Family Tree 
Owner:  gennyholland1
Url:  http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/4865254/person/-72055646?ssrc=

This is the family of David Hennessy (c 1836 in Limerick, Ireland died 22 Mar 1904 in Ballston Spa, Saratoga, NY) and Honora Scanlan and it shows their first child's name being William born 1856, second child George born 1864, 3rd child John F born 1868 and 4th child Mary Ellen born 1879.  Is this YOUR family?  If so the record for the David baptised 1838 whose father was William in Bulgaden RC Parish might be a good bet!  

Hope this helps and Happy Hunting!

Kathy

Kathy,

Thank you so much for the tips and hints!!!

I'm familiar with Ms. Holland's tree - we know each other.  She found a story about David being married before his marriage to Honora and that's where the child William comes in.  Since we have yet to find their marriage certificate or passenger records, I'm not quite sure about that story.

Stacie

Emma,

Thank you!  At this point I'm probably willing to pay a researcher to help out :)

Stacie