Three families from near Ballina

Jane:

I checked the Roots Ireland indexes for the two marriages plus the 1846-1847 baptism but did not find any records. Many of the Mayo RC parishes do not have records back to 1830 and good number do not have records back to the famine period. However, the RC church in Ballina does have records back to 1823 so likely Denis and Mary were not married in Ballina.

You may have heard that the National Library is putting the Catholic parish register online next summer for free searching.

I also looked for Eagan/Egan records in the Tithe listings. www.titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie  

I did not see a Denis/Dennis. There were Egan/Eagan records in Kilmoremoy (note Kilmovemoy in the Tithes).

Roger McDonnell

Thank you Roger. With some luck I will have more clues come summer. There is a record that may be the Eagans, married in County Sligo. I dot have any evidence for it to even be a clue other than it is the only record available online for a marriage in the right year between a Denis Eagan and a Mary Ryan. The only other (very specious) clue is simply that I share a lot of my genome with Mayo DNA. But I also do with Donegal, Wales and Yorkshire as well as London to Dover (those Normans again)! It is a curiosity though, because most of my known origins for my Irish ancestry is from Laois, Tipperary, Cork and especially Limerick (Fitzgibbons, Barry, Ennis, and more Egans). Since autosomal DNA is limited in its time frame, the statistical liklihood  pretty much places the unknown origins of the McDonnells and/or Eagans in Mayo (or Donegal) within the last 5 generations. Unfortunately family info only says they were from "the West". I hate DNA for its generalities, but once you see it you can't unsee it, even when it is useless! I appreciate you looking up the records for me very much. I will add this to my notes and sources checked.