Patrick McGrath was born in the village of Clonmel, Co Tipperary, Nov 4, 1833, according to his obituary.
Parents were Patrick McGrath & Catherine Curran.
Lived in Clonmel until he was 16 (circa 1850), then emigrated to the US.
Lived at Montgomery, Alabama, for 2 years, making his home with a relative (unknown who, or how related).
Then went to the state of New York, and in 1860 to Illinois.
Married Mary McNamara of Co Clare in Ottawa, Illinois in 1864. They had 8 children, 6 of whom lived to adulthood. He was a successful farmer, acquiring land in Illinois & Iowa, and passed it on to the next generation.
Lived in Marshall & LaSalle counties, Illinois, until his death Dec 24, 1913 in Wenona.
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-My next step should be to find his baptism record, but not sure which RC parish to check-- can't find him in online baptism index search with his parents' names for verification, tho it's hard to guess all spelling variations. Would heritage center staff/researcher have better resources?
-Would also like to find out if he had any siblings and what happened to his parents.
Wednesday 1st May 2013, 07:39AM
Message Board Replies
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Hi,
Thank you for your message.
St. Mary?s in CLonmel is also a Roman Catholic parish so this is where you should be looking. A useful website is the Irish Times as they give an overview of what records are available in specific parishes. For St. Mary?s parish follow this link:
As you can see from this the parish has a very early start date and copies are available from Bru Boru Heritage centre in Tipperary ( eolas@bruboru.ie ) and Waterford Heritage and Genealogy Centre ( mnoc@iol.ie ) They may be able to assist you in finding the records however a fee will apply.
With regards to other siblings you will probably have to look in these church records using Patrick?s parents? names, as all births prior to 1864 were only recorded by the local parish church. However, civil registration became mandatory in 1864, so after this date a civil record was kept of all births, deaths and marriages in the General Register?s Office in Dublin (http://www.groireland.ie/research.htm ) So, if Patrcik?s parents? died after 1864 you should be able to find their death records here. You can search the indexes to these records online at:
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1408347
Also, I found this websites that allows you to search for people in Clonmel?s different graveyards:
http://www.clonmelgraveyards.com/
Or you could try looking in local newspaper archives for obituaries. Tipperary has some newspaper archives available online:
http://www.igp-web.com/igparchives/ire/tipperary/news.htm
There are also some available at (you have to pay) http://www.irishnewsarchive.com/
You could also contact the Local Studies Department of Tipperary County Library:
http://www.tipperarylibraries.ie/index.php/about/geneology-and-local-studies/
Some other websites that you may find useful are:
The National Archives of Ireland http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/
The National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx
Irish Newspaper Archives: http://www.irishnewsarchive.com/
Genealogy links: http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/tipperary/tipperary-cemeteries.htm
Familysearch: www.familysearch.org
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
Thursday 6th Jun 2013, 10:16AM