Searching for information on the Gallaghers

Charmane:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

Attymass RC records do not start until 1875.

I scanned the civil birth records for a record for Anne, Agnes or Thomas and did not find a good record with a mother named Anne. Do you know the mother's maiden name from a death record or other source? Any other clues about the family. Did Thomas, Agnes and Mary emigrate?

Roger McDonnell

Hi Charmane,

www.rootsireland.ie/ has the following July birth/baptism record from Mayo for Ann Gallagher with mother Ann but it's from Achill:

Name:Anne GallagherDate of Birth:18-Jul-1871
Registration Date:31-Jul-1871Address:BolyglannParish/District:ACHILL DISTRICTGender:FemaleCountyMAYO
Father:Owen GallagherMother:Anne GallagherOccupation:Farmer
Notes:

GALLAGHER FORMERLY GALLAGHER
HONOR GALLAGHER PRESENT AT BIRTH

Was she definitley born in Attymas or did she come from there? There were no Ann Gallagher 1871 + - 10 years in Attymas RC records on roots.

I had a look for her siblings in Attymas & these were the only ones - nothing for Agnes:

Name:Mary GallagherDate of Birth:
Date of Baptism:23-Feb-1884Address:KildermotParish/District:ATTYMASGender:FemaleCountyMAYO
Father:Thomas GallagherMother:Anne QuinnOccupation:
Sponsor 1 /
Informant 1:Tom Ferguson Sponsor 2 /
Informant 2:Mary Ferguson 

Name:Thomas GallagherDate of Birth:
Date of Baptism:14-Dec-1889Address:MullahownyParish/District:ATTYMASGender:MaleCountyMAYO
Father:Thomas GallagherMother:Anne QuinnOccupation:
Sponsor 1 /
Informant 1:William Higgins Sponsor 2 /
Informant 2:Mary Higgins 

Annoyingly the National Library's RC registers have Attymas Baptisms but they start in 1875!!

No luck in the Tithe Applotments or 1851 Census but Griffiths Valuation (done in 1856 in Mayo) has 49 Gallaghers in Attymas including this one for Anne 3 times:

 Family Name 1GALLAGHERForename 1ANNE

LandlordFamily Name 2HOWLEYForename 2PATRICK C

.LocationCountyMAYOBaronyGALLENUnionBALLINAParishATTYMASSTownlandBOYHOLLAGHPlace NameBOYHOLLAGHPlace TypeTOWNLAND

Publication DetailsPosition on Page42Printing Date1856Act15&16Sheet Number49,40Map Reference5;6

Assumedly this Ann would have been an adult in 1856 as she was independently paying rent then so she would have been mid thirties at least by 1871.

Not much help I'm afraid

Col

Thank you so much Col and Roger for your quick responses.  Unfortunately I do not have a maiden name for Anne's mother (Anne) and I do not know her father's first name.  My Great Grandmother, Annie, died in Chicago during childbirth in 1903 and my grandmother and her siblings were eventually put in an orpanage, so unfortunately not much history is known about the Gallagher side of the family. Since the children were put in an orphanage in Chicago, I would guess that Anne (the mother) was living back in Ireland again- otherwise I would have thought she would have helped to care for the 5 kids. 

I do believe that Agnes emigrated to the US, but I'm not certain about the other siblings.  I too have seen the birth record from Achill many times, but I don't believe that is her since her obituary specifically said she was born in Attymass.  I have records from the 1900 census in Chicago stating Anne (the mother) was living in Chicago with her daughter and her family at that time.  It indicated she was born in Ireland around April 1845.  I do know that Anne and her mother Anne had traveled back to Ireland at least once with one of the younger Anne's daughter Mary (Mayme) who was born in 1896, we are not sure why.  I appreciate the help and would be grateful to any other leads or suggestions you may have to that could unfold more clues of my mysterious Gallagher family members. Below is the obituary from the Dec. 20th , 1903 Chicago Tribune which is where I found most of my information. (I believe that 'Attywass' was a typo for Attymass).

CURRAN—Annie Curran (nee Gallagher), dearly beloved wife of John Curran, Dec. 18, at 7:30pm., daughter of Annie Gallagher, sister of Thomas M. Gallagher, Mrs. Mary Barber, and Agnes Gallagher, born in Parish Attywass, County Mayo, Ireland. Funeral Monday, 9:30 a.m. , from residence, 260 W. Harrison – st., to St. Patrick’s church, thence to Polk-st. deport, by cars to Mount Olivet.

My Gallagher relatives come from near Attymass, In Killedan parish.  My mother's father grew up there, and my mother's mother (a McNulty) grew up in Killasser parish, which is right next to Attymass.  I know from my own searching in the local parish records that, for parishes where records start late, one can sometimes find family records in a neighboring parish, which had an operating church at an earlier stage.  Attymass is next to the parish of Toomore, and in Toomore the marriage records start in 1833 (the baptimal records start later), so you might check there.  Also, the records for Swinford go back to 1808 for marriages and 1822 for baptisms.  Swinford is next to Toomore, Killasser, and Killedan (and Bohola, where I also have relatives), so it's not far fom Attymass.  It's the main local town, and I have found records there for relatives who actually iived in another parish.

I've done dna testing, by the way, and my results are posted at GEDMatch and several other sites.  If you have results as well, we could compare our kits.

In case you're interested, although the name Gallagher is often associated with County Donegal, where there are many Gallagher’s, scholars now believe that a separate Gallagher clan originated in Mayo and/or Galway.  In Irish, Gallagher is Ó Gallchobhair (modern Irish spelling Ó Gallchúir), and it means “descendant of the foreign help”, referring to mercenary warriors who were often brought in from Scotland or elsewhere in Ireland to fight in local wars (each was known as a gallóglach, or “gallowglass”, and in Irish they are known as a group as gallóglaigh).

More information I discovered... parents of Anne Gallagher (born 1871) were John Gallagher and Anne Durkin(born 1845).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

kevin45sfl - I have done DNA testing on ancestry.com and Family Tree DNA

I went back and searched again and no records. I'm wondering if Annie was actually older than you think e.g. before 1864 when civil registration started. No records shows up on Roots Ireland or www.irishgenealogy.ie  For civil records, I only searched in the Ballina registration district which includes Attymass civil parish. However, if the Gallaghers lived near the parish but just a little south in Killasser ot Toomore parishes then you are in the Swinford registration district.

Roger

I did my dna testing at FTDNA also.  My kit number there is 526652.  You may want to download your results from there (or from Ancestry) and upload them at GEDMatch, which combines results from the various sites (FTDNA, Ancestry, and 23andMe).  I did that and have already located a Gallagher second cousin and two third cousins whom I did not know about, including one whose mother in Ireland still owns the house where my grandfather grew up.  The url is https://www.gedmatch.com/login1.php and my kit number there is T780556 (they give you a new kit number, because they are combining data from the various sites).  The GEDMatch site can be a bit awkward to use, until you get used to it, but the main page has instructions for uploading data.  If you'd like more info about the downloading at FTDNA or the uploadinng at GEDMatch, let me know.  You can email me at kevin45sf@yahoo.com

In my search of parish records in the past, I've kept notes of a number of Gallagher (and other) records in the area for people whom I could not yet connect directly to my family, in case I came across info to connect them later on.  I looked through those records again today, and came across a birth on 30 Apr 1868 of an Anne Gallagher, whose parents were Anthony Gallagher and Anne McNulty.  The baptism was registered in the civil district of Swinford, but the townland given was Carrowreagh.  There does not appear to be a Carrowreagh townland in Swinford (at least, not any more - they have sometimes changed over the years), but there are several Carrowreagh townlands elsewhere in Mayo, the nearest one to Swinford being, interestingly enough, in the neighboring parish of Killedan, where my Gallagher's come from.  There are a lot of Gallagher's in the area, so this could be nothing but a coincidence, but I thought I'd mention it, because as I said I have dscovered records for my family in Swinford, when they actually lived in neighboring parishes.

It occurred to me that perhaps Anne (the mother) might be the one who was born in Attymass (which is not far away), and she might have married a Gallagher from a nearby parish, then moved to the husband's parish, where their daughter Anne was born in Carrowreagh.  The mother's birthplace might then have been mistakenly recalled as the daughter's birthplace, due to the confusion of them having the same given name.  McNulty's are particulalry numerous in Killasser and the nearby parishes (as I mentioned, my grandmother was a McNulty from Killasser, which also adjoins Swinford - in fact, her name was also Anne McNulty), so the Anne McNulty in the Carrowreagh family could easily have been from Attymass.

To add another coincidence, my great-grandfather, Peter Gallagher, who was from Killedan parish, married a woman named Bridget King, who was from the townland of Cloonmore, in the neighboring parish of Kilcolman (Claremorris).  The townland of Cloonmore is right on the border with Killedan, and in fact is right next to the townland of Carrowreagh in Killedan.  Lots of coincidences!  Maybe we should do that dna comparison!

Sorry, I just realized that I missed your explanation about John Gallagher and Ann Durkan being the parents, so what I mentioned above is just coincidence.  Still, I also have Durkin/Durcan relatives from Killasser (next to Attymass, as I mentioned), so we are almost surely related to some extent, though perhaps not very closely.

I am descenant of two Gallagher lines . My region of south Sligo / Northeast Mayo ( between Tobercurry & Charlestown ) is pretty small on ancestry . As some Gallagher is a pretty common name in the Northwest of Ireland ( Donegal, Sligo , Mayo ). My family tree has branches in Chicago and we also have Durkins by marriage in our tree . Although not familiar with Attymass , i have seen Killasser in my tree . 

My gedmatch is A952622 

Bob Fritz ( Philadelphia )