A cautionary tale of Madigans and Murrihys

[pwaldron]

Here's a good question for a genealogy exam:

Find the baptismal records for the Madigan family born in Kilrush Poor Law Union which includes sons (in order of birth) John, Thomas, Denis and daughters (again in order of birth) Mary, Margaret b. 1867 and Catherine b. Jul 1874; their mother's maiden surname was Murrihy.

That might seem enough detail to uniquely identify the family, particularly as Murrihy is such a rare surname that it appears only four times in the entire U.S. Social Security Death Index.

There is a close match, with father Thomas Madigan, recorded in Kilrush parish (Margaret and Catherine are missing from the index to baptisms, and the mother's surname is spelled Bridget Murahee in the index).

However, there's another exact match in the adjoining Kilmacduane parish! This time the parents are Denis and Mary.

The children of both families can be found in Ireland Births and Baptisms at familysearch.org

I think I can be forgiven for having the wrong parents for Thomas Madigan jr. of Kilrush parish in my database. I do have a note for his mother: "from Drumellihy - two Murrihy sisters married two Madigan brothers - one lived in Carrownacalla, the other in Drumellihy." Unfortunately, I didn't document my source for this information.

Roger Maddigan provided a little further detail at
http://www.ourlibrary.ca/phpbb2/viewtop ... f=1&t=3913

There are so many Madigan families in Carrowncalla that I still haven't figured out where Thomas Madigan, the nineteenth century Gaelic scholar and composer of Lone Shanakyle, and the subject of my present interest, fits into the family tree.

As someone else on this forum recently remarked to me, my favoured approach in genealogy is "take nothing at face value"!