Irish Census Records

Having found seven siblings for my great grandmother Elizabeth O'Leary in Ancestry.com's extracted baptismal records, I wanted to see if I could confirm that they were indeed her siblings.  I had already traced her sister Ellen O'Leary Ford to San Francisco and identified her children and grandchildren. I needed to work out her other sister who I was told was named Polly, but records turned up as Mary.  I also needed to look for at least five brothers.

As I have throughout the process of working on the family tree, I looked for other sources for records beyond Ancestry. I had found a source for the 1901 and 1911 census records of Ireland through the National Archives of Ireland. Their search functions and digitizing of records isn't as clean as Ancestry, but it's pretty good. The biggest headache being that each digitized image of the census record is a separate file and with the way the Irish censuses were recorded I had to open multiple files to gather all the information. (As opposed to the US census records where all the information for multiple families is recorded on a single page which were digitized in groups so I could scroll through pages to see neighbors, etc.) The next biggest headache is understanding the land divisions in Ireland as they definitely don't make a whole lot of sense to someone like me who has lived her entire life in urban/suburban United States of the late 20th/early 21st century! It's definitely not as neat and easy as knowing my relatives lived at 6 Harry Place in San Francisco in 1880, but I think I'm getting a general idea.

As I mentioned in my last post, I believe I found my great great grandparents Jeremiah O'Leary and Mary O'Looney in the 1901 census. Only daughter Mary was living with them in 1901, so I set off to look for the five sons and my great grandmother who was still living in Ireland in 1901. I started with oldest brother John. According to the record I'd found on Ancestry, he was born January 16, 1865 which would make him 36 in 1901. I entered that information and up popped a record: John O'Leary, age 36, teacher, in Fahanalooscane, Ballymartle, County Cork. Living with him is his sister Eliza O'Leary, age 24! Well, that matches up with the family story that Lizzie O'Leary's older brother was a teacher who worked with Daniel Coleman's sister. According to the census record, John O'Leary is married, but his wife doesn't appear on the census form. Unlike the US census records, which recorded the usual residents of the enumerated houses whether or not they were at home on the day the census was taken, the Irish census is based on who was in the enumerated house on a specific date (e.g. March 31, 1901)

Having found John in 1901, I decided to see if I could find him in 1911. He appeared again in Fahanalooscane, and this time his family also appears on the census record. Wife Hanora (age 43), sons Jeremiah (10) and Denis (5), and daughters Mary (7) and Hannah (10 months.) Ah-ha! Well that's loads of useful information. I now have John's wife's name so I can look for her in the 1901 census. His oldest son is 10, so he was likely an infant when the 1901 census was taken, so perhaps Hanora was staying with family when the census was recorded. Denis is 5 in 1911, which would mean he was born in about 1906. That matches up with the information I found about Dennis O'Leary in San Francisco, whose wife and daughters attended my parents wedding!

Well, that certainly was a promising start. It got a bit more difficult after that. I had very little information on the other brothers beyond birth dates, so identifying if I'd found the right people would be quite difficult. I found five different William O'Learys living in County Cork in 1901. One was born in the United States, so that left four options, but none were living in Ballincollig. None of them had any clues to indicate I'd found the right one, so I'll have to go digging some more there. Next on my list was Edmund. No Edmund O'Learys showed up in the 1901 or 1911 census records. I did find a couple of Edwards, but none of them appeared promising. So what happened to Edmund? Is he indeed a brother?Thinking he might be the mysterious "Arthur" from Ellen's death notice, I tried that name with the age I'd found for Edmund. Again, nothing promising. There was an Arthur O'Leary who was about the right age and living in Ballincollig, but he was illiterate. Since all the other O'Learys could read and write, I doubt he's the Arthur I'm looking for.

I set Edmund and Arthur aside and moved on to Jeremiah. This is a brother I knew existed, so what could I find about him? I turned up 19 Jeremiah O'Leary's in the 1901 census that were within 5 years in age of the Jeremiah I was looking for. Two were born in Cork City, so I eliminated them. Another was born in County Kerry, so I eliminated him also. That left 16 possibilities, one of which was living in Ballincollig. I clicked on his record and he was living with an aunt, Ellen O'Leary, and a sister Hannah O'Leary. Drat. That probably isn't the right one either. It's going to take some time to weed through the remaining 15. Okay, let's see if we can find Daniel O'Leary. There are 34 Daniel O'Learys in County Cork in 1901. Arrgh!

So, I've got a lot of work ahead of me weeding through the various census records to see if I can figure out if any of the people I've found are Lizzie O'Leary's brothers. I'm not even completely certain that they all are brothers. John at least matches up with the family stories and I know there was a Jeremiah. As for William, Edmund, and Daniel, it's hard to know for certain. That doesn't include the mysterious Arthur who may be one of those three or a completely different person! I need to see if I can find out more on those birth records I found on Ancestry.

Other O'Learys

After having found some O’Leary relatives in California, I went to look back to see what I could find in Ireland. I had learned that my great great grandparents were Jeremiah O’Leary and Mary O’Looney, so I plugged those names into my family tree and did a search of Irish birth records looking for my great grandmother Elizabeth O’Leary. What I had been told by Aunt Margaret was that Lizzie had two brothers and two sisters, so I expected to find some siblings when I searched on Lizzie’s name. What I didn’t expect was to find was SEVEN siblings!

The Irish Births and Baptisms database I found on Ancestry.com let me search for children of Jeremiah O’Leary and Mary O’Looney born between 1865 and 1885. My first searches came up with too many names to easily sort through, so I narrowed my search to include only children whose father’s first name was Jeremiah and were born in county Cork. That gave me a much shorter list to look through and what I found was the following:

John Leary, born 16 Jan 1865, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

William Leary, born 12 Feb 1867, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Ellen Leary, born 4 April 1869, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Edmund Leary, born 23 December 1870, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Eliza Leary, born 18 March 1873, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Mary Leary, born 29 April 1876, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney

Jeremiah Leary, born 1 September 1877, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Leary Looney

Daniel Leary, born 25 June 1880, Ballincolby, Cork, Ireland; parents Jeremiah Leary and Mary Looney Leary

I didn’t find an Arthur O’Leary as referenced in Ellen’s death notice, but now there were five names that didn’t match up with the information I had. I had Lizzie’s two sisters as Ellen and Polly, but this shows them as Ellen and Mary. Based on my experience with Mary/Mollie Murray, I suspect Mary is Polly’s given name. So, that would explain the sisters.  What about all these brothers though? There are five when I expected to find only two, and only one matches up with the names I had. It’s possible that Arthur is one of the brothers I’ve found who went by a different (middle?) name or there’s one more sibling I’ve yet to find. The birthplace definitely matches up with the family history and the dropping of the “O” in O’Leary and O’Looney isn’t anything surprising, so I’m sure I’ve got the right family.

Well this is a surprising find indeed. A good thing to do then would be to check the Irish censuses. One small problem with that however – there is no census information available for Ireland prior to 1901. The records were all destroyed. Fantastic. The other issue is that these records I’ve found are extracted records. That means that volunteers copying from microfilm and other original records compiled the database but there isn’t a way to view the original records directly on line (at least that I’ve found yet.) It’s quite possible that some of these records are transcribed incorrectly.

I’ve yet to go completely through the two Irish censuses that are available for 1901 and 1911, but I have found what I believe are records for Jeremiah and Mary in 1901 and another record in 1911. According to the 1901 census, Jeremiah O’Leary was 76 years old and working as a farmer. Mary O’Leary was 58 and their daughter Mary (Polly?) was 21. That is four years younger than the Mary/Polly I found in the baptismal records, but close enough to probably be the right family. There were also 11 lodgers/boarders living with the family. Two soldiers and their wives, one with a daughter; three men that I’m guessing were farm hands (their occupations are listed as “groom” and “joiner”); and a young widow and her two children. The original form lists the O’Learys with the “O”, however Jeremiah signs the form as the head of the family, and he omitted the “O” in his signature. That would match up with the baptismal records then.

I couldn’t find Jeremiah in the 1911 census, so I looked for Mary. I found a Mary O’Leary living in Ballincollig who was listed as age 73 and is a widow living with her daughter Marianne, age 30. Again, the ages are a bit off, so I’m not completely certain. Also, according to the record, this Mary O’Leary had given birth to six children and all six were still living. I found eight children, so that’s a conflict. This Mary is working as a shopkeeper, so I’ll have to puzzle this one out a bit. And, of course, I'll have to see if I can find the five O'Leary brothers in the Irish Censuses.

A few other things to consider. According to Aunt Margaret, Lizzie’s brother Jeremiah fought in World War I. He was born in 1877. World War I started in 1914 when he would have been 37 years old. That seems a bit old to be joining the military. It’s possible he was already in the military when the war broke out. I should probably add studying Ireland’s involvement in World War I to the list of things I need to learn more about. Also, one of these brothers is the father of Dennis O’Leary whose wife and twin daughters were invited to my parents’ wedding in 1965, but which one?

As always, answering one question opens up the door to many more questions. I look forward to delving more into these.