Possible Patrick Connections

Last week, I explored a possible connection between my father-in-law's great-grandmother, Johanna Falvey Kelly, and someone in County Kerry, Ireland, named Patrick Falvey. Could Patrick Falvey and his wife, Anne Fleming, be related to Johanna's own line? It was time to explore what records I could find concerning this couple.

We had originally found the family in records of the Catholic parish of Kilcummin, beginning with their November 24, 1824, marriage record. Now, it was time to branch out to find any mention of them as parents in the baptismal records of their children.

While later records of their supposed daughter, Johanna Falvey, located her in the townland of Knockauncore, the first baptismal record I found for this earlier Falvey couple was in a townland called "Knockmanigh." The record was for the baptism of a son named John, dated June 1 of 1827. The godparents were listed as John and Catharine Connor.

The townland listed in the parish record is now actually spelled Knockmanagh, as I could see when seeking a map to identify the location (see entry #34 here). Checking maps again, I saw that the distance between this townland and the one traditionally established as the Falvey home, Knockauncore, was a bit over six kilometers, or a walk of about ninety minutes.

With the next appearance of Patrick and Anne as parents named in baptismal records, they had returned to Knockauncore. On May 24, 1835, they presented a son named Patrick for baptism in the same Kilcummin Catholic parish. The godparents listed for this occasion were Patrick Connor and Catherine Fleming—with Catherine likely being a sister of the baby's mother.

I was able to find a third baptism in this same church parish for a baby of Patrick Falvey and Anne Fleming. Dated January 6, 1837, the record was for a son listed as Demetrius—not exactly what I had in mind as a distinctly Irish given name. However, knowing that Latin baptismal record traditions in Ireland's Catholic Church sometimes got creative with converting Irish children's names from the vernacular, I went looking for some assistance in "translating" this surprise. Sure enough, according to Claire Santry's (thankfully) still-available website, the "Latinised" name Demetrius in Catholic records could actually signify a child the family preferred to call Jeremiah, Jerome—or even Dermot or Darby.

Whatever the Falvey family chose to call him at home, this 1837 addition to the family could look to John Dugan and Ellen Doody as his godparents.

So far, those three were the only children of Patrick Falvey and Anne Fleming for whom I could find baptismal records. No sign of Johanna—which meant I was off to examine not the names of candidates for baptism, not even their parents' names, but solely the names of the godparents in search of additional Falveys in the Kilcummin parish. Yes, it's hard work, slogging through those handwritten records, but the payoff was that I did actually find something worth following up on, tomorrow.