Add to the Research Wish List: Legible Handwriting

 

For one last, desperate attempt at rounding out the extended family picture for Anna Flanagan Malloy, my father-in-law's great-grandmother, I returned to church records of the 1800s at the Catholic parish of Ballyagran in County Limerick. Those, if you remember, were spotty records; if they had been a complete collection, I'd have known by now which sibling or in-law had stood at the 1848 baptism of Anna's daughter as godparents.

Preserved baptismal records would have been a nice touch, but there was something else to add to that wish list: legible handwriting. The priest keeping the records for Ballyagran seemed to be in constant fear that someone was about to snatch the very records from his hands before the ink dried.

When I located the Ballyagran records online, I first looked at entries for the Flanagan family. Then, since Anna's niece Johanna Flanagan had married someone named John Lee, I was curious to see whether I'd find any connection between the two surnames back in their homeland. Doing a search specifically on that surname Lee limited to Ballyagran, I did find five baptisms and one entry for a marriage.

Here is what I found, as best as could be read, considering the abysmal handwriting. The earliest record was a baptism for Catharine Lee on September 21, 1842. Her parents were likely Thomas Lee and Brigida, a woman whose maiden name may have been Fox or Fos. Brigida's brother was the likely godfather, though I can't read his given name. Margarita Dineen was the godmother.

Next was Margaret Lee, baptised on March 3, 1843. Born to parents David Lee and another Brigida—maiden name recorded as Molony—she had godparents David Lee and Margarita...um...Nojan???

Johannam Lee was baptized on February 16, 1852. Father Jacobis Lee was likely called James in real life. His wife was listed as Maria McAuliffe. After that is where I run into more legibility issues: godfather Patritius Brunniham (?) and godmother Johanna McAuliffe.

The next two baptisms were much later, after a wide gap in the records. Jacobus Lee was baptized May 26, 1864, born to David Lee and another Maria with an illegible surname—not to mention sponsors Jacobus and Ellina with equally unreadable surnames. And on December 9, 1869, Danielem Lee, son of David Lee and Maria Neiland (?) was baptized in the presence of sponsors Michaele Boice and Brigida Lee.

The final record found was an entry for a February 1854 marriage of David Lee and Maria Nulan (?), which gives us a clue about the maiden name of Daniel's mother. If this Maria was indeed the same woman as Daniel's mother, despite the differing spelling of the surname, then the records are likely missing several baptisms in those ten years between the couple's two appearances in the church's records.

Such, apparently, was the case for much of the religious records of this particular Irish parish, giving a visible illustration of why it is so frustrating to find signs of our Irish ancestors on paper, even as recent as the mid-nineteenth century.