The NLI’s Catholic Parish Registers is pretty much the most amazing Irish genealogy site I have yet to come across. I could spend hours browsing its digitized images (of the microfilm images) of actual parish registers; and I have to admit that I sometimes do. And if you browse through the parish registers, every once in a while you will come across something a little bit quirky, a little bit unusual. That’s the advantage of images of the actual records: they offer a sense of immediacy that transcriptions and indexes (as useful as they are) simply cannot provide. Here is where the parish priest crossed out a date that he…
Photographs
The second home of the Scots
by M.C. Moran •
Because Canada really is the second home of the Scots, every Canadian province has its own official tartan, of course. When I was not yet two years old, my father went to Halifax (Canada), and brought me home a kilt in the Nova Scotia plaid, with matching socks: I still have that Teddy bear, by…
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Death and Burial, Newspapers
Obituary for Thomas and Alexander Moran
by M.C. Moran •
While it may seem a glaringly obvious point, it’s a point worth keeping in mind when you discover an ancestor’s obituary. That obituary or death notice1 that you discovered for your ancestor didn’t just write itself. Somebody had to write it; and was that somebody a staff writer for the newspaper, or a family member…
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Crime and Punishment, Local History
An Irish Coachman Fatally Shot
by M.C. Moran •
Migration, Queries
William McKelvey, Killyleagh, Co. Down, Northern Ireland to Canada
by M.C. Moran •
A reader is looking for information about his great-uncle William McKelvey (Mckelvy/McKelvie/Mckelvie), who emigrated to Canada in 1924. William McKelvey, son of James McKelvey and Sarah Adams, was born in Killyleagh, County Down, Northern Ireland about 1894. On 28 January 1915, he enlisted with the 16th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, and served throughout the First…
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Military Records
James Michael McGlade: Inventory of Personal Effects
by M.C. Moran •
James Michael McGlade was born at Perth (Lanark Co., Ontario) on 17 September 1905, the son of Patrick McGlade and Elizabeth Cahill. When he enlisted with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry on 20 July 1940, he gave his occupation as “Diamond Driller.” My mother was too young to remember this, but a couple of her…
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Migration, Photographs
The Children of John Vallely and Anna Lillian Moran
by M.C. Moran •
John J. Vallely (1861-1935), son of Michael Vallely and Mary Ryan, was born 21 January 1861, in Lanark Co., Ontario, Canada. He emigrated to Grand Forks, North Dakota about 1882. Anna Lillian (“Lila”) Moran (1861-1915), daughter of Alexander (“Sandy”) Michael Moran and Mary Ann Leavy, was born 17 May 1861, at Huntley township, Carleton Co.,…
