Catholic Records

Esther Lily Crowe: Home Child?

On 28 November 1886, Esther Lily Crowe was baptized a Catholic at St. Isidore, South March. Her sponsors were Noé Pagé and Mary Ann Lahey (daughter of John Lahey and Margaret Jane Killeen). She was 16 years old at the…

Ann Lahy/Lahey, wife of William Coil/Coyle

On 29 September 1846, William Coil/Coyle, son of Thomas Coil and Ann Wellworth “du comte de Tipperary” (of the county of Tipperary), married Ann Lahy, daughter of John Lahy and Ann Fitzpatrick, also of Tipperary (“du même comte”/of the same…

Patrick Cavanaugh and Bridget Killeen

Another Killeen couple with surprisingly few marriages amongst their offspring: Bridget Killeen was one of the daughters (possibly the fourth daughter, and fifth child) of Denis Killeen and Mary Ahearn, and a sister of Hanora (married Michael Donahue), and also…

Border Crossings (Daleys): Anthony Daley

Anthony Daley was born at Clarendon, Pontiac Co., Québec in March 1863, and baptized (Ste. Anne, Calumet Island) on 5 April 1863, with Michael Hughes and Elizabeth McCullough serving as godparents. He was the eleventh son and fifteenth child of…

Benjamin Finner and Mary Mantle

Continuing with the theme of English people who emigrated to Canada and joined an Irish parish (a theme I will quickly exhaust, as I only have a handful of examples), Benjamin Finner (or Fenner) was born in England about 1796.…

Peter Doyle and Elizabeth Moran

Here’s another “blended family” from the 1881 Canadian census: Peter Doyle, with wife Elizabeth Moran (daughter of James Moran and Margaret Jamieson), and six children (transcription by ancestry.ca; with original image [LAC] here): When I first looked at this return,…

Alias = Otherwise

If you come across a female ancestor described as “[Surname] alias [Surname]” in the parish register, you should certainly not assume that your great-grandmother led a double life, or had some sort of involvement with the cloak-and-dagger world of international…