The Parker Families of North Munster:
A Case Study
Talk for Irish Genealogical Research Society
Dublin City Library and Archives
17 May 2008
by Patrick Waldron
Outline: Five ingredients for a successful genealogical
project
Background knowledge
Research strategy
Pure luck
Questions inspiring curiosity
Lateral thinking
Background knowledge
- Back of envelope
calculations
- Parker sisters
- Ballybrown (townland), Kilkeedy (parish) and Clarina (village)
are used interchangeably to refer to the same general
area shown on
this map
- My GGgrandfather Thomas Waldron from county Roscommon was
sent to Limerick when he joined the Irish Constabulary on
22 February 1847
- Constabulary rules said he could not marry for seven
years
- Parish records (Catholic parish now known as Patrickswell
and Ballybrown) say that he married Catherine Parker on
15 July 1851
- Constabulary records say that they married on 26 March
1854
- Catherine's brothers emigrated without trace
- Parker cousins (Protestants) had a pawn office near the
railway station in Limerick (what street?)
- Other family legends about Parkers and Smiths, including
a Protestant clergyman in the family
Obvious sources include:
- Gravestones in Kilkeedy Cemetery:
- family plot with four stones:
- Erected by Catherine Parker to the memory
of her beloved husband Craven Parker who
departed this life 27 day of Dec 1840
aged [?80] years and his brother Edward
Parker died Feb 5th 1826 aged 78 years
- In loving memory of Thomas
Parker who died 15 of February 1868
aged 59 years and of Susan his wife who
died 26 Sept 1882 aged 64 years. Also
their son James who died 24th August 1871
aged 16 years
- This tomb was erected by John Smith of
Adare in memory of his beloved wife Grace
who departed this life on the 2nd
February 1862 aged 55 years. Also of John
Smith Adare who died 16th May 1884 aged
70 years. Them also who sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him. 1st Thes. 14
Chap 4 Verse
- Sacred
to the memory
of
John Parker
died February 11th 1882
Erected
by his son
Thomas.
- death certificates were only partially successful
in establishing the relationships between these
people
- other Parker inscriptions, including:
- Erected by
Massy Hewson
In memory of his father
Septimus Parker Hewson son of
John Hewson and Abigail Parker
of Briska[beg], and [great] grandson of
John Hewson and Elizabeth Monsell
[of] Tervoe House[, Clarina,]
born Dec 1773, died Oct. 3[rd] 1873
"At evening time it shall be light."'
- no inscription to Thomas Parker my
GGGgrandfather
- Limerick Regional Archives
- Church of Ireland registers for Kilkeedy and neighbouring parishes
- all Parker entries in Kilkeedy fit together
except
- Catherine Wilhelmina chr. Kilkeedy 8 Jun
1828 (daughter of Mr & Mrs Parker,
Clare St, Limerick)
- Catholic registers for Patrickswell and Ballybrown:
- Irish Times digital archive: 25 October 1867 (full
article here)
- Local histories:
- A Corner of Limerick: History, Recollections
and Photographs by John Sheehan, 1989
- pp.38-9 quote from the Down Survey for
county Limerick, completed in 1656, under
the direction of Sir William Petty. This
shows that several parcels of land in the
parish of Kilkeedy were confiscated and
granted to `John Parker' or `J. Parker'
- John Parker's grants of confiscated land
in Kilkeedy Parish and elsewhere in the
vicinity of Limerick included 38 acres in
the townland of `Broskeagh' [Briska].
- John Parker is shown in the Down Survey
of 1656 to have received other grants of
confiscated land in Kilkeedy Parish,
including 5a. 1r. 24p. in `Rahinne' [Rahina],
24 acres in `Farranmacadam' [apparently
now on the boundary between Ballybrown
and Kilkeedy Glebe], and [as `J. Parker']
124 acres in `Carricketan' [unidentified
to date].
- Ballybrown Parish Journal, annual, 2001-date
- Kilkeedy tombstone inscriptions in 2004-2006
issues
- ffolliott newspaper extracts
- Published pedigrees:
- Memoirs of the House of Hewetson or Hewson of
Ireland by John Hewetson, 1901
- John Hewson of Briska married Abigail
daughter of Rev. John Parker, Rector of
St. John's, Limerick
- Parker of Castlelough, later Parker-Hutchinson,
in Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland; family said
to be related to Parker of Briska
- many internet sources
Pure luck (good and bad)
- Expect the unexpected - fortuitous and not so fortuitous
coincidences, e.g. Kilkeedy burial register, 1840:
- December 23rd. Buried Mr Thos. Parker of
Boherbuoy, Limerick, aged 89 years. -Jas. Going
December 28th. Buried Mr Craven Parker (brother
of the above-named Thos. Parker) of Bresca in
this Parish aged 86 yrs. -Jas. Going
- Kirkpatrick Archive at Royal College of Physicians of
Ireland has a file on Harry Lee Parker (Ggrandson of this
Thomas) with correspondence identifying his descendants
- Wendy Parker (granddaughter of Harry) had edited Myles
Family History, written in 1870s, showing Parker
connections (there is a copy from the notebook of Ronnie
Ryall among the late Michael Leader's pedigrees in the
IGRS library)
- Carrol Collection provided leads on
Major General Sir William Parker Carrol (1776-1842)
- Genealogical Research Directory elicited an enquiry from
the wife of a distant cousin in New Zealand
- Only 1 hard disk crash while I was not backing up my
research
Questions inspiring curiosity
- There will always be another unanswered question
- Three Myles first cousins:
- Elizabeth Myles (1789-1869) daughter of James
Myles and Elizabeth Ashton, married 1807 Anthony
George Parker (a Castlelough Parker?)
- Elizabeth
Myles (1811-1850) daughter of Thomas Myles
and Ellen Peacocke, married 1842 James Parker (son
of Thomas of Boherbuoy)
- Elizabeth Myles (1815-1858) daughter of John
Myles and Elizabeth Worrell, married 1843 Dr.
Joseph Parker
- Were the three husbands related, and, if so, how?
- Five possibly different eighteenth century Rev. John
Parkers:
- Hewetson's `Rector of St. John's, Limerick' m.
Abigail Monsell, daughter of Abigail Craven; they
were grandparents by 1773
- Rev. John Parker D.D. (c.1745-c.1833)
of Glenquin, co. Limerick, and Tarbert, co.
Kerry, m. Catherine Duhig; grandfather of
Catherine Wilhelmina of Clare Street; founder of
his own Parker dynasty through children John jr.
of Clare Street etc. (m. Hermina Catherina
Verboom), Robert,
etc.
- Rev. John
Parker D.D. (d.1823) of Ballyvally, co.
Clare, m. Martha Otway, née Prittie; from
Castlelough family
- Rev. John Parker (d.9 February 1816 aged 84),
rector of Ballycahane, co. Limerick
- Rev. John Parker of Fedamore, co. Limerick in
1785-1792
- Were these all different?
- Why does RCB Library have no trace of Rector of St.
John's?
- Which one m. Frances Steers in 1764?
- Five different attacks on Craven Parker between 1820 and
1835:
- The General Advertiser of Tuesday 8
August 1820 carried the following report:
`Saturday, Michael Sheehan, convicted at the last
county Assizes of burglary and robbery, in the
house of Mr. Craven Parker, at Clarina, underwent
the awful sentence of the law, by being hanged at
Gallow's Green; the unfortunate man appeared
truly penitent and acknowledged the justice of
his sentence.'
- In 1822 (see Grand Jury Presentment Books), the
Co. Limerick Grand Jury awarded `to Craven Parker
of Kilkeedy Parish in compensation of damage
sustained by him in having his cars cut and
damaged on the night of 29th March last - £2-0-0.'
- The London Times of 1 October 1822
carried the following report from the Limerick
Chronicle:
Within the last few nights parties of ruffians
visited several houses between Clarina and Adare
in this county. They flogged a farmer, named
Lynch, at Briskee; and the dwelling of Mr. C.
Parker was attacked by an unarmed party, who beat
him for not sending out his servant to be flogged
by them
- The North Wales Chronicle (Bangor, Wales),
Thursday, 23 April 1829, Issue 82, reported under
the headline `State of Ireland':
`Tuesday night week, a dwelling-house and barn,
at Brieska, near Patrick's-Well, the property of
Mr. Craven Parker, was maliciously destroyed by
fire. All the furniture of the house was consumed.
The Police were on the spot in a few minutes, but
no trace could be had of the incendiaries.'
- The Times, Thursday, 28 May 1835; pg. 3;
Issue 15802; col C, quoted the Limerick
Chronicle:
`A few nights since an armed party of eight or
ten persons attacked the house of Mr. Craven
Parker, a respectable farmer, at Briska, near
this city. The fellows broke in three windows,
and fired several shots into the bed-room,
fortunately without effect. Mr. Parker's coat,
which hung on a rail at the foot of the bed in
which he slept, was perforated in eight places.'
- Why was he so unpopular?
- Cromwellian settlers everywhere along the lower Shannon (`Planter's
Mile'):
- William Parker Carrol's GGGgrandfather Captain
John Parker, is described in a 1783 deed relating
to lands in the parish of Youghalarra, co.
Tipperary, as "the Patentee named in the
Grant of his late Majesty King Charles the second"
(R.D. Book 351, pp.518-520, Deed No. 237725)
- John Parker granted lands in Broskeagh in 1656
- In 1665 John Parker was in residence in Dromineer
Castle, two parishes north of Youghalarra (Nenagh
and its Neighbourhood by E. H. Sheehan,
1949, p.43)
- Captain John Parker held lands in the parish of
O'Brien's Bridge in county Clare, just below
Lough Derg on the Shannon, in the 1600s (The
History and Topography of the County of Clare
by James Frost, 1893)
- John Parker of Dunkipp, co. Limerick (ancestor of
the Castlelough Parkers) is mentioned in a deed
of the reign of Charles the Second (1672) and
there is a Captain John Parker about 1698
mentioned in an old survey of lands of the time
of Wm & Mary as having lands in the Parish of
Youghill [sic, surely Youghalarra] ("The
Family History: Scraps of Information" in
Parker-Hutchinson papers, NLI MS 12058)
Castlelough is in the parish of Castletownarra,
the next parish south from Youghalarra.
- Was there a single Cromwellian John Parker, ancestor of
the following disconnected branches:
- Parker and Parker-Hutchinson of Dunkip and
Castlelough and Ballyvally
- Parker and Parker Carrol of Newtown, Youghalarra
- Parker of Briska, Kilkeedy
- Parker and Verboom Parker of Glenquin etc.
- Joseph Parker, paper manufacturer, painter and
glazier, of Henry Street, Limerick (d. 1836),
father of Dr. Joseph Parker
Lateral thinking
Some general principles for further research:
- Think laterally
- Go sideways in order to go backwards (Chris O'Mahony (RIP),
"A Crunch Point in Research", Irish Family
History, Vol. X, pp.6-9 (1994) - see online index to contents)
- Double-check everything
- Be open-minded about primary and secondary sources and
don't jump to conclusions
- Don't be afraid to ask others for help
- Be prepared to travel
- Get to know the places where your ancestors lived
- Further research will confirm some parts of the oral and
manuscript evidence but will refute other parts
- Creativity and luck will circumvent gaps in official
records