Richard Lane

[DMH34]

I have hit a brickwall I am trying to find traces of Richard Lane in Ireland e.g. birth records b. Roscommon Ireland 5 May 1765.d. Lympfield Surrey 23rd July 1860.

At some stage he moved from Ireland to England as he was an Army Clothier in Drury lane London, his street address for 1813 is 12 Bury Street, St James, London. This info taken from his son, Samuel Armstrong Lane's school register of St Pauls. I have searched the records through Ancestry.co.uk and found nothing of his birth in Ireland, which I was hoping would give me some insight into his parents. I am not even sure I was looking in the right place for Irish records? In a general internet name search I found a Abraham Lane in Cork who had either a son or a brother called Richard Lane, It stated they were both clothiers, but as yet can't connect the two. Are all the records for Ireland digitised ? and is there perhaps a site devoted to Irish records?

Any help or advice would be most welcome and appreciated.

Thank you
Dawn

[Jan1954]

Hello Dawn,

You may find that this will help with researching Irish ancestors but, if he came from Roscommon, then this would be even better.

[Coromandel]

If I have the right Richard Lane it looks like he was married and in England by 1792, when a son John was baptised at Westminster St James. FamilySearch has the following baptisms of children of Richard & Margaret Lane:

Westminster St James
John Lane b. 4 Jan 1792 bapt 31 Jan 1792 Westminster St James
James Lane b. Aug 1793 bapt 14 Oct 1793 Westminster St James
Richard Lane b. 3 Apr 1795 bapt 28 Apr 1795 Westminster St James

St Martin in the Fields
Alexander Thomas Lane, bapt 20 Sept 1797
William Frederick Lane b. 13 Aug 1798 bapt 12 Sept 1798
Mary Ann Lane b 2 June 1800 bapt 15 June 1800
Samuel Armstrong Lane b. 4 July 1802, bapt 27 Oct 1802

Westminster St James
Benjamin Edward Lane, b. 21 Dec 1805 bapt 25 Dec 1805 Westminster St James

You may find more information on Findmypast, which has recently added many Westminster records.

[olliecat]

Hi Dawn

Did Richard marry twice? First in 1790 to Margaret in Westminster and second in 1831 to Mary MORRIS in Feltham (for this marriage it records the groom as a widower.) I can see a Richard and Mary LANE and children in the 1841 and 1851 census living in Henfield in Sussex. I can also calculate that Richard was born abt 1765/6 in Ireland but I'm wondering how you know that he was born in Roscommon and where you obtained his date of birth.

I take it you have his will - Richard Lane late of the parish of Limpsfield - probate on 29 August 1860, executors Mary Lane, widow and Edward Aldous Lane, son.

Richard Lane in Ireland e.g. birth records b. Roscommon Ireland 5 May 1765
...
Are all the records for Ireland digitised ? and is there perhaps a site devoted to Irish records?

This was way before civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced in Ireland in 1864 and prior to this time you need to focus on church records. Unfortunately, there is no one single central site that you can go to that holds all the church records for Ireland or indeed for Roscommon. Although there may be some records online somewhere for this county I'm sure much is not, particularly for the dates in question. Moreover, information that would help you to search effectively for you ancestor includes their religion and townland of birth. Armed with this information, you can then go on the hunt for church records for that townland - find out if they survive for the dates you are interested in, when and where they are held and so on. There may be other records you can look for, depending on the particulars of your family, such as wills for the more well off.

Other members of this forum with Irish research expertise may pop along at some point and recommend additional sites or resources relating to Roscommon.

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Census refs if I have the correct Richard, otherwise please ignore.

1841: Piece: 1098; Book: 9; Folio: 26; Page: 13
1851: Piece: 1647; Folio: 531; Page: 31

[DMH34]

Thanks very much I never expected to get so much great feedback, as I thought all was indeed a dead end.

@ Jan1954 Hi ! and Thanks very much for the links they are a breath of fresh air.

@ Coromandel, Hi ! and thank you so much, this is wonderful, as I know the James Lane in the first group (he had a son James Robert and he in turn had a son James Ernest ) from the first group you have put up and of course Samuel Armstrong from the second group, I found them living together in the same house in Greenford in a census, so it looks like Richard and Margaret had more children than I thought?. I will this investigate familysearch more on this thanks. I did searches on there numerous times but kept getting "no results" kept coming up so gave up. Thanks again

@ olliecat Hi! thanks so much for your feedback, yes Richard did remarry a Mary Morris and had more issue. I never put the fact up as I did not want to complicate the post, I can get tangled into knots sometimes on these things I only knew of Roscommon through a relative , whom I can't seem raise a response from them on this query ?. But I have had 'Roscommon' confirmed to me on a census, it is in my shoebox somewhere ?. So that is def correct just not 100% sure on the date, which i should have mentioned earlier but forgot to include it at the time . Thank you so much for all the pointers and info on the Irish records so much appreciated. I no longer feel like I am wondering around in the dark.

Thanks Dawn

[DMH34]

Hi Coromandel

Would it be possible for you send me a link to the place where I can start a search from within FamilySearch to be able to get to the same Baptism's you saw ?. It seems I am not very good at navigating new sites. I have been trying all this time and I eventually found some Kind of Westminster catalogue and when I put in Richard Lane's details it came up again with "no results". I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Thanks so much
Regards Dawn

[Coromandel]

Hello Dawn

FamilySearch has many different collections of data, from all sorts of sources. Some aren't even indexed: for these you need to browse through images. If you're looking for one that is indexed, but don't know which collection it's in, it's best just to start with a general search from the home page at familysearch.org (put www. in front).

The baptisms I quoted happen to be from the 'England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975' collection, but I'll describe how I found them in the first place so that you can try it for yourself. This is what I did:

1. Leave the 'First Names' field blank, but put 'Lane' in the 'Last Names' field.
2. On the next line, Search by Life Events, click on 'Birth' and put in a range of dates, say 1780 to 1820.
3. On the line below that, Search by Relationships, click on 'Parents' then fill in the parents' names. I don't put in any surnames here, just first names. As the name Margaret can be spelled in a variety of ways I would use a wildcard to find them all at once, by putting Marg* for the mother's name.
4. Press 'Search' and cross your fingers!

Alternatively you can do a broader search from the home page and then refine it using the options that appear on the left of the screen.

If you want to restrict the search to a particular place you can, though this isn't always successful. Under 'Search by Life Events' you can put in a place name and/or dates in each of the sub-sections (Any, Birth, Marriage, Residence, and Death). The search engine seems to be quite fussy about the format of place names, so sometimes you get 'no results' when you put in Westminster but magically they appear when you put in Westminster* (i.e. add an asterisk at the end).

You just need to experiment really. Sometimes less is more: if the original baptism register doesn't show a mother's maiden name (and most don't) then you won't get any matches if you put the mother's maiden name in the search box.

I hope this helps rather than just confusing you more. Good luck!

[DMH34]

Hi Coromandel,

Thank you so much for these pointers on searching!. They were very clear and I really appreciate the feedback.