DOWNS (previously DOWSE)

[DocDAve]

I have an ancestor Ann Dowse who I would like to trace.

Her married name Ann Cronin appears in the 1851 Census for St Saviour Southwark ( Loman St), aged 32 born in Cork Ireland. Her children were Mary, Ann, Margaret and Thomas all born in Southwark.

I have a birth certificate for her 2nd child ( Ann, born Johanna, Feb 1840) which gave me the maiden name Dowse.

The IGI has no Cronin-Dowse marriage for Ireland or England.

Does anyone have any interest in this name and especially irish connections ?

Would a visit to an LDS family history center to look at microfilms of Catholic registers be my next best move ?

[DocDAve]

Would genuinely be grateful for some help re the LDS and IGI

If an online search of the site produces no result for a marriage ( or any other event ) is the next step to start searching the microfilm records at an FHC ? ( my nearest is Lincoln).

Are all the records in the on-line indexes ? Are the microfilms only important for obtaining images of the original records once found in the IGI ?

I have one strength I think and that is my name ( Dowse) is uncommon in Cork.

[Peter Goodey]

I assume you're talking about the 1851 census reference TNA HO 107/1558 f 578 p 23

The first child is 13 so presumably you're thinking in terms of a marriage around 1836ish. There is no marriage listed in the London area among the Ancestry/LMA records. This is not 100% conclusive but to my mind the fact points towards a marriage in Ireland rather than London - assuming of course that there actually was a marriage. My unscientific observation - not backed up statistics - is that first generation Irish immigrants were less worried about an official marriage than is often thought.

See GenUKI for information on Irish sources http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/irl/

[DocDAve]

I believe I am looking for a Catholic union in Cork and am I right in focusing on a search for a marriage register record ?

Can anyone help with my question #2 above

[Kerrywood]

I believe I am looking for a Catholic union in Cork and am I right in focusing on a search for a marriage register record ?
Can anyone help with my question #2 above
The LDS online databases (including the IGI) have relatively few Irish Catholic records. These are generally hard to come by online.

You could have a look at Irish Genealogy (http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/index.html) (Search Church Records). This is an ongoing project, and nowhere near complete for Cork, but perhaps worth a look.

Would you like this thread moved to one of the Irish forums, in the hope of attracting more expert help?

[Mutley]

It may be worth trying the Irish History Foundation
www.
ifhf.rootsireland.ie

It is a pay per view site for information and you have to register to search but the initial search results are then free.
Be inventive with spellings!

There are other threads relating to this family so before anyone goes 'a hunting' please refer to
http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/showthread.php?64946-Another-Cork-Couple

[Peter Goodey]

One of our Irish members may be able to throw light on whether this was the case in Ireland as well but as they came under British rule

The Hardwicke Act did not apply to Ireland, nor to Scotland,

[Kerrywood]

A point to bear in mind though is that prior to July 1837 a marriage had to take place in a Church of England for it to be legally valid ... you would be unlikely to find a marriage in a Catholic Church before this time
Just for the record, there is plenty of evidence for Catholic marriages in England before 1837. It's just that they weren't legally recognised!

In the area under consideration, possible venues would include St George's Catholic church in Southwark, and the East Lane chapel in Bermondsey (later Most Holy Trinity). Records for both survive. Those for Southwark are retained by the church; those for Bermondsey are transcribed on a low-cost CD from the East Surrey FHS.

[DocDAve]

Would genuinely be grateful for some help re the LDS and IGI

If an online search of the site produces no result for a marriage ( or any other event ) is the next step to start searching the microfilm records at an FHC ? ( my nearest is Lincoln).[/QUOTE]


I have searched the IGI ( many times ) What I don't understand is - are the LDS's marriage/baptism records represented IN TOTAL by the IGI ( and BIVRI) ?
OR , if nothing found on the on-line IGI, does one then start searching microfilms at a Centre ? Help needed on this point.

Likewise, I have searched and viewed at ifhf.rootsireland.ie and not found a DOWSE or variant marriage - though of course many many John Cronin's - I am considering commissioning the Mallow Heritage Centre, hoping that not all their pre-1837 marriages are listed on the site qouted here (which uses Mallow centre for the Cork county )

In a similar fashion, does anyone have any experience with the Mallow HC for marriages pre-1837 ?

[Kerrywood]

What I don't understand is - are the LDS's marriage/baptism records represented IN TOTAL by the IGI ( and BIVRI)
Far from it. There are many more films than there are indexed records (but see below).


OR , if nothing found on the on-line IGI, does one then start searching microfilms at a Centre ?
Personally I don't think this would be a useful approach. I believe that LDS were not allowed access to many Irish Catholic church records, and there are relatively few films.

You can check the LDS catalogue for yourself here (http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp). For example, running a Place Search on Cork seems to produce very little that would help you.


I am considering commissioning the Mallow Heritage Centre, hoping that not all their pre-1837 marriages are listed on the site qouted here (which uses Mallow centre for the Cork county) In a similar fashion, does anyone have any experience with the Mallow HC for marriages pre-1837 ?

I have moved this thread to the Cork forum (as requested by PM), where someone may be able to advise on the above point.

[DocDAve]

I have since heard back from the Mallow Heritage Centre.

It seems that all their records are actually on-line at the rootsireland.ie website, so that if e.g. you look for a Dowse marriage, you get nothing - and applying for them to do further research would not be productive. This may clarify the point for others who get a negative search on-line. If you get many results then getting them to do the research may work out cheaper than clicking on lots of results in a stab-in-the-dark fashion at 5 euros a go.

[Elwyn Soutter]

Statutory recording of RC marriages in Ireland started in 1864. Non RC marriages (ie Protestant and Nonconformist) were recorded from 1845. Prior to that you are dependant on parish records. But you really need to know which parish and/or townland your ancestors came from. Your other problem is that as a by-product of the penal laws, many RC parishes weren’t keeping B & M records till the 1830s or later. And some of course have also been lost with time. So the records are far from comprehensive. Many that have survived have been copied to the National Library in Dublin but they have not put them on line. You can see what RC records exist, by parish, on the attached site.
www.
irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/counties/rcmaps/

Regarding the validity of RC (and Presbyterian) marriages, prior to 1845, the attached link gives a bit of background.
www.
ulsterheritage.com/history/marriage_in_ireland.htm Whether technically legal, most people appear to have regarded them as legal for all practical purposes. A sensible Irish solution to an Irish problem!


Elwyn

[DocDAve]

Since I have discovered that the maiden name DOWSE given on Johanna Cronin's birth cert. is incorrect (misled by a poorly transcribed copy from the GRO) and the correct name is DOWNS.
The name is still uncommon in Cork I believe.