Christopher McNulty

Peg:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

The subscription site Roots Ireland has a 1796 baptismal record for a Christopher Nulty in Navan RC parish in Co. Meath with the parents in your message. My question would be: How does your match on My Heritage that this record is for your Christopher McNulty/Nulty. I notice that none of the sons of Christopher McNulty were named William. The naming pattern is not an absolute but I wanted to mention that fact.  Are you aware of any siblings to Christopher? If you are, we could look for their baptismal records. Actually, I just checked and he had at least three siblings: Mary 1786 Margaret 1790 William 1794.

Let me know.

Roger McDonnell

Name:Christopher NultyDate of Birth:
Date of Baptism:25-Dec-1796Address:()Parish/District:NAVANGender:
CountyCo. Meath
Father:William NultyMother:Margaret CunninghamOccupation:
Sponsor 1 /
Informant 1:Mcnamee Jas Sponsor 2 /
Informant 2:Curren Mary 

Notes:

I can offer some info about the McNulty and Murtagh surnames, and perhaps a suggestion about another place to look.

My grandmother, Anne Marie McNulty, was born in the parish of Killasser in eastern County Mayo, and the McNulty surname is very common there.  In Irish, the surname McNulty is Mac an Ultaigh, which literally means “son of the Ulsterman” (Ultach = Ulsterman, and Ultaigh is the genitive case of the word), but it may simply refer to descent from the Ulaid  (in ancient Ireland the Uluti tribe), a people for whom Ulster is named, which in remote times ruled most of the North of Ireland.  According to MacLysaght’s “Surnames of Ireland”, the surname originated in Donegal (where McNulty's can still be found), and that is where the Mayo McNulty’s came from several centuries ago.  Many people left Ulster for Mayo and Galway at the time of the plantation of Ulster by Protestants from Scotland and England.  McNulty emigrants from Ulster are also known to have moved to Counties Louth and Meath. In Meath, they usually just use the name Nulty, which agrees with what Roger found in the Nulty record which he cited above.  If the name was McNulty in your family, that may indicate that they were not from Meath after all.

You menitoned that Christopher McNulty may have married Bridget Murtagh in the US, so perhaps they did not know one another in Ireland, but if they did, that may also point to eastern Mayo.  There were two Irish surnames (from unrelated families) which were both Anglicized as either Murtagh or Murtha.  They were the surnames Ó Muircheartaigh ("descendant of the navigator") in Leinster and Mac Muircheartaigh ("son of the navigator") in Roscommon.  Actually, there may have been three families, since the name was also found in Scotland, and brought from there to Ulster, where it was usually Anglicized as Murdoch.  Either of the two Irish forms of the name could end up as Murtagh or Murtha, depending on how they were heard by whoever was writing out the Anglicized forms (Irish has a number of sounds which English speakers find hard to hear clearly, and there are also regional difference in pronunciation).  Roscommon is just to the east of the part of Mayo where my grandmother lived, and there are in fact a number of Murtagh's in that part of Mayo, presumably from that Roscommon Murtagh "clan", and my grandfather's Gallagher family (in the neigboring parish of Killedan) intermarried several times with Murtagh's, both there and after emigrating to the St. Louis area in Missouri, where I have numerous distant Murtagh relatives.  If Christopher and Bridget knew one another in Ireland, then that might point to an origin in eastern Mayo.  Unfortunately, the parish records in eastern Mayo do not go as far back as they do in some other places, but there a few parishes there (such as Swibnford) with early records.

You may want to consider DNA testing to see whether you can locate your McNulty/Murtagh branch.  I and several of my second and third cousins with Mayo roots have been tested, and some of us first located one another that way.

Hi Roger! Thanks for helping me out.

It has been my experience on Ancestry that people frequently are too quick to add relatives based on the Hints tool. They find an approximate date match and think that proves it. (I have done this also and had to backtrack.) I have been especially surprised to see how unreliable dates are; for my relatives I have often seen a 5-10 yr difference among the various birth dates listed on headstones, censuses, and death certificates. So I have tried to be skeptical. Christopher seems to be a less typical name, so not many come up. It is possible that this is the correct parentage, but right now I have nothing else to connect my Christopher McNulty with a particular county.  In your experience, are the online parish records from this period very complete?

I was hoping for a DNA match with someone in Ireland (I have done Family Tree DNA, Ancestry, and gedmatch), but I haven't yet linked to a McNulty in Ireland.  I will go through them again and see if I can identify anyone. I have many Irish ancestors--Toners in County Louth, Roaches in County Mayo, McCarthys in County Kerry, LInehans, Cremins, and Coakleys in County Cork, and Dowds in County Roscommon. And evidently a Murtagh also--Christopher McNulty's wife. I did find a few Brigid Murtaghs baptized in Meath around the right dates, so that might help build a case for the Nulty citation, although I am not sure whether Christopher and Brigid married in Ireland or New York. That would help immensely, if we found a marriage record for them.

Thank you, Kevin, that is so helpful, and I love the information on the meaning of the names and the history of the clans. I figured based on the dates that not all counties would have complete parish records that far back. So it looks like I need to follow the DNA path. I did find a Murtagh DNA match on MyHeritage that was in Roscommon, but I know that I also have a Roscommon connection to a Dowd. This is my 2nd great grandmother Brigid Dowd. According to her obituary, she was born 2 Feb 1830 in Roscommon. It says she immigrated with her parents at the age of 7. By 1852 she is in Ohio and has a first marriage to a Patrick Giblen. They have a child, and he dies. She marries my 2nd great grandfather, Joseph McNulty. I have not been able to find out who her parents are and can't seem to locate them in the U.S. records (they should be in the 1850 census). Her obituary does not mention any siblings.

I have a DNA match to a guy with Barrett/Dowd roots in Roscommon. Dowd seems to be a common name there. Has anyone written a family genealogy?

Peg:

Co. Meath is one of the best counties for finding RC church records back to 1800. Co. Mayo RC parishes have records starting much later. 

I searched on the subscription site Roots Ireland and located an 1824 marriage record for a Christopher Nulty and Bridget Murta in the Collinstown RC parish. Collinstown parish is on the border of Co. Meath. I located a baptismal record for a Catherine in 1825 in the same parish.

Roger McDonnell

Date of Marriage:25-Jan-1824
Parish / District:COLLINSTOWN
County:Co. Westmeath
Husband  ChristopherNulty
Wife  BridgetMurta

Name:Catherine NultyDate of Birth:
Date of Baptism:27-Jan-1825Address:Not RecordedParish/District:COLLINSTOWNGender:FemaleCountyCo. Westmeath
Denomination:Roman Catholic
Father:Christopher NultyMother:Bridget MurtaOccupation:
Sponsor 1 /
Informant 1:Michael Smyth Sponsor 2 /
Informant 2:Mary Mcarth 

This is incredible information; thank you for searching for it! The names and dates seem to line up with my ancestor. I do not have any record for the child Catherine; is it possible she died before they immigrated? Are there any records for other Nultys in that parish?

I would like to find more information on the Dowd relative from Roscommon I mentioned above. Should I make a new post in the Roscommon group to ask that question? Not sure what the protocol is!

Peg McCarthy

Peg:

Likely Catherine died young. I checked and there were no other Nulty baptismal records in Collinstown until 1864.

Regarding your Dowd ancestor, go ahead and post a new message. Likely, you will get a reply from me or another volunteer we have who works on Roscommon issues. The issue will be how far back your ancesor lived in Roscommon. RC records start much later in Roscommon (in general) compared to Meath.

There is also a Facebook page where you may want to post a message.   https://www.facebook.com/groups/RoscommonIrelandGenealogy/

Roger

thanks, Roger! I will do a new post for each relative I am seeking. I really appreciate your help!

Peg

New post for Kevin: I recently found a DNA match in Ireland who shares matches with my McNulty relatives, and all of her family is from County Mayo! I remembered your post here and your information on Mayo and Roscommon. I have had DNA testing on Ancestry and FamilyTreeDNA (and have posted to Gedmatch as well). Have you tested on either of those sites and found McNulty matches?