Margaret McGarry (born ab 1831 Roscommon), arrived Sydney, Australia 1849, d 1903.

Kerri:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

I searched on the subscription site Roots Ireland and did not see good possibilities for baptismal records for Margaret, John and Peter with a father Peter except for a Peter McGarry baptismal record in Croghan RC parish in 1818 which I assume is too early.

Strokestown RC parish baptismal records start October 17, 1830 and my guess is that Margaret, John and Peter were baptized before that date in Strokestown and records are no longer available.

Ballymore East and West are townlands in Boyle civil parish which matches your info.

The 1855 Griffiths Valuation head of household listing shows a Peter Magarry living in Cornameelta townland  https://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths/roscommon/boyle.htm

This Peter McGarry died in 1875 in Cornameelta with a Patrick McGarry as informant

Name:PeterMcGarryDate of Death:16-Nov-1875
Age:65Parish / District:BOYLE CIVILAddress:CornameeltaCounty:Co. RoscommonStatus:Married
GraveyardInformant 
Parish:
Name:Patrick McGarryCounty:
Address:Cornameelta

Let me know if I can further assist. Have you considered DNA testing?

Roger McDonnell

Thank you for your time and assistance Roger. Frustrating to hear that there may not be records of their Baptisms as I have been hoping to get some definitive facts. I don't think that the Peter McGarry that you have found is our Peter McGarry. Of course I could be wrong but I'm going on the letters that I have documented in a book my mother wrote back in 1994 where John McGarry is writing to Margaret with the following details (this is not the first correspondence but I don't have access to the earlier correspondence  :-

Knutsford, Nov 27th 1865.. "Mother and Peter and family is also in good health and is very glad to hear from you"..." the thoughts of you is as fresh in my mind as it was the morning that you went on the Care from the Munsons Hotel and if I thought that our seperation would be so long I would try to persuade you not to go"

The details in this letter indicates to me that something happened to the McGarry family back around 1847, 1848 prior to Margaret coming to Australia, also that there is no discussion of the father (Peter), only the Mother (Mary)  - I'm wondering why only the mother went to England with her son John, and what happened to the father?.

I am considering DNA testing, however, I am not sure how acurate it is and what it will actually tell me? Can you recommend a good reputable one?

I have a photo of Margaret that I have attached and will also post on here in the Roscommon section, and this is a link to her shipping record just in case anyone can draw anything else from it - one of the only pieces of evidence that I have:-https://www.ancestry.com.au/interactive/1204/IMAUS1787_081418-0181/8668…;

..and will plod on. Any further suggestions or ideas to linkage is always very much appreciated.

Warm Regards,

Kerri

Kerri:

I have tested with Ancestry and Family Tree DNA. Two other companies are My Heritage and 23 and Me. Ancestry has the biggest data base but many people test with Ancestry just to find out their ethnicity breakdown and are not really interested in family trees and they don't generally respond to messages. Family Tree has more analytical tools compared to Ancestry. Wait for sales and I believe some of the companies have Valentine's Day sales. After you get your results, look at your closest matches and try to determine where the connection is.  I would also recommend uploading your data to the volunteer site Genesis Gedmatch www.genesis.gedmatch.com  You will have matches with people who tested with other companies (and also loaded their data to Genesis Gedmatch.

Roger

Thanks Roger,

Before I got your last message I looked into DNA testing and ended up signing up with My Living DNA  - they had a special on and offered a double test for Autosomal and Motherline ancestry (which is what I'm specifically looking for). I believe that once I get the results I can load the data into the Genesis Gedmatch. It's going to take a few months but what's a few months. So thank you and let's see where that leads me.

Kerri