O'NEILL family

Hi Maree,

Could you please post your message here (Ferbane, Co. Offaly): http://www.irelandxo.com/group/wheery-or-killagally-offaly

There are Roman Catholic church records available for the diocese of Tisaron and Galen (Ardagh and Clonmacnois) (where the parish of Wheery/Killagally is). These date from 1819 for baptismal and marriage records. These can be found at the National Library of ireland, Pos. 4243, or the Church of Latter Day saints, ref. no. 1279226. If you have any difficulty, you could try writing to the parish priest for more assistance.

I don't know where Seven Churches is or where it might refer to. It might be a local name for someplace. Perhaps someone from the area can help you with that.

Have you checked the immigration records in Australia? You have the name of the ship and a date, so this will help a lot. Generally, more information was given at the port of arrival rather than the port of departure. The University of Woolongong has produced, on microfiche, a complete index and transcript of all information concerning immigrants of Irish origin recorded on ships' passenger lists between 1848 and 1867. These are useul for finding out an exact place of origin as well as parents' names. The Public Record Office of Victoria has good online databases of settlers at www.prov.vic.gov.au Otherwise, other records may be found in the Colonial Office Papers of the UK National Archives, class reference CO 201. This class contains a wide variety of records, including petitions for assisted passages, emigrants' lists, records of emigrants on board ship, peitions from settlers for financial assistance and much more.

You could also try checking the land records called the Tithe Applotment Books (1823-38) or the later Griffth's Valuation (1848-64). Griffith's is freely available here: www.askaboutireland.com or here: www.failteromhat.com Failte Romhat has lots of other useful links you could try looking at.

Please make sure you link anyone else in your family who is interested in their Irish heritage to our site - and indeed anyone else you know of Irish heritage.

Kind regards,

Sinead Cooney

Genealogist (Ireland XO)