My great grandfather, Michael Sullivan, was born in the Listowel area (townland unknown) c. 1844 to Johanna Mulvihill and Michael Sullivan, Apparently his father died (mid-1840s to early 1850s) and his mother remarried (name of new husband unknown). We're not even sure that Mulvihill is her maiden name (as opposed to being her 2nd husband's name). In any case, Michael and his brother Patrick soon thereafter emmigrated to the U.S. This would have been in the mid-1850s when they were both still very young (between 10 & 15). I hope to make a trip to Co. Kerry in the near future and would love to be able to make contact with descendants of my g-grandfather's family.
CSlattery
Friday 12th Apr 2013, 02:17AMMessage Board Replies
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Hi,
Thank you for your message. I hope that someone with information makes a connection with you before you visit!
In the meantime have you tried looking in church records for information on the family that remained behind? Using the Irish TImes websites you can see that records for the period date from 1802-1906:
Also, church records from CO. Kerry have been uploaded to Irish Genealogy?s website free of charge, so hopefully you will be able to find records relating to the family here:
http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/
Civil registration began in Ireland in 1864 so any births, deaths or marriages in the family after this date would be recorded in these records. Civil records are available from the General Register?s Office in Dublin. Here is their website:
http://www.groireland.ie/research.htm
You can search the indexes to these records online at:
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1408347
Also have you tried checking the 1901/1911 census records for any descendents? http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/
Some other websites that you may find helpful are:
The National Archives of Ireland http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/
The National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx
The US National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/
Familysearch: www.familysearch.org
http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/kerry/index.html
Please be patient - as our programme has only begun to rollout across the island of Ireland and volunteers in some areas may not yet be organized.
Kind regards,
Genealogy Support