Barnes family

Dear Billy B:

Many thanks for your post to the Ireland Reaching Out website and welcome!

I have copied this post to several Limerick volunteers who may be able to assist you with your research. 

You might also be interested in taking at look at the Limerick Archives and the online collection that is available on the site.

The link is below:

http://archives.limerick.ie/

The very best of luck with your research.  Please keep us posted as to your progress.  If you have any further questions, please email me at:  jhalloranryan@irelandxo.com. 

Kind regards,

Jane.

Thanks Jane. Interesting resources and I look forward to hearing from local experts, as there do seem to be Barneses around the Limerick area, although quite how they tie into the family I was researching is unclear.

Worth also noting that my grandfather, who was born in Liverpool, was christened William Baron and his name was registered as William Barron (a similar situation occurs with one of his sisters), despite the family being listed as "Barnes" in official documents before and after his birth:
https://www.geni.com/people/William-Barnes/6000000041979544278

This suggests that the original family name was something like Ó Bearáin which can be anglicised as Barnes or Barron (or Berrane or Barrington) which is found in Thomond, which includes Limerick:
http://www.libraryireland.com/names/ob/o-bearain.php

So I can't rule out that relatives might hiding under a slightly different surname (if indeed, my paternal line goes back to Limerick).

To confuse matters: my first cousin agreed to test her autosomal DNA too and we can filter out only parental matches to those with Barnes ancestors and quite a few match on the same strands of DNA. These matches all have Barnes ancestors from east of London (Barking and Greenwich mainly, where known). If we can get some male Barneses from those it might nail it down, so it is all very provisional.

If right, it could suggest either that the census is wrong and Thomas Barnes wasn't born in Ireland or his Barnes ancestors were from the east of London and moved to Ireland (perhaps marrying an Irish girl and going back there?). If the latter, we'd still be looking for the birth of Thomas Barnes in Ireland (and perhaps of his father). While my grandfather's claim to be "English through and through" is technically incorrect, it might be he knew of the family's English origins and (especially if the autosomal DNA matches are right) the roots weren't too far in the past.

So all a bit messier than I originally thought, but there may still be Irish Barneses out there Im related too, although perhaps not in Limerick.

Bill