Babington family of Magheracloone

Hi there,

You already have done lots of research about your Babington family. This is great. It's even better that you are in touch with Babingtons here in Ireland. Two heads are better than one!

You may have already exhausted these avenues of research, but in case you haven't I will mention them here anyway.

There are Roman Catholic church records available for Magheracloone. These date from 1835 for baptismal records and 1827 for marriage records. Both only date until 1880. You can find these at the National Library of Ireland (NLI), Pos. 5574, or PRONI (Public Records of Northern Ireland) MIC.1D/17; C.R. 2/17.  If you have any difficulty, you could try writing to the parish priest for more assistance.

Church of Ireland parish registers for the period up to 1870 are public records. Registers are available for about one third of the parishes, however many were destroyed in the Public Records Office in Dublin in 1922. Most are still held by the local clergy, although some are in the National Archives of Ireland and others are in the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin. A list of all surviving registers is available in the National Archives.

Civil registration records are available from the General Register Office (GRO). These start from 1864 however. You can access the website here: http://www.groireland.ie/research.htm

You could also try checking the land records called the Tithe Applotment Books (1823-38) or the later Griffith'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.Tithe Applotment Books (1823-38). Microfilm copies of the books for all of Ireland are available at the National Archives of Ireland (NAI) http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/tithe-applotment-books-and-the-primary-griffith-valuation/ or the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS).

Have you tried checking the Ellis Island records (www.ellisisland.org) or the Castle Garden records (www.castlegarden.org)? Generally, more information was given at the port of arrival rather than the port of departure. If you knew which city they arrived at, this could be a good place to find more information.

There is a useful link from The Irish Times which shows the predominance of a name in the country in the mid-19th Century. It also shows the variant spellings of the name which is useful when researching. You can also check the name in an area with another name, such as Babington and Leven. http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm?fuseaction=Go.&UserID= and http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm?fuseaction=Go.&UserID=

Have you looked at the records in Canada for more information about their immigration there?

1785 Male Protestants aged over 17 - Magheracloone & Errigak Trough. Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), film 258517.

1796 Spinning Wheel Premium Lists. 4,400 names for Co. Monaghan. www.failteromhat.com

www.ulsterancestry.com

Gilsenan, M., Hills of Magheracloone 1884 1984, 1985.

Estate records: Landlord: Earl of Bath: NLI Pos. 5894. Rentals 1784-1809. Major tenants only.

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)

Hi Sinead - Thanks for your listing of Irish genealogy resourses to consider. I have looked at most of these, some not in too much detail. I have reviewed the COI Church of Ireland Magheracloone (Co. Monaghan) parish register on microfilm at PRONI and the orginal baptism and burial parts of this register when I visited my third cousin Jimmy Babington and his family in Magheracloone three years ago. Jimmy Babington is a Deacon of the St. Molua's COI church in Magheracloone so the local COI vicar let me review this parich register. The orginial marriage part of this register is at  Representive Church Library (COI) in Dublin. The baptisms of my great grandfather George Babington (Born 1826) and my grandfather John Babington (born 1873) are missing from this parish register. While this register does have a number of baptisms going back to the early 1800's, most of the register has information from the early 1830's on. The Magheracloone Catholic Register I will have to look at in Dublin some day, though it's start date 0f 1827/1835 may or may not be of help with the Levens (spelled  Levins now in Ireland).

More later. Too bad there is no spell check here, my spelling is not great at times

DWB

Hi Sinead - On with my Magheracloone Babington's. I have been in touch with two persons (Evelyn C and Ian W) in Northern Ireland who are descended from a Rebecca Babington (married name Hood), who was baptized at the Magheracloone COI in 1838. We know that this Rebecca's parents were Richard Babington and Judith. Richard Babington was baptized at the Magheracloone COI in 1806, father William Babington and Rebecca. We have no further information on  the above Babingtons in the Magheracloone COI parish register after Rebecca Babington's 1838 baptism. William Babington may be buried here but before the start of burials recorded in this parish register. Evelyn C (EC) and I have speculated that Richard Babington and his family left Magheracloone by 1840 or earlier for Belfast, likely as a result of the pre Great Famine clearances of the Shirley and Bath estates. EC has been reviewing the Bath Estate records at PRONI of late. Baptisms of some of the children of my great great grandfather John Babington (Abt 1786-1866) are recorded in early baptisms in the Magheracloone COI parish register, two with his first wife Libby and two by his second wife Mary Levens. EC and I have not been able to determine the relationship of my great great grandfather John Babington and EC's 5th great grandfather William Babington, above. In that 1785 survey of Protestants males over 17 in Magheracloone you referred to there are two William Babington's and one Samuel Babington. Because the name of Samuel does not appear as a name of a child of Willam and John Babington's in the Magheracloone parish register baptisms I have proposed to EC that "her" William Babington and "my" John Babington were likely brothers, whose father was a William Babington. Of course this theory of mine may not be valid if there were a child named Samuel of either William  or John Babington that was not recorded in the Magheracloone COI parish register.