The first webinar in our Research Like a Pro webinar series was presented yesterday by Susan McKee, an expert in Irish genealogy, and a graduate of our Research Like a Pro study group in the fall of 2023. Born and raised in Dublin, Susan brings a unique perspective to Irish family research, combining her native understanding of Irish culture with professional genealogical expertise. Now residing in Seattle, she serves as a contributing writer for Irish Roots magazine and facilitates the Irish Special Interest Group at the Seattle Genealogical Society. Susan’s presentation was particularly meaningful as she shared how her participation in the Research Like a Pro study group helped advance her genealogical work.
This blog post was written by Claude Sonnet 3.5 under my direction from notes I took during the webinar.
The Research Problem
Susan’s research centered on identifying Thomas Delaney, the father of Catherine “Kate” Delaney who married Henry Burge on November 5, 1878, in Dublin, Ireland. The initial search parameters seemed narrow – looking for Thomas in Queen’s County (now County Laois) around 1860-1862 when Catherine was born. However, through careful document review, Susan uncovered additional clues in seemingly familiar records. Henry Burge’s military discharge papers mentioned settling in Coolrain Mountrath, and their first child was born in Derryduff, Queen’s County.
What impressed me most was Susan’s emphasis on moving from known to unknown facts, a key principle of the Research Like a Pro process. She traced her female line back to Kate Delaney through her mother and grandmother, ensuring exhaustive research before tackling the identification of Thomas. This methodical approach, combined with detailed transcription of documents, helped reveal new evidence when viewed in the context of her research question.
Understanding Irish Geography & Administrative Divisions
One of the most valuable parts of Susan’s presentation was her clear explanation of Irish geography and administrative divisions. She showed how creating a reference table of land divisions could serve as a practical “cheat sheet” for research. Her table included everything from provinces (used mainly for sports) to townlands (the smallest administrative division). She emphasized how baronies, while somewhat obsolete after the 1830s, remained important for searching early records, and how poor law unions became crucial for civil registration and workhouse records.
The townland system proved particularly fascinating – Ireland has over 61,000 townlands, with origins dating back to pre-5th century Gaelic Ireland. Susan explained that a townland might be just a collection of fields, yet it provides a crucial sense of neighborhood and serves as a traceable address for ancestors. When she discovered that Derryduff and Coolrain were adjacent townlands, it helped her narrow the geographic area to search for Thomas Delaney. This was crucial because several Thomas Delaneys existed in the parish baptism registers of the nearby churches – Castletown and Camross.
Historical Context of Mid-1800s Ireland
Susan painted a vivid picture of life in mid-1800s Ireland, highlighting how major historical events shaped family histories. Thomas Delaney may have been a teenager or young adult during the Great Famine (1845-49), witnessing its horrors firsthand. The 1860-1870s brought more crop failures, causing Derryduff’s population to plummet by nearly half from 90 to 50 people. These demographic changes provided crucial context for understanding family movements and record availability.
The Land War of 1880-1881 added another layer of complexity to family research. Susan explained how Thomas, as a farm laborer (noted on Kate’s marriage record), would have faced pressure to side with neighbors in boycotting landlords. The subsequent Land Acts beginning in 1881 and continuing into the early 1900s facilitated land transfer through loans to Irish farmers and created new record sets that could help trace family connections.
Irish Naming Conventions
Understanding Irish naming patterns proved key to Susan’s research success. She explained that in the early 1800s, these conventions were strictly followed, though adherence began to decrease as people moved to cities later in the century and began naming their children based on preference rather than tradition. The naming convention focused on naming children after parents, grandparents, and siblings, as shown in Susan’s slide.
By analyzing the names of Kate and Henry Burge’s children, Susan identified potential names for Kate’s siblings, including Thomas, Bridget, and Norah.
This strategic use of naming patterns became even more valuable when Susan found baptismal records for children of Thomas Delaney and Mary Nolan, including a Bridget and an “Oney” (a nickname for Norah). The alignment between the predicted and discovered names helped confirm she had identified the correct family unit. Susan noted that while immigrants often followed naming conventions even more strictly than those who remained in Ireland, there could be reasons for deviation – in her case study, she postulated from oral history that Henry Burge’s love for Kate led him to raise their children Catholic, possibly influencing their naming choices.
Research Process
Susan’s approach to church records was methodical and comprehensive. She emphasized the importance of understanding different record repositories: the National Library of Ireland’s digitized Catholic church records, indexes on Findmypast and Ancestry, IrishGenealogy.ie for civil registration records, and RootsIreland.ie, a subscription service with a searchable database of Catholic Church records. She recommended doing a “fingertip search” of parish registers – reading each page to identify patterns and related family names.
Her research revealed several children born to Thomas Delaney and Mary Nolan, though Kate’s baptism record remained elusive. The absence of Thomas and Mary’s marriage record in Castletown and Camross parishes suggested Mary might have come from another area – a perfect example of how negative evidence can provide research direction. If the couple moved to the Coolrain area after being married in the bride’s home parish, that would explain the absence of the marriage record. Susan’s careful attention to sponsors in baptismal records (traditionally relatives of the parents) provided additional family connections to explore.
The Results
Through meticulous research, Susan reconstructed the family of Thomas Delaney and Mary Nolan. The hypothesized children included John (possibly born before 1860), Catherine (born 1860-62), possibly a Mary (born around 1862), Eliza (1865), Bridget (1867, died in infancy), Thomas (1868, died 1868), Oney/Norah (1870), and a second Thomas (1875). She discovered that Mary died tragically young at age 35 in 1878 from metritis, likely related to childbirth complications. Thomas himself passed away in 1883 at age 59, his occupation listed as “herd” – someone who moved animals around the land.
The civil and church records painted a poignant picture of a family faced with the high infant mortality rates common to the period. The family moved between several townlands – Coolrain, Derrynaseera, and Derryduff – all within a small geographic area. Susan’s discovery that Mary was listed as an “inmate” when reporting Bridget’s birth suggested she might have been in the infirmary, opening new avenues for workhouse record research.
Research Tips from Susan
Susan shared invaluable resources for Irish research, including Brian Mitchell’s “A New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland” (which she called “the Bible of Irish research” for land division maps) and John Grenham’s website with its useful surname distribution maps. She emphasized the importance of understanding Catholic parish records, explaining how the RC Parish – Townland Database and NLI Parishes map can help locate relevant records.
Perhaps most importantly, Susan demonstrated how the Research Like a Pro process helped her maintain focus on a specific family rather than getting overwhelmed by all possible Delaney connections. She stressed that most of the work happens in the preparation phase – background research, analysis, and geographic research – before even accessing records. For future research, she suggested exploring land records, court records, newspapers, workhouse records, and DNA analysis, showing how one successful research project often opens doors to many more.
Watch the Webinar and Coupon Code
If you’d like to learn more about Irish genealogy research and watch Susan’s full presentation, you can register for our Research Like a Pro 2025 Webinar Series. We’ve created a special coupon code for readers of this blog post who would like to register for the Research Like a Pro Webinar Series. Use the coupon code IrishWebinar to receive $10 off the registration cost. The code expires on February 28, 2025.
Your registration includes access to this recording, Susan’s detailed 56-page research report, her 3-page list of Irish resources, and 11 future presentations and the accompanying research reports from experienced genealogists. The following images show a preview of the great content you’ll read in Susan’s research report.
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Thanks for the note!