Baptismal Records - Killybegs Parish
St. Mary’s Church of the Visitation
1850 - 1871
Introduction:
How appropriate is it that the last article we add to our website in year 2005 involves new born babies. The following information comes from parish records kept by priests at St. Mary’s Church of the Visitation, Killybegs, County Donegal, Ireland. There were several reasons why we wanted to look at these records. First, we wanted to see if these records showed baptisms for Francis McGonigle and Catherine Murrin. Second, we wanted to solve a mystery. Who was Peter McGonigle’s wife? Would we find her name in these records? Third, were there any brothers or sisters listed? Finally, we wanted to find all names of interest to our family. These names included McGonigle, Murrin, McCloskey and Timoney. The following information was transcribed from microfilmed records kept by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Parochial registers of Killybegs, Donegal, 1850 -1914; FHL BRITISH Film 1279234 Items 24 – 26)).
Did we find everything we sought? No. There were a few surprises which we are investigating further, but no records for Francis McGonigle or Catherine Murrin were found. Burial records in America suggest Francis McGonigle was born in 1851. US Census records suggest an earlier date of July 1847. The same was true for Catherine Murrin as the 1900 US Census suggests she was born in February of 1846. The Parish Register begins in 1850.
In the future we will also look at church records for neighboring parish, St. Cartha’s Church, in Kilcar. It is possible we may find relevant records there.
Parish Records:
Our grand plan was to transcribe all church documents found on this microfilm; however, it took no more than several days to determine this would be a time consuming task. One needed a magnifying glass to read these records. (Old age and bad eyesight complicated matters!) So what you will see is this. Records from 1850 to the beginning of 1858 are fully transcribed. After that you will only see selected baptismal records of interest to our family. These include baptismal records for a McGonigle, McCloskey, or Murrin baby. There are no Timoney surnames listed. You will also see records where a McGonigle, McCloskey or Murrin was listed as sponsor. Again, no Timoney surnames were found on this register.
We know of at least two people named ‘Peter McGonigle’ living in Killybegs during this time period. Both names appear in the marriage register for the parish; however, these marriages took place in 1863 and 1858. The following list shows references to ‘Peter McGonigle’. One ‘Peter McGonigle’ married a ‘Bridget McShane’ and had many children baptized in this parish. The other ‘Peter McGonigle’ married ‘Ann Murrin’ in this parish but no children are mentioned. (This is another interesting story that will be told at a later time.) We also find a ‘Peter McGonigle’ referenced as sponsor for several baptisms. In actuality the baptismal records end in 1886. This document shows baptisms from 1850 to 1871. Records from 1871 to 1886 have been transcribed but not ready for publication.
Unfortunately, some of these records were unreadable due to their age. Surnames of interest to our family are highlighted.