It's a Long Way to Tipperary

CONDR*N places on a road sign near Lorrha, Co. Tipperary

It's a long way to Tipperary, in the words of the old music-hall song - but not if you're starting from Co. Offaly (King's County). Historically almost all of the CONDR*Ns in Co. Tipperary are found in the northern part of the county, not far from Co. Offaly where the CONDR*Ns appear to originate.

It's a long way to Tipperary from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but that's where a Co. Tipperary CONDRON family emigrated to, as we shall see.

Most of the nineteenth century CONDR*N baptisms in Co. Tipperary occur in the Roman Catholic parishes of Lorrha, in the far northern tip of the county, and the parishes of Birr and Shinrone which straddle the Tipperary-Offaly border. The earliest baptisms in Lorrha of which I have records are in the 1830s, to couples such as John & Judy, John & Margaret, Daniel & Mary, and Andrew & Mary. After the introduction of universal civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in 1864, a number of CONDR*N life events are recorded in the registration district of Borrisokane in the north of the county.

The 1901 census of Ireland records only 10 CONDR*Ns in Co. Tipperary. One of these is a widow Mary CONDRON, in Curra(gh)glass, Lorrha East, accompanied by her son-in-law Thomas WATSON and her daughter Mary WATSON (nee CONDRON). I believe that Mary CONDRON was the widow of Patrick CONDRON, and that her maiden name may have been NEEDHAM. Her daughter Mary, who may have been born in Riverstown and baptised in Lorrha, married Thomas WATSON in 1894. The same household is recorded in the 1911 census also, one of only two CONDR*Ns recorded in the county in that year. (The other was a Frank CONDRON, a 50-year old shoemaker in Roscrea, whom I have not yet been able to trace.)

A family living in Ballyquirke, Lorrha West, in 1901, but absent by 1911, was that of Andrew and Margaret CONDRON. Andrew married Margaret SMITH on September 1, 1855, in Lorrha. They had twelve children. I know of the baptisms in Lorrha of seven of them: Mary (1857), Patrick (1860), Anne (1862, presumably died in infancy), Thomas (1865), Anne (1867), Andrew (1869), and Peter (1871). Another son, Daniel, was born in 1874. In 1901, Thomas (aged 73) and Margaret (aged 66) are living in Ballyquirke with just two of their adult children: Andrew and Daniel.

Less than a month after the census date, Daniel emigrated to the USA, arriving in the port of Philadelphia on 5 May 1901 on board the Noordland with his cousin Michael GLENNEN. Both give their last residence as Portumna. Daniel nmes a brother Dennis CONDRON, living in Philadelphia, as his relative in the USA. In 1904, Andrew and Margaret and son Andrew also emigrated, arriving into Philadelphia on 31 October on board the Friesland. Andrew declares his relatives in the USA as daughter Mrs Teresa KEARNEY and son Daniel CONDRON, both of Philadelphia. He goes on to state, "Have also 4 other sons and 1 daughter here".

We next find the family in the 1910 census for Philadelphia Ward 34. Andrew and Margaret are living with their son Daniel and his wife of four years, Catherine, and their two children Andrew (1908) and Margaret (1909). It is this census record that states that Andrew and Margaret had twelve children, of whom eight were still alive in 1910. There are several other CONDRONs in Philadelphia Ward 34. One is our Andrew (junior), living in the household of his brother-in-law Peter KEARNEY and his wife of 22 years, Teresa. Another is Dennis CONDRON and his wife of 20 years, Mary, and their children. Going back ten years to the 1900 census, we again find the households of Dennis & Mary CONDRON and Peter & Teresa KEARNEY: at this time, there is another brother, Peter CONDRON, living with the KEARNEYs. It seems highly likely that Dennis (emigrated 1881 or 1882 according to the censuses), Teresa (emigrated 1886) and Peter (emigrated 1891), as well as Daniel and Andrew, are all siblings and the children of Andrew and Margaret CONDRON.

There are two other CONDRON heads-of-household in Philadelphia Ward 34, who might also be related though I have no further evidence for that: Patrick CONDRON who says he was born 1862-1864 and emigrated in 1884, and Thomas CONDRON who says he was born in 1857 and emigrated in 1886.

The elder Andrew CONDRON died on February 11, 1912, and was buried three days later. The details are on ancestry.com in their "Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates 1803-1915 Index" collection. This record gives a clue that takes the family back one further generation: Andrew's parents are given as Andrew CONDRON and Annie MAHER, though I have not yet managed to trace either of them or their marriage in Ireland.

As always, I will appreciate any corrections or additional information, especially if you are related to any of the above people. Please email me at condran[AT]one-name.org (replace the [AT] with @), or leave a comment below. Thanks!

The CONDRON discoverer of the Poseidon nugget

I have posted twice before about John (Jack) CONDRON, who in 1906 shared in the discovery of the Poseidon gold nugget with his fellow-miners Sam WOODALL, Frederick EVA and George BROOKS (John Condron strikes it rich and Australian Gold!). Today, with the help of correspondent Karen, I can definitively identify the CONDRON discoverer of the Poseidon nugget and his family.

The crucial document, a copy of which Karen sent me, that identifies John CONDRON is an Order of the Supreme Court of Victoria, dated 26 March 1908, granting administration of the estate of John CONDRON late of Newbridge-on-Loddon (Victoria), miner, to his brother James CONDRON of Bridgewater-on-Loddon, labourer. John left property at Newbridge valued at forty pounds, comprising a piece of land gifted to him by his grandfather, James MURPHY, in 1872, and a six-room house. (The land was granted to James MURPHY in 1855.) Together with other assets - principally money on deposit at the Union Bank of Australia, Tarnagulla - his estate was worth almost four hundred and forty four pounds. The clincher for me that identifies this John CONDRON as our man is that his assets include a twenty pounds debt owed by "Frederick Eva of near Bendigo Hotel-Keeper, money lent on or about September 14 1907" - i.e. money lent to his fellow miner and co-discoverer of the nugget. John died without leaving a Will, and according to his brother James's sworn statement the beneficiaries of his estate were to be "his brothers and sisters equally who are his only next of kin him surviving".

The picture above is a plaster replica of the Poseidon nugget at Museum Victoria. According to a report in a Melbourne newspaper, The Argus, for 22 April 1933, the four miners who shared in the nugget's discovery divided about three thousand five hundred pounds on its assay value. So John CONDRON's net worth on his death, though rather less than one quarter of this amount, is consistent with him having received a substantial fraction of what the nugget fetched.

From the records of the births, marriages and deaths in the state of Victoria, we can piece together the details of John CONDRON's larger family. His parents were Thomas CONDRON (son of John CONDRON and Mary O'DONOHUE) and Catherine MURPHY (daughter of James MURPHY - mentioned above - and Mary BOLTON). Thomas died in 1907 and Catherine in 1906, both in "Tallegalla" (which may be the same as Tarnagulla), Victoria. I cannot positively identify the marriage of Thomas and Catherine. There was a marriage of a Thomas CONDRON and a Catherine MURPHY at St. Nicholas's Roman Catholic church in Dublin in 1851; but if this is the same couple, I have been unable to find any immigration record of them moving to Australia, and we also know that Catherine's father James was obtaining land in Australia by 1855. Thomas and Catherine are presumably the two people each identified as "old-age pensioner" in the early 20th century as mentioned in my earlier post.

I believe that Thomas and Catherine had at least seven children: Martha (born about 1854), John the discoverer of the nugget (1856), James (1858),  Jane (1859), William (1865), Catherine Theresa (1867), and possibly also Joseph (1873). William was born in Newbridge, and Joseph was born in Tarnagulla, but where the other children were born is unknown for now. John's sister Jane may be the person identified as doing "house duties" in my earlier post. She married a Thomas RYAN fairly late in life, in 1916. James appears to have married a Mary Ann McDONNELL in 1887. James and Mary Ann had at least four children: William Richard (1888), Aileen (1890), Albert James (1892) and George (1896, died in infancy). Of these, at least Albert James CONDRON went on to have further descendents.

I would be pleased to hear from any descendants or anyone else having additional information about this family,  and as always I'd welcome any corrections to any of the above details. The email address is condran[AT]one-name.org (replace the "[AT]" with an "@").

One last puzzle. Correspondent Alan CONDRON, who is not related to this family, kindly sent me a photograph (below) of "Condron's Globe Hotel" from the State Library of Victoria collection. I understand that the building still exists, at Bridgewater, Victoria, next to the Loddon river. It has an inscription "1890". As all the CONDRONs I've come across in Bridgewater are part of this family, the question is, who owned the hotel? If you know, please tell me!

Cavan to Victoria

The newspaper announcements that became more frequent in the second half of the nineteenth century complement and in some cases add poignancy to the records of births, marriages and deaths.

I have written previously of Thomas and Eliza (nee McGovern) CONDRON, who were married in 1823 in Kildrumferton, Co. Cavan, Ireland, and who made a new life with their family in the state of Victoria, Australia. Their eldest children, Maryanne (b. 1824), Catherine (b. 1826) and Martha (b. 1829) emigrated to Australia first, arriving aboard the "Wallace" on 3 Nov. 1844. The rest of the family - parents Thomas and Eliza, and children Elizabeth (b. 1831), John (b. 1833), Robert (b. 1836), Jane (b. 1838), Thomas (b. 1841), Isabella (b. 1844) and William (b. 1846) - are recorded as living in Kirkdale, Lancashire, in the 1851 census of England, and most of them appear to have arrived in Australia aboard the "Runnymede" on 3 June 1852.

The marriage records for the state of Victoria give supporting evidence to a number of family trees uploaded by members to ancestry.com. It appears that Maryanne married Robert WHITE in Melbourne in either 1846 or 1848, Martha married  James Nall MARRIS in 1848, Eliza married John DICK in 1854 and Jane married James McILROY in 1861.

From 1862 we start to find mention of the family in the announcements column of The Argus newspaper published in Melbourne. (These are available online at Trove.) In December of that year, the paper records the recent marriage of "Isabella, sixth daughter of Mr. Thomas Condron, Fitzroy, late of the County Cavan" to Joshua MOONEY. In April 1872 it records the death "through an accident" of "Thomas, the third and beloved son of Thomas and Eliza Condron, of Brunswick-street, Fitzroy, aged 30".

Youngest son William married Margaret Annie RAINSFORD in 1870, but the death of "Margaret Annie, the beloved wife of Mr. William Condron of Brunswick-street, Fitzroy" is recorded in the paper two years later. William is described as a "corn merchant", and the couple appear to have had no children. The death of Thomas CONDRON senior at his residence, 390 Brunswick-street, Fitzroy, is recorded in The Argus the next year. William remarried, this time to Louisa Agnes ARNOLD, in 1874, and The Argus carries the joyful announcement in July 1875 of the birth of a daughter to the "wife of W[illia]m Condron, produce merchant". Sadly, in February of the next year, the paper announces the death of "Eliza Evaline, the only and beloved child of William and Louisa Condron, aged six months", and further tragedy follows in March with the announcement of the death of "Louisa Agnes, the beloved wife of Mr. William Condron, aged 26".

Meanwhile, William's elder brother Robert had married Margaret E. BOURKE in 1855, and had three children, including William (b. 1856). Margaret died in 1860, and Robert married Caroline PEACHEY in 1863. The couple had seven children, but Caroline died in 1876, aged 32 years. The Argus for 2 May 1876 announces, "The friends of Mr Robert Condron are respectfully invited to follow the remains of his late wife to the place of interment, Coburg Cemetery". The first five of Robert and Caroline's children - Sarah Jane (b. 1863), Robert (b. 1865), Mary Ann (b. 1868), Elizabeth Henrietta (b. 1869) and James (b. 1871) - were born in Pentridge, while the last two - Susan (b. 1874) and James (b. 1876) - were born in Coburg. Robert appears to have married a third time, in 1876, this time to Mary QUINN. They had one son, Fredrick (b. 1877), who married Ethel Kate PHILLIPS in 1900. Fredrick and Ethel had five children, all born in Coburg: Ethel May (b. 1901), Mary Lillian (b. 1903), Elsie Freda (b. 1907), Robert Charles (b. 1909) and Fredrick (b. 1912).

Eliza CONDRON senior died in September 1881: "at her residence, 386 Brunswick-street, Fitzroy, Eliza, relict of hte late Mr Thomas Condron, aged 78 years".

The births, marriages and deaths records for the state of Victoria record a further marriage of a William CONDRON to Rebecca Ann SHEARER in 1877. Several of the online family trees state that this is the third marriage of William, son of Thomas and Eliza (i.e. after his second wife Louisa died in 1876). This may well be correct, but for now I can find no definitive evidence to decide whether this is indeed the correct William or whether perhaps it is William, son of Robert and  Margaret, who was born in 1856 and who therefore would have been of marriageable age by 1877. William and Rebecca had eight children, most of whom were born in Fitzroy: Ada Eliza (b. 1878), May Eva (b. 1880), Maud Margaret (b. 1882), William (b. 1883), Lottie (b. 1885), Harry (b. 1887), Mellie (b. 1890) and Nora (b. 1891).

What of the other two children of Thomas and Eliza CONDRON? Online trees indicate that Catherine, who had emigrated with her sisters in 1844, married a William CLARKSON in New South Wales in 1845. As for John (b. 1833), quite probably he is the John CONDRON of Wangaratta mentioned in my previous blog post, "Australian Gold!".

The above details are pieced together from the newspaper announcements and from the indexes of births, marriages and deaths for Victoria. Perhaps the living descendants of Thomas and Eliza CONDRON have copies of the actual certificates, or other records of family history that add definiteness or further information to what I have found. I would be delighted to hear from them: Condran[AT]one-name.org (replace the "[AT]" with "@").

Please note that, as usual, the above birth dates could be off by one year because the year given is that in which the birth was recorded or, in some cases, is derived from census ages or baptismal dates.

CONDRONs in unexpected places

CONDRAN, CONDREN, CONDRIN and CONDRON are not common names, but you are more likely to find CONDR*Ns in some places than in others. When it's a sparsely populated area, you are even less likely to find a CONDR*N there by chance. So I was very surprised to spot this sign ("The CONDRONS") hanging outside a house this summer. At the time I was driving up a rather inaccessible dirt road in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.  In order to respect their privacy, I shan't give the location more precisely.

A correspondent recently told me of CONDRONs in another unexpected place. Those CONDRONs are a family living in Sweden -  the only CONDR*Ns in Scandinavia, as far as I know.

I have recently been researching CONDR*Ns in the records of passengers leaving the UK on board ships. The records cover the period 1890 to 1960, and are for long-haul voyages from the UK to destinations outside the UK and continental Europe. Mostly the CONDR*Ns recorded there appear to have been emigrating, or in a few cases are emigrants who have returned to visit home. The most common destinations are the US (174 instances), Canada (37 instances) and Australia (28 instances). But a few destinations are more surprising. One CONDREN girl aged 15 sailed to Bombay in 1935 with the declared intention of living permanently in India. In other cases, CONDR*Ns sailed to Kenya, South Africa, Jamaica, Martinique (en route to St Lucia), Malta and the Canary Islands, to name some of the more unusual ones. Are there CONDR*Ns there still?

Perhaps in your travels you will find CONDR*Ns in these or other unexpected places!

An old Wicklow family

Bond Street bridge, Wicklow

County Wicklow, which lies to the south of Dublin on the east coast of Ireland, held 26 households containing at least one CONDR*N in the 1901 Irish census, and 28 such households in the census of 1911. Throughout the nineteenth century, few CONDR*Ns are to be found in the interior of the county, but there are quite a number of CONDR*N baptisms and marriages along the west side of county - particularly in the Roman Catholic parishes of Clonmore and Dunlavin - and along the eastern seaboard - particularly in the Roman Catholic parishes of Kilquade, Wicklow and Arklow (though in the last case, many of these CONDR*Ns were actually living across the county border in Co. Wexford).

In the coming months I shall attempt to establish the family lineages of a number of the Co. Wicklow CONDR*Ns, but for now I focus on just one such family, who are found in the county town of Wicklow Town in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses. In 1901, the widow Maria CONDRON is living in Bond Street, Wicklow Town, with four daughters. In 1911, the same widow is still living in Bond Street but with just two of her daughters.

In Irish genealogy, it is generally hard to trace most families back before the 1820s or so, because of the paucity of parish records and the destruction of the all-Ireland censuses that took place before 1901. In the case of this family, however, I have made a reasonable reconstruction back to the eighteen century ... just. The family are variously recorded as CONDREN and CONDRON. Here I shall refer to them consistently as CONDRON, while noting that e.g. in the 1901 census they appear as CONDREN.

Pat CONDRON was father to four children who were baptised in the Roman Catholic parish of Wicklow in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: Owen (baptised in 1798), Edward (1802), Hanna (1806) and Pat (1810). So Pat the father was probably born in the 1770s or earlier. His son Owen himself fathered four children also baptised in the parish of Wicklow: Pat (baptised in 1827), Edmund (1830), Owen (1833) and James (1837). I infer from the rarity of the name "Owen" that this is the same James who marries Maria CONWAY in Wicklow parish in 1872, because his father's name is recorded as "Owen". James and Maria had nine children, all baptised in Wicklow parish: Robert (1873), Eugene (1875), George (1876), Maria L. (1878), Edward (1880, died 1884), Rose (1883, died 1884), Jane Frances (1884), Elizabeth (1891) and Christina (1893).

James died sometime before the 1901 census, for it is his wife Maria who is the widow living in Wicklow Town in 1901, together with daughters Maria L., Jane F., Elizabeth and Christina. Two of her sons, Eugene and George, are recorded in the 1901 census of England on board a vessel in Bristol, Eugene being the captain and George a mate. In 1911, Maria is still living in Wicklow Town with daughters Maria L. and Christina, while son George is now a ship's captain himself, on board a vessel in New Ross, Co. Wexford. Maria declares that she had nine children, of whom six are still alive at the time of the 1911 census. I believe that Maria herself died in Co. Wicklow in 1935, and that George died in 1944.

It would be interesting to know whether James and perhaps others in this family were also seafarers. If you are related to this CONDRON/CONDREN family, or know anything about them, I would love to hear from you: condran[at]one-name.org .


[The picture above of Bond Street bridge is copyright of panoramio.com user "speurder". The map below is copyright of Google.]

Map showing Bond Street and Wicklow harbour today

CONDRONs of County Longford

County Longford, in the province of Leinster, is bordered by the counties of Westmeath (also in Leinster), Roscommon and Leitrim (both in the province of Connaught) and Cavan (in the province of Ulster).  The county is covered by three registration districts: Granard in the north-east (which extends also into Cavan and Westmeath), Ballymahon in the south (which extends into Westmeath) and Longford in the west. Unlike for Co. Cavan across the border, the Co. Longford CONDR*NS appear all to be Catholics. From the beginning of universal civil registration until 1910, the only births, marriages and deaths in the county are to be found in the Granard registration district, and the baptisms of the period are found in the parishes of Abbeylara and Edgeworthstown.

The 1901 and 1911 censuses show CONDRONs in just two households (apart from a Gerald CONDRON who shows up also in his grandparents’ household in 1901, and a servant called Mary CONDRON, born in Co. Westmeath, who appears in the 1911 census). One family is that of James CONDRON , born about 1872, who married Mary Ann KELLY in 1895. Their children, who were mostly baptized in Edgeworthstown, include Gerald (born 1896), James (1899), Bridget (1900) who married in 1924, Peter Joseph (1904), Mary Catherine (1906) who married in 1926, Elizabeth (1909) who died in 1911, Agnes (1912), Christopher (1913) and William (1918). The other family is that Anne CONDRON (nee ARKINS), widow of Patrick CONDRON (born about 1852). Patrick married Anne in Delvin, Co. Westmeath, in 1886, and died at the age of 40 in 1892. The couple had a son, William Joseph CONDRON (born 1890) and baptized in Abbeylara. I believe that William married Rose Anne CASSIDY in 1920 and proceeded to have a number of children who were all baptized in Abbeylara: William Joseph (1923),  Emily (1926), Brendan Thomas (1929) who married Gertrude “Cherry” JOY, Ernest Philip (1933), Aidan Augustine (1935) who married Mary O’LEARY, and Anna (1939).

As usual, I’d be very happy to receive any corrections to the above information, or to hear from any descendents of these families: Condran [AT] one-name.org .

Condr*n as a given name

Some weeks ago I had a few hours to spare in Washington DC and visited the library of the Daughters of the American Revolution (see picture), which is located close to the White House. I didn’t have high hopes of finding any CONDR*N leads, but in fact there was one book in the library catalogue with CONDR*N connections: “The Ancestors and Descendants of Michael Dan Mitchell (1759-1995)” compiled by Marlene Wilkinson (revised July 1996).

The book details the genealogy of Michael Dan MITCHELL, son of Charles Reeves MITCHELL (1890-1953) and Grace Lenora CONDRAN (1887-1962). As stated there, Grace was the daughter of Patrick CONDRAN and Rachael MORRISEY, both offspring of unknown parentage. Grace was born on 15 May 1887, married Charles MITCHELL on 1 August 1910 in Mitchell, South Dakota (Grace’s home town), and died on 18 February 1962. Charles worked for the Chicago Milwaukee Pacific Railroad and the family lived variously in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Spokane, Washington; and Linton, North Dakota. Charles MITCHELL and his wife Grace (nee CONDRAN) had five children as detailed by the book:

            Condran Finch MITCHELL (1913-1921)

            Charles Thomas MITCHELL (b. 1915)

            Rachael Beverly MITCHELL (b. 1918)

            Mary Patricia MITCHELL (b.1924)

            Michael Dan MITCHELL (1926-1994).

Has anyone else come across Condran, Condren, Condrin or Condron used as the given name (first name, Christian name) of a child, as in Condran Finch MITCHELL?

The U.S. 1910 census shows Grace CONDRAN (aged 22) shortly before her marriage to Charles, living in Mitchell, South Dakota, with her parents Patrick (born in Iowa about 1861 of an Irish-born father and Canadian-born mother) and Rachael, and her younger siblings Michael (aged 20), Anna (18), Harry (17), William (15) and Lucy (13). All the children were born in Iowa. Another child (Patrick and Rachael had seven in total, following their marriage in about 1883) is not present in the household.

Do you know anything more about this family?

Incidentally, ancestry.com announced this week that they have completed the indexing of the U.S. 1940 census. According to the ancestry.com indexation, there are 1352 CONDR*Ns in that census: 164 CONDRANs, 277 CONDRENs, 78 CONDRINs and 833 CONDRONs. There’s quite a bit of research to be done to fit all these people into CONDR*N trees! I happened to note that only one male CONDR*N in this 1940 census was born in England: that was Edward CONDRON (aged 13) in Passaic, New Jersey, son of John (aged 39, a dyer, born in Ireland) and Emma CONDRON (aged 41, born in England). Their other child, Mary (aged 12), was born in New Jersey. Research in the UK births and marriages records reveals that John CONDRON married Emma TAYLOR in the Salford registration district (in the county of Lancashire) in the second quarter of 1924, and Edward CONDRON was born also in Salford registration district in the first quarter of 1925.