Surname challenge

I have today added a downloadable list of all CONDRANs, CONDRENs and CONDRONs from Griffiths Valualtion of Ireland to the Condran One-Name Study website. Griffiths Valuation was the outcome of a survey by Sir Richard Griffiths, Ireland's Commissioner of Valuation. The survey was used to determine the amount of tax each person should pay. This involved determining the value of all privately held lands and buildings in rural as well as urban areas to figure the rate at which each unit of property could be rented year after year. The resulting survey was arranged by barony and civil parish with an index to the townlands appearing in each volume. Griffith's Valuation can be used as an excellent census substitute for the years after the Great Famine as censuses prior to 1901 were destroyed. These data from the index to Griffiths Valuation were extracted using the excellent site http://www.failteromhat.com. Unfortunately this site does not give all information that is available in Griffiths Valuation (in particular "description of tenement"). If anyone can tell me where on the web I can find these additional details, or if anyone can send those to me for the CONDR*Ns listed in Griffiths Valuation, I would be most grateful.

I had an email recently from Bill Conran of Reno, Nevada. Among several interesting pieces of information Bill shared with me was that a Philip CONRAN was mayor of Dublin in 1593. Bill asks whether my line been traced to a Conerain or O'Conerain founding father, and whether I have Church of Ireland or Quaker ancestors or were they Catholic? On the latter point, I don't know for my own ancestors but it is noteworthy that in the 1911 census of Dublin where religion is recorded all the CONDR*Ns are Roman Catholic. Of course, non-Catholics may have emigrated. It would be interesting to hear what religious faiths other people's CONDR*N ancestors were.

As for Bill's first question, for my own family line the answer is not as yet. But it's a very good question, so here's the Surname Challenge: has anyone out there with CONDRAN/CONDRON or CONRAN/CONRON forebears traced their line to a CONERAIN or O'CONERAIN ?

Changes in surnames

Surnames can and do change over the generations, meaning that some lateral thinking may be required to succeed in tracing our ancesters to earlier generations. This is well illustrated by Karen Conderan's family. I am grateful to Karen for sharing the following information. Karen's great-great-grandfather was John CONRAN of County Carlow, Ireland. John CONRAN's son Patrick emigrated to Canada. There his name appears under a variety of spellings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century directory listings. Finally it appears as CONDERAN which it has been consistently since. Having run into a brick wall tracing her family back before Patrick, Karen was fortunate to find baptismal records for Patrick CONDERAN and his brother James showing CONRAN as the original spelling of their surname. So as Karen says, we should really consider all the possible variations in spelling - an extra letter after the D, and especially dropping the letter D - if we run into a dead end. It worked for her!

Origins of the CONDR*N surname

I'm grateful to Robert CONDRON for the following information on the origins of the CONDRAN, CONDRON etc. surname (posted to the CONDRON Rootsweb mailing list 31 Jan 2008):

The Irish surname Condron is patronymic in origin, being one of those names derived from the first name of the father. Thus the name means "son of Condron". The name finds its roots in the Irish surname O Conarain, the prefix "O" denoting one who is the descendent of or the grandson of Conarain, the personal name of the original bearer. The Irish name was then anglicized as Conron or Condron, the "O" being dropped, probably as it was a reminder to the bearer that he was one of a conquered nation. Condron is a relatively modern variant, as all known references to the name before 1700 take the forms Coneran, o'Conran and O'Coneran.

Families bearing this name originated in County Offaly, where the name was common and it was also popular in the adjoining counties of Leix and Kildare, as can be seen in the Ormond Deeds, the Tudor Fiants and Petty's "census". In Munster the surname is recorded, in the form Coneran, in the survey of County Fermanagh, made in 1603. There people bearing this name are mentioned as coarbs, that is the abbot or "heir" of the saintly founder, of the "parish church of the Mill" in the barony of Tirkennedy. However the surname has not survived there, as is has in Lenister. The place name Ballyconran in County Wexford suggests that there were once influential families bearing this name living there also.

UK CONDRANs

One of the pleasures of genealogy is that one occasionally makes contact with hitherto unknown relatives. Hence it was a great pleasure recently to be contacted by Nick CONDRAN. It turns out that Nick CONDRAN's great-grandfather Ernest CONDRAN (b. 1893, Nottingham) and my grandfather Frank CONDRAN (b. 1890, Nottingham) were brothers. Nick tells me that of the small number of CONDRANs in England and Wales in 2002, 13 are descendants of or related by marriage to descendants of Ernest CONDRAN.

CONDRAN website goes live

The new site for CONDRAN One-Name Study information (including
of course CONDREN, CONDRIN, CONDRON) is now live at
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~condran .
I hope to develop the pages to include links relevant to these names, downloadable material such as census listings and family histories, surname distribution maps, and other material on individuals and families with these names that people want to see or contribute.

Michael Thompson
condran[AT]one-name.org (replace [AT] with @)

CONDRAN profile page created at Guild of One-Name Studies

The Guild of One-Name Studies (http://www.one-name.org) hosts pages profiling the names studied by members. I have just created a profile page for the CONDRAN One-Name Study: it is available at http://www.one-name.org/profiles/condran.html . This will be updated from time to time as the study progresses. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Rarity and possible geographical origins

The surnames CONDRAN/CONDREN/CONDRIN/CONDRON are uncommon. In the 1881 census of England and Wales there are 189 people in total with these names (CONDRAN:29, CONDREN:29, CONDRIN:2, CONDRON:129), with a further 33 in the 1881 census of Scotland (CONDRAN:3, CONDREN:3, CONDRIN:9, CONDRON:18). An extract of an Office of National Statistics database of surnames in use in England, Wales and the Isle of Mann in September 2002 (http://www.taliesin-arlein.net/names) indicates just over 1000 people with these names, as follows: CONDRAN:21, CONDREN:202, CONDRON:839. In 2002 this makes CONDRON the 7590th most common name in the UK, with CONDRAN and CONDREN being much rarer still (87652th and 21183th respectively).

It seems likely that most if not all lineages of people with these names link back originally to Ireland. Although not a definite indication of ultimate origins, the distribution of householders with the name CONDRON and variants in the Griffiths Valuation of Ireland 1848-1864 is suggestive. The names CONDRAN/CONDREN/CONDRIN/CONDRON are uncommon even in Ireland. In the Griffiths Valuation of Ireland index (http://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths.htm) there are only 132 heads of household with these names. Of these, 33 are in County Laois (also known as Leix, formerly Queens County) and 25 in County Offaly (formerly Kings County), suggesting that the names perhaps originate in this central midlands area of Ireland. The next highest aggregations of people with these names are 22 in Dublin (County and City) and 18 in County Kildare. It would be natural for there to have been a migration from the provinces towards Dublin, and Kildare is situated directly between Dublin and the counties of Offaly and Laois.