A personal puzzle solved, perhaps ...

My great-grandfather Joseph CONDRAN's origins are unclear. His marriage certificate in 1884 gives his likely birth date as 1844 and states that his father is Charles CONDRAN (deceased), a provision merchant. (I think a provision merchant could be a grocer.) I have found Joseph in only two censuses, the 1881 UK census which suggests his birth date as 1841 and gives his birth place as Manchester, Lancashire, England, and the 1891 UK census which suggests his birth date as 1844 and gives his birth place as Cardiff, Wales. Family lore has Joseph CONDRAN as Irish.

In spite of years of searching, I have found no trace of a Charles CONDRAN, provision merchant, either in Ireland or on the UK mainland. I was therefore very interested a few weeks ago to find a marriage record for January, 1884, on the Lancashire Online Parish Clerk project (www.lan-opc.org.uk) of an Eliza CONDRON in Lytham, Lancashire: Eliza is aged 43 and gives her father as Charles CONDRON, grocer. Could Joseph and Eliza CONDR*N, born within a few years of one another in the same county, and giving the same father's name and occupation, be brother and sister?

I sent away for the birth certificate of the only likely Eliza: an Eliza CONDREN born in Manchester in 1840. When a copy of Eliza CONDREN's birth certificate arrived,  it named her mother as Catharine CONDREN but left the father's name blank, suggesting that Eliza was illegitimate.

Quite a number of the 1851 census returns for Manchester were not indexed until recently, because the original census books had been damaged in a flood, but heroic efforts in recent years have meant that many of the missing Manchester census returns have been restored as best they can be and have been indexed. Thus it was that I was able to find Catharine (now recorded as Catherine) CONDRON (aged 43, general servant) and her daughter Eliza CONDRON (aged 10) in the 1851 census for Manchester, in the household of ... Charles CORNER (aged 60), provision dealer. After that I found Catherine and her infant daughter in the 1841 census for Manchester, also in the household of Charles CORNER (aged 50, at that time a baker). In both censuses, both Charles CORNER and Catherine are recorded as having been born in Ireland.

So it's probable that Catherine told her daughter Eliza that her father was called Charles and was a provision dealer / grocer. Subsequently, either through misinterpretation or a deliberate attempt to hide her illegitimacy, Eliza, when she got married in 1884, gave her father as Charles CONDRON, grocer. The father could be Charles CORNER, or possibly his son (also Charles) who was aged 20 in the 1841 census.

Which brings me back to my great-grandfather. The evidence is circumstantial - I have not yet found a record which firmly ties him as a son of Catherine CONDRON. But given the lack of any evidence whatsoever for a Charles CONDRON who was a provision merchant, the coincidence of two people (Joseph and Eliza) of similar age and possibly both from Manchester giving their father as Charles CONDR*N with an occupation of provision merchant or grocer, I think it quite likely that Joseph and Eliza are brother and sister, illegitimate offspring of Catherine CONDR*N who was an Irish-born domestic servant in Manchester, and that their father was not Charles CONDR*N but her employer Charles CORNER who was also born in Ireland.

So perhaps my great-grandfather Joseph wasn't born in Ireland but in England, albeit of two Irish parents. Whether that means I'm still an eighth Irish, as I had always been told, or only one-sixteenth, I haven't yet worked out.

Kilkenny CONDR*Ns

County Kilkenny lies in the Irish province of Leinster. It is bordered on the north by Co. Laois or Leix (Queens County), on the east by Co. Carlow and Co. Wexford, on the south by Co. Waterford and on the west by Co. Tipperary.

CONDR*Ns are uncommon in Co. Kilkenny, but historically there are some living there: between 1864 (when universal civil registration of births, marriages and deaths began in Ireland) and 1910, a span of 46 years, there were 23 CONDR*N births registered, 13 marriages and 18 deaths. Fifty of these life events were recorded in the Castlecomer registration district, which covers the north-east corner of the county, and the remaining 4 events in the Kilkenny registration district which covers a band from west to east across the northern half of the county. This geographical restriction to the northern part of the county lends support to the idea that the Kilkenny CONDR*Ns perhaps migrated from Queens County. The most common variant of CONDR*N to be found in Co. Kilkenny is CONDREN.

Although I have not yet fitted all nineteenth-century Kilkenny CONDR*Ns into family trees, those found there in the 1901 and 1911 censuses are mostly accounted for. In each of 1901 and 1911, there are five households in the county containing CONDR*Ns, in addition to one nun in 1901 and two nuns in 1911 who were living in religious houses in the county but were born in Co. Wicklow. Apart from a widow Margaret CONDRON who is living in Clogh in both 1901 and 1911, and a widower Martin CONDRON living in Greenshill in 1901, all households in the censuses are related to just two married couples. Although they are variously spelt CONDREN and CONDRON in the censuses, in what follows I use the spelling CONDREN throughout.

The first couple is Brian (sometimes recorded as Bernard) CONDREN, who married Mary COLLINS in the Roman Catholic parish of Muckalee, Co. Kilkenny, in 1861. I believe that the following 14 children are theirs: Bridget (1861), Ellen (1863), Mary (1865), Margaret (1866), Edward (1868), Anne (1870), Michael (1871), Martin (1873), Bernard (1876), Margaret (1878), Bernard or Brian (1880), Thomas (1882), James (1884) and Patrick James (1887). Brian CONDREN senior died before 1901, but his widow Mary is found in the 1901 census with her daughter Mary and sons Michael, Martin and Bernard. Mary CONDREN senior died in 1904. In 1911, son Michael is living with his wife Mary (nee HARDING), whom he married in Clogh in 1907, and their three children. Martin, who is recorded as a widow (he may have married a Bridget HARDING - Mary's sister, perhaps? - in 1908, in which case she probably died in 1910), is living with his brothers Bernard and Thomas. All these households are living in the townland of Chatsworth, near Clogh. Another son, Edward, is living with his wife Mary (nee BROPHY), whom he married in Castlecomer in 1901, in the townland of Croghtenclogh with their three children. All these places are less than a mile from the border with Queens County.

The second couple is also - confusingly - Brian (sometimes recorded as Bernard) CONDREN, who married Bridget FOGARTY in 1873. I believe they had two children: John (1876) and Thomas (1878). By 1901, Brian has died and his widow Bridget and son John are living in the townland of Uskerty, together with Brian's sister Eliza. By 1911, Eliza has died but Mary and her son John are still living in Uskerty. Two years later, in 1913, John married a Julia BANIM in Coon, Co. Kilkenny, and their descendants now live in Ireland, England and Australia. I am grateful to correspondent Kathy Clare who has given me information about this CONDREN line.

As always, I would welcome any corrections or additional information about the topic of this post: email condran [AT] one-name.org .

Little Ireland, and an Offaly update

Three months ago I wrote about a puzzle of three CONDRON families of Cloghan, Co. Offaly ("Family 1", "Family 2", "Family 3") because I could find no link between them. I still have not solved that puzzle, though I have found out some more about at least one of the families. In the 1871 UK census, the following members of "Family 3" are living in Hulme, south Manchester: John (age 2) with his parents William (age 28) and Judith (nee ROURKE) and younger sister Jane (age 10 months). In the same household are two other CONDRON families: Thomas (age 30) with wife and one child, and Michael (age 32) with his wife Joanna (nee WALSHE or WELSH). Everyone except Thomas's child was born in Ireland. Could Thomas perhaps be the same Thomas who was head of "Family 2" in Cloghan? It seems quite likely though not proven that William, Thomas and Michael are brothers. One small piece of supporting evidence is that Michael's marriage record to Joanna at St Wilfrid's RC church in Hulme shows that his father was called John, which I know also to be the name of William's father.

The historic townships of Hulme and Chorlton-on-Medlock (not to be confused with Chorlton-cum-Hardy) lie within the registration district of Chorlton, which is located just to the south of Manchester and was separated from it by the River Medlock. (Today this area is very much part of Manchester). Many Irish immigrants lived in Hulme and Chorlton-on-Medlock in the nineteenth century, many CONDR*Ns among them. More than 70 CONDR*N births are recorded in Chorlton between 1845 and 1900.

One area adjacent to the Medlock was known as Little Ireland because of the high density of Irish immigrants living there, and is described in horrific detail by Friedrich Engels in his 1844 book, The Condition of the Working Class in England. Of the Medlock, Engels say, "Along both sides of the stream, which is coal black, stagnant and foul, stretches a broad belt of factories and working-men's dwellings, the latter all in the worst condition." And he goes on:

But the most horrible spot ...  lies on the Manchester side, immediately south-west of Oxford Road, and is known as Little Ireland. In a rather deep hole, in a curve of the Medlock and surrounded on all four sides by tall factories and high embankments, covered with buildings, stand two groups of about two hundred cottages, built chiefly back to back, in which live about four thousand human beings, most of them Irish. The cottages are old, dirty, and of the smallest sort, the streets uneven, fallen into ruts and in part without drains or pavement; masses of refuse, offal and sickening filth lie among standing pools in all directions; the atmosphere is poisoned by the effluvia from these, and laden and darkened by the smoke of a dozen tall factory chimneys. A horde of ragged women and children swarm about here, as filthy as the swine that thrive upon the garbage heaps and in the puddles. ... The race that lives in these ruinous cottages, behind broken windows, mended with oilskin, sprung doors, and rotten door-posts, or in dark, wet cellars, ... this race must really have reached the lowest stage of humanity. ... [I]n each of these pens, containing at most two rooms, a garret and perhaps a cellar, on the average twenty human beings live.

Apparently, and fortunately, Little Ireland was demolished in about 1847. One can only hope that the CONDR*Ns and others who lived in Chorlton district lived in better conditions than Engels so harrowingly described.

Rooting for Jedward!

I admit I'm not a a great fan of the Eurovision Song Contest.  But CONDR*Ns everywhere will have reason to cheer on the Irish entry in the contest this Saturday, 26 May. For the second year in a row, Ireland will be represented by the pop duo Jedward. And Jedward (pictured above) - real names John and Edward GRIMES - are CONDRONs through their mother's side.

I don't generally blog about living CONDRONs, but as all the information here has been obtained from the web, I can say that the twins were born in October 1991 to parents John GRIMES and Susanna CONDRON. Their grandparents were Kevin and Susan CONDRON, of Lucan, and their mother Susanna is one of three sisters. Here's a picture of their granddad Kevin (front row, far right) and great-uncle Francie (front row, far left) as boys in Lucan in 1936 on making their first Holy Communion, according to the Lucan Newsletter.

If any family member, or anyone else, can tell me more about Jedward's CONDRON ancestry, I'd be interested to know.  There have been CONDRONs in Lucan - which is located west of Dublin, near the border between Co. Kildare and Co. Dublin - for more than two hundred years. According to the Lucan Newsletter, the CONDRON family came to Lucan as lock keepers of the 12th Lock on the Grand Canal in the 1750s, and generations of CONDRONs have been lock keepers there since: I plan to post a blog about this CONDRON line some time in the future. But whether the Jedward CONDRONs are related to the lock keepers I have yet to establish. Any further information on the Lucan CONDRONs would be gratefully received.

Good luck, Jedward!

One hundred and eleven descendants of the Widnes CONDRONs

One of the largest CONDRON family trees that I have reconstructed in the UK contains many CONDRONs in Widnes and the northwest of England who are descendants of Patrick CONDRON (born about 1840 in County Wicklow, Ireland). Patrick and his wife, Bridget HAYES, have at least 111 descendants who bear the CONDRON name by birth (rather than by marriage), including their six children, 23 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren, 30 great-great-grandchildren and 28 3xgreat-grandchildren (that I know of).

John Hutchinson founded an alkali factory in Widnes in 1847

Patrick and Bridget probably got married in Ireland, since their first daughter Mary Ann was born in Dublin, but I have not yet located their marriage (can you help me?). In the 1871 census the family is living in Windle, near St Helens in the historic county of Lancashire. By the time of the 1881 census, the family had moved some ten miles south to Widnes. Patrick and at least four of his five sons worked as alkali factory (or chemical factory) workers in Widnes. They may well have worked at the alkali factory founded by John Hutchinson (pictured) which was situated near where the Sankey canal joins the River Mersey in Widnes. The alkali factory is likely to have produced caustic soda and caustic potash, used in many commercial applications including soap-making.

 Patrick and Bridget's children were Mary Ann (born about 1863, who married Thomas WELSH in 1884), Richard (1867), John (1870), Thomas (1873), Patrick (1875) and James (1879).

Richard (1867) married Jane SLATER in 1900. Jane died in 1906 and he then married Ellen SLATER - Jane's sister, perhaps? - in 1915. Richard had children Mary Ann (1900), Ellen, Jane, Alice, Thomas, John, Anthony and Philip.

John (1870) married Mary O'CONNOR in 1896. They had children Michael (1897), Sarah (1899), John (1900), Mary (1903) and Frances (1905).

Patrick (1875) married Margaret GLEAVE in 1898. They had children Thomas (1899), Margaret (1902), Martha (1904), Eileen (1906), James (1910), Sarah (1912), Lilian, Alan, Francis and Cyril. Patrick and Margaret gave rise to quite a number of Widnes CONDRONs today, in particular through their son Thomas (1899) who married Jessie GLOVER.

I have omitted birth dates which occurred less than 100 years ago. I can though share further details with any descendants of Patrick and Bridget who contact me.  As usual, I’d be grateful for any further information or corrections. Email condran[AT]one-name.org  .

Most dates above should be read as “about …”: they could be off by a year – for example, if a birth was registered in the first quarter of 1897, it could have occurred in late 1896 or early 1897.

I’m grateful to Gemma Condron for sharing Patrick (1875)’s birth certificate via ancestry.com: this is the source for Bridget’s surname as HAYES.

What's in a Place Name?

The places in Ireland some of our CONDR*N ancestors came from have such evocative names.  Many times, the place name is an anglicized version of the Gaelic, which is descriptive of the place's physical geography, topography or history.

For example, Tullamore in County Offaly (King's County) comes from the Gaelic Tulach Mhór, meaning Big hill.  Tulach means hill, and Mhór or Mór means big.

Dublin is an anglicized version of Dubh Linn, meaning Black pool.  Dubh means black and Linn means pool.  In this case, as can be seen from the road signs pictured above, the modern Gaelic name is different: the modern Gaelic name for Dublin is Baile Átha Cliath (or just Áth Cliath), meaning Town of the hurdled ford.

And some place names in English and Gaelic are straight translations of one another.  So in the picture above, the names Blackrock and Carraig Dhubh are literal translations of one another (Carraig = rock, and Dhubh or Dubh = black).

Some place names are even older, and derive from the Norse name.  For example, Arklow in County Wicklow comes from the Norse meaning Arnkell’s meadow.

Here are some places that CONDR*Ns come from, their Gaelic names, and their meaning.

• Athlone (Westmeath), Átha Luain, Luan’s ford
• Ballylynan (Queen’s Co.), Baile Uí Laigheanáin, O Laigheanan’s homestead
• Clogh (Kilkenny), Cloch, Stone castle
• Cloghan (King’s Co.), Clochán, Stony place
• Clonmacnoise (King’s Co.), Cluain Mhic Nóis, Pasture of the descendants of Noas
• Clonmore (Carlow), Cluain Mhór, Large pasture
• Donaghmore (Wicklow), Domhnach Mór, Big church
• Kilbeggan (Westmeath), Cill Bheagáin, Beagan’s church
• Rahan (King’s Co.), Raithean, Ferny place
• Rathdrum (Wicklow), Ráth Droma, Fort of the ridge
• Screggan (King’s Co.), Screagán, Rough place
• Shandrum (Cork), Seandroma, Old fort
• Stradbally (Queen’s Co.), Sráidbhaile, Street-town
• Tubber (King’s Co.), Tobar, Well
• Tullamore (King’s Co.), Tulach Mhór, Big hill

My source for this information is the book, “Irish Place Names”, by Deirdre and Laurence Flanagan.  If there are any other Irish place names you’d like to know the meaning of, let me know – I’ll do my best!  Email condran[AT]one-name.org

Michael CONDRAN of Ellalong, Wollombi

Panorama near Ellalong, NSW.  © Stuart Johnson

In my last blog post I said that newspapers are a great resource. Their announcements can provide extra detail and corroborative evidence of information from other sources.

Here then for those researching Michael CONDRAN of Ellalong, Wollombi (born about 1812, and patriarch of many present-day CONDRANs in New South Wales) and his descendants are some snippets from The Sydney Morning Herald (unless stated otherwise) between 1880 and 1910.

28 August 1880 - MARRIAGES, in The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser
DOYLE-CONDRAN.-July 23, at St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney by the Rev. Father Ryan, Michael Doyle, of the Star Hotel, to Katie, fifth daughter of Michael Condran, Ellalong, Wollombi.

23 August 1884 - MARRIAGES
BARDSLEY--CONDRAN. -August 19, at St. Mary's Cathedral,   by the Rev. Dean Mahoney, Robert Bardsley, of Chapel-on-le-Frith, Derbyshire, England, to Mary Ann (Annie), second daughter of the late Michael Condran, Ellalong, Wollombi.

30 April 1887 - MARRIAGES (also in The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser on 16 April)
FERGUSON-CONDRAN,-April 12th, at St, Michael's, by the Rev. Father Coue, John A. Ferguson, of Sydney, to Victoria Elizabeth, sixth daughter of the late M. C. Condran, of Wollombi.

4 May 1895 - DEATHS
CAZEAU.-March 16, at Sydney, late of Marrickville, after a long and painful illness, Frederic, dearly-beloved husband of Julia Alice Cazeau, and son-in-law of the late M. Condran, Ellalong, Wollombi, aged 43 years.  R.I.P.

6 May 1897 - MARRIAGES
JONES-CAZEAU.-April 28, at Sydney, by the Rev. W. Woolls-Rutledge, Charles Dury Jones, of Sydney, to Julia Alice, third daughter of the late M. Condran, Ellalong, Wollombi.

21 September 1906 - DEATHS
BARDSLEY.-September 20, Mary Anne, second eldest daughter of the late M. Condran, of Ellalong, N.S.W., aged 53 years.  R.I.P.

12 September 1908 - DEATHS
CONDRAN-September 10 at her residence 3 George-street North, Mary Condran, widow of the late Michael Condran, of Wollombi, in her 84th year. R.I.P.

This is all consistent with information I previously had from other sources, that Michael CONDRAN and Mary Ann CONDRON (nee HANLEY) had the following children, born between 1848 and 1867: Ellen, Maryanne, Julia, Bridget, Thomas Henry, Michael, John, Catherine (Kate), Joseph Andrew, Elizabeth and Agnes.

As always, I'd welcome corrections or further information about this family.

I am grateful to Tracy Rogers for drawing my attention to Trove, the wonderful online archive of Australian newspapers which is the source for the above information.

The panoramic photograph is copyright of Stuart Johnson, who has taken a number of striking photographs of the Australian natural environment. Higher resolution versions of the photograph may be obtained via Google Earth or from the photographer.