Mohill Parish Baptism Registries

MarkCT · Post by **MarkCT** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 7:35 am

Upon recent research of Mohill Parish records at my local LDS center, I found what I believe to be the baptism registry of my great-great grandfather. The format is as follows:

John of John Mulligan and Bridget Bohan
John Bohan and Anna Ward
-J Bohan

While John Mulligan and Bridget Bohan are obviously the parents of my g-g-grandfather...are John Bohan and Anna Ward the parents of Bridget - my great-great-great-great grandparents?!?!

I also believe that the last J Bohan is the pastor's name.
Anyone have any idea about the format for these registries?
Thanks!

Tom Coughlan · Post by **Tom Coughlan** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 7:57 am

Mark, the likelihood is that the second couple named were the sponsors of the baptism. I know the register is a nightmare to read - is there something that could read sprs or similar listed before or immediately after the second couple?

Tom

MarkCT · Post by **MarkCT** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 8:43 am

Ahh sponsors - that would make sense. Were sponsors usually friends of the family? I just thought it was odd that one of the sponsors had the same last name as the mother - then again, it was a very common surname.

I guess the best way to trace Irish lineage is by word of mouth! :\

Jim Irvine · Post by **Jim Irvine** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 8:59 am

Mark said >I guess the best way to trace Irish lineage is by word of mouth

Aaaaarghhh!!! No! No! a thousand times no!!!!

Oops! I just noticed the smiley!!

I am often asked: "how does one start to research their family tree?"

My answer is always "ask all your older relatives for all the information they can remember. Drain them of every drop of information. Then disregard 95% of it as complete and utter nonsense!"

As to your main query - Yes, the second couple are sponsors/godparents etc. They are sometimes a valuable hint if you are stuck because quite often they are related to the family. You can't count on this, but sometimes it indicates a direction to take if you're really stuck.

As to J Bohan the pastor. This is possible. I haven't looked at Mohill records so I don't know their practice. It seems like every parish, obeying Sinatra, did it their way and some were more useful than others. Cloone for example gives a townland with every birth which really does help.

MarkCT · Post by **MarkCT** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:08 am

haha... you don't place much validity on relatives' accounts, eh?

thanks for the reply ... It seems that Mohill just lists the parents, sponsors and pastor. Another annoying thing with this registry is that the years skip around and many pages don't even have dates on them! You go from 1838 -1839 -1840 - back to 1838 - 1841 - back to 1840...haha it's an easy way to get a headache.

ANother thing that makes it difficult is that the dates listed are baptism dates - not actual birthdates.

Why oh why did the Dublin records office have to burn down!!