The Children of William Hickey and Bridget Minogue

Confidence is a big deal when it comes to dealing with your family tree.  Sourcing a family line can be difficult, timeconsuming, expensive, and challenging depending on the location and the availability of documentation.  I have found that the best way to preserve documentation is to share it with other family members and post it here in my blog.  At this point in time, I feel confident enough in my findings for the following family unit to post it here in my blog.

The following information is courtesy of the Clare Heritage Centre, Corfin, Co. Clare, Ireland.  This information is a result of research with a date of April 10, 1992.  The following children are indicated in the Roman Catholic (RC) Church records for the parish of Inishcaltra-Clonrush which is more commonly known at the parish of Whitegate-Mountshannon.  The parish has been part of County Clare since around 1869 but was part of County Galway prior to that timeframe.

The records indicate Hickey children born to William Hickey and Bridget Minogue between 1883 and 1900.  At the time in 1992, church records from 1900 forward in time had not been indexed.  The following are William and Bridget's children found on record with their baptismal sponsors:

Mary - May 29, 1883 - Henry and Bridget Bugler
Patrick - Nov. 26, 1884 - John Browne for Walter Hickey and Mrs. Noonan
Ellen - Nov. 27, 1886 - William and Mary Browne
Michael - Jan. 1, 1888 - Bridget Bugler and Ann Noonan
Martin - Nov. 7, 1889 - Michael Taylor and Margaret Long
Timothy - Jan. 14, 1891 - Martin Long and Catherine Salmon
Bridget - Mar. 14, 1892 - Richard Sammon and Bridget Taylor
Elizabeth - Apr. 7, 1893 - Tom Mungavin and Winnie Hayes
Anne - Jun. 29, 1894 - ML. Noonan and Bridget Touhy
Margaret - Jan. 21, 1898 - ML. Noonan and Mary Dinan
William - Apr. 7, 1899 - Pat and Bridget Touhy
Ellen - May 16, 1900 - William and Mary Dinan

As you can see William and Bridget had a large family.  The above dates may, in fact, be the baptism dates for all of the children as opposed to their birthdates.  Patrick is my great grandfather by the way.  I have his date of birth on his death certificate as Nov. 22, 1884.  There are two Ellen's as it is presumed that the first Ellen passed away rather young and they reused the name which is something not uncommon.  I have found this time and time again in several branches of my family tree.  So were there only 12 children?  Not exactly. 

There is a John Hickey who is indicated as the son of William and Bridget living with them in 1911.  He was indicated as 15 years old in the Irish Census at the time.  He would have been born in 1896.  The Clare Heritage Centre admits that his baptism may not have been properly recorded.  There is also a Thomas in the 1911 Irish Census in this Hickey household.  He is 9 years old and would have been born in 1902, or thereabouts, since he is 9 years old.  The following is the 1911 Irish Census for William Hickey's household:

As indicated on the full record, only 9 out of the 14 children are still living by this time.  I know by 1911 that Patrick had already immigrated to the U.S. as had a few of his siblings.  There are still a fair amount of children living at home.  It would appear that Timothy was the the son to carry on the farming.  It is good to know that everyone could read and write.  As no surprise to me, everyone is Roman Catholic.  I do think that it is interesting that some of the children were born in Co. Galway while others were born in Co. Clare.  They were all probably born in Derrycon including their mother, Bridget.  Again, the shifting county border might have changed the legal county but it's still the same location.