Derry City Cemetery records reveal Mary Ann Begley’s parents

I’ve recently decided to renew my subscription for rootsireland.ie for a month and within hours got so much information! RootsIreland is a website that offers transcriptions of births, marriages and deaths – both civil and church records, as well as gravestone inscriptions, and more! They provide only transcriptions, no actual images, but it has much better search options than some other sites – and my favourite – street addresses are also indexed! Family members often lived together, so for example I can run a search for an address and see who else was born, married or died there – then follow checking if they are related to the family which I’m researching.

 

For example, these are the results for the gravestone inscriptions  for “46 Bridge” street  in the period 1895-1905. Some of those names I recognise (Sarah and Ellen are the daughters of Patrick and Mary Ann Kavanagh who died as infants), for others I’m not sure yet if they are related.

Browsing the site I also noticed that they list Plot number for Derry City Cemetery, and I found few family members listed in the same plot (0745). Super excited, I emailed the cemetery to check how can I find out more. (I had since then found out that all graves in Derry City Cemetery seem to be indexed with Plot number 0745 on RootsIreland, but at the time I contacted the cemetery I didn’t know that)

The reply from Dublin City Cemetery was very quick, less than a day, and in their email they included the plot numbers of two separate plots, the names of the plot owners, and a total list of eighteen (18!) people who were buried in those two plots. Some of the names were familiar, others I had no idea who they were.

But the very first name broke through a brick wall!

GRAVE NO MC55 PRORPIETOR CHARLES KAVANAGH – 1 FOYLE ALLEY

Mary Ann o Kane, 46 Bridge St died 1/8/1893 ages 46yrs – Parents: James and Margaret Begley

 

I wasn’t sure how the surname O’Kane relates, but the parents I knew – Begley was the maiden name of Mary Ann Begley who was married to Charles Kavanagh.

I wasn’t sure how Mary Ann O’Kane is related to my Mary Ann Begley, but they had the same first/middle name and were similar age – maybe one name was misspelled and they were sisters?

The death record for Mary Ann held the key – the informant was P. Kavanagh, her son, also living at 46 Bridge Street.

I knew Mary Ann’s first husband, Charles, died prior to 1890 as he was listed diseased in their son’s Charles marriage certificate, and looks like she re-married – her second husband was William Kane, shoemaker and they were married in 1875.

I’m still looking for a record of Charles’ death, which I’ve now narrowed down to be sometime between 1864 (birth of last known child) and 1875 (when Mary Ann re-married).

The last really exciting piece of information that first record in the email from the cemetery contained was the names of Mary Ann’s parents – James and Margaret!

I will be working through the rest of the names in those two graves over the next few days, really excited to see what else will come up!