A to Z April Challenge: S is for Anne (Sarsfield) Radcliffe

Genealogists always want to know where their ancestors are buried. It’s not just to see what else they might learn from their gravesites. It’s more than that. It’s a need to connect with them, to know they’re ‘at peace’. Many countless hours are spent seeking out their final resting place, so to help ensure they're not forgotten again, I'm creating a virtual graveyard, incorporating a memorial for each one. S is for Sarsfield - Anne (Sarsfield) Radcliffe, my maternal fourth-great-grandmother.

Anne (Sarsfield) Radcliffe

Birth:	Abt. 1799
	Ireland
Death:	18 December 1866 (aged 67 years)
	Yellow Walls, Malahide, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Burial:	December 1866
	Abbey Graveyard
	Malahide Castle, Malahide, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Plot:	See below - X marks the spot
Link to:	Memorial at Find A Grave

Headstone:
In 1996, Michael Egan visited this grave and published a volume of the Memorials of the Dead, transcribing the memorials on the headstones in the Abbey Graveyard, Malahide. His transcription of the Radcliffe headstone reads:

‘IHS | Erected | by | Peter Radcliffe | of Malahide | in memory of his beloved wife | Anne, who departed this life | Decr 18th 1866 | Aged 67 years.’

Egan also describes the condition of the headstone in the mid-1990s, as:

made of limestone with a granite base, in good condition, but lying on its face. At the top, above the inscription, there was a Maltese cross on the IHS, with a ‘large sunburst’.

Map of Graveyard - X marks the Radcliffe Grave:

Adapted excerpt - Michael Egan, Memorials of the Dead,
showing Radcliffe Gravesite

Links to memorials of immediate family members:

Spouse:	Peter Radcliffe (1798-1887), m. 1825)
Son:	John Radcliffe (1827-1866)
Son:	Thomas Radcliffe (1829-1905)
Son:	Peter Radcliffe (1833-1891)
Son:	Joseph Radcliffe (1835-1918)
Son:	Christopher Radcliffe (1844-1872)

My intention is to create a virtual graveyard with a memorial for each of my ancestors. The category 'Theme: Virtual Graveyard', seen on the right, is the graveyard gate. Clicking here, you enter my graveyard. You can visit each grave, irrespective of where in the world they are physically located.

Links for my direct ancestors above are, or will be, to their memorial in the 'virtual graveyard' at Black Raven Genealogy. Links for members of their immediate family are to a memorial at Find A Grave, if one has been created. Find A Grave is an online collection of gravesites and memorials from around the world.



The 'A to Z April Challenge' - 26 blog posts, in 26 days, with 26 letters of the alphabet, and one post dedicated to each letter.

Seeking my Ancestors in the Irish Catholic Parish Registers

No doubt, you’ve all heard our National Library recently published the historic ‘Catholic Parish Registers’ online, for all the world to view. Well, like other genealogists, I too have been enjoying the fruits of their labour.

Granted, transcriptions of most of these registers have long been available on the RootsIreland.ie web-site. And, as I live near Dublin, it has always been reasonably easy to validate these transcripts against copies of the registers held at the Library. Now though, not only can I do this from home, but I'm finding records seemingly missed or completely mis-transcribed, by RootsIreland.ie.

And, one such record was the long-sought marriage of my fourth great-grandparents, Peter Radcliffe and Anne Sarsfield, from Malahide, Co. Dublin. We already know quite a lot about Peter. He was a plasterer-cum-painter, who worked for Lord Talbot at Malahide Castle, and lived to the ripe-old age of about ninety years. But, until the copy registers became available, the earliest record relating to this family was dated May 1826, when their son Peter was baptised.

Then, I found, on 3 July 1825, exactly when and where expected, Peter Ratty (a common nickname for Radcliffe) married Anne Sarsfield, in Swords Roman Catholic church. Their witnesses were Thomas Tully and Catherine Ratty.

Swords, Co. Dublin, 1825, Marriage of Peter Ratty & Anne Sarsfield

Unfortunately however, as was customary in the parish at that time, their parents’ names were not recorded. 

So, we’ll probably never find anything to directly link this Peter to the baptism of Peter Ratty in the neighbouring parish of Baldoyle, in November 1798.  Hence, there is likely no surviving document to confirm his parents were Thomas Ratty and Mary Cullen.  

Yet, I strongly suspect these were his parents, and not only because the surname was fairly uncommon in Dublin, or because of their proximity to Malahide, but also because our Peter named his third son Thomas and his only daughter Mary. But, that's not quite 'proof'.

Thomas and Mary’s marriage was likewise discovered in the newly released registers. They married in Baldoyle, on 29 June 1790, making this the very earliest record ever found for one of my ancestors (if indeed, Thomas and Mary were Peter’s parents). The witnesses to the marriage were Barney Cullen, Barney Barrett and Rose Doyle.

Baldoyle, Co. Dublin, 1790, Marriage of Thomas Ratty & Mary Cullen

The Baldoyle parish registers also reveal the names of Thomas and Mary’s children - John, born in 1791, Thomas in 1792, another John in 1794, Mark in 1797, Peter in 1798, Ellen in 1806 and finally, Margaret, who was born in 1809. A gap in the records between December 1800 and August 1806 probably conceals the names of some more, one of whom might have been Catherine, the witness to Peter and Anne’s marriage.

Nearly everything I know about Thomas and Mary, my would-be fifth great-grandparents, is here, in the baptisms of their children. So, this is where I’ll concentrate the search to ‘prove’ our relationship.

And, it was their daughter Ellen who I found first. Named as Ellenor Radcliffe, she married Michael Harford in Baldoyle, in June 1835. This was ten years after Peter had established himself, five miles up the coast, at Malahide. Michael and Ellen had five children baptised in Baldoyle before 1844, and then their names ceased to appear in the church registers.

Sadly, nothing was found to link Ellen’s family back to our Peter and Anne. The only known family connection I recognised was Mark Radcliffe, Ellen’s elder brother. He sponsored the baptism of Mary, their second child, thus, confirming he survived childhood, and opening up another avenue for research.

Sources: Parishes of Swords and Baldoyle, Catholic Parish Registers, National Library or Ireland; Church records, RootsIreland.ie. 

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© 2015 Black Raven Genealogy

A new ‘cousin’ and a sad accident

This week started out on a new ancestral trail, that of Joseph Sarsfield, a witness to my GGG-grandfather John Radcliffe’s second marriage in 1861. If you think tragedy only followed our Radcliffe lineage, think again, for poor Joseph met with a most horrific end. 

Great Lonsdale Street East (1864) by Francois Cogne (1829-1883),

with the Church of St Francis left-centre

On 5 January 1861, John Radcliffe, the son of Peter Radcliffe and Anne Sarsfield from County Dublin, married Bridget Flanagan in Church of St Francis, Melbourne. In the nineteenth century, ‘Sarsfield’ was an uncommon surname, both in Dublin and Melbourne, so their best-man, Joseph Sarsfield, was likely John’s maternal cousin, or uncle, or at least related somehow.  Identifying his roots in Ireland might just provide a clue to the origins of John’s mother, my GGGG-grandmother, Anne (Sarsfield) Radcliffe, so Joseph was worth pursuing.[1] 

Joseph Sarsfield married Catherine Buckley, on 6 November 1862, also in the Church of St Francis in Melbourne.[2] This couple went on to have twelve or more children: Emily (1863-1867), Mary (1865-1867), John Joseph (b. 1867), Michael Christopher (c. 1869-1920), Thomas (b. aft.1869), Catherine (c.1873-1962), Mary Ellen (1875-1875), Peter (c.1877-1923), Mary Josephine (1877-1933), Elizabeth (1877-1961), an unnamed male child who lived for only one day in 1878 and Joseph Patrick (1880-1945).[3] Joseph died on 7 April 1880, leaving his widow almost destitute, with eight surviving children, the youngest child being only days old. At the time of his death, Joseph worked as a porter with the Victorian Railway and was stationed at Toolamba, 180 kilometres north of Melbourne.[4] 

A search of contemporary Australian newspapers revealed just how tragically Joseph died. He was walking home along the railway, having apparently visited ‘some shanties’ nearby, when he was hit by the last train from Seymour to Shepparton, as it approached Toolamba. The driver told the station master at Toolamba he had run over something.  A search was organised and they discovered Joseph’s mutilated and decapitated body lying beside the tracks. His was the first fatal accident on the Goulburn Valley Railway. Luckily, for Joseph, he was killed instantly and did not suffer.[4] 

Death of Joseph Sarsfield, Toolamba, 1880

Bendigo Advertiser, 16 April 1880, p. 2.

It was thought Joseph may not have heard the train coming, though no further explanation as to why he did not hear it was reported in the newspapers - maybe he was hard of hearing, or just too drunk. It seems his death was not registered and there was no mention of an inquest in the newspapers, so it is unlikely we’ll ever now know. 

Joseph’s marriage certificate confirmed he was born in Dublin, Ireland, to Christopher Sarsfield and Mary Duffe, twenty-seven years previously.  I had already identified Christopher as being a potential sibling of my GGGG-grandmother Anne (Sarsfield) Radcliffe. Between 1829 and 1846, he and Mary Duff(e) had ten children baptised in Rush, County Dublin, which was less than twenty kilometres north of Anne’s home in Malahide. They had a son Joseph born in 1831.[5] Christopher Sarsfield was living on Lambay Island, off the Dublin coast, in 1847 and remained there until the 1860s.[6] 

So, it might be worth taking a closer look at this Sarsfield-Duff(e) family in Dublin!

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[1] Radcliffe-Flanagan marriage certificate, 1861, Birth Deaths Marriages Victoria. 

[2] Sarsfield-Buckley marriage certificate, 1862, same.

[3] ‘Australia Victoria BMD historical index’, Archive.org; Death notice, Catherine Sarsfield, The Argus, 27 August 1918, p. 1, Trove.  

[4] Bendigo Advertiser, 16 April 1880, p. 2; The McIvor Times and Rodney Advertiser, 15 April 1880, p. 2, Trove. 
[5] Baptism index, Rush Roman Catholic Church, Rootsireland.ie (subscription).

[6] Griffith’s Valuation, Ask about Ireland; McCullagh-Sarsfield marriage register, 1860, IrishGenealogy,ie. 

Image credit: Great Lonsdale Street East (1864) by Francois Cogne 1829-1883, State Library of Victoria.

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© 2014 Black Raven Genealogy

Abbey Graveyard at Malahide Castle, Co. Dublin

Anne Radcliffe (c.1799 – 1866)

Interred, Abbey Graveyard, Malahide Castle

Many of my ancestors are, no doubt, buried in the Abbey Graveyard adjacent Malahide Castle.  There was never a sexton attached to the graveyard and the location of burial records, if indeed records were ever kept is unknown.  In 1877, the Talbots obtained a court order limiting the number of burials to eight in any one year. The graveyard is now closed completely and its gates are locked, so public access is difficult. However, I remember from my childhood that there were two headstones for my Radcliffe ancestors still standing there.  

Michael Egan transcribed the memorial inscriptions on the headstones in the graveyard and published them in his Memorials of the Dead, in 1996. My fourth-great-grandmother, Anne (Sarsfield) Radcliffe was interred there in 1866 and her son, my third-great-granduncle, Christopher Radcliffe followed in 1872.

Michael Egan’s transcription of Anne’s headstone reads:

‘IHS | Erected | by | Peter Radcliffe | of Malahide | in memory of his beloved wife | Anne, who departed this life | Decr 18th 1866 | Aged 67 years.’

Egan also describes the condition of her headstone, in the mid-1990s. It was made of limestone with a granite base, in good condition, but lying on its face. At the top, above the inscription, there was a Maltese cross on the IHS, with a ‘large sunburst’.

Christopher’s headstone was transcribed as:

‘Erected | by | Mrs. Mary Radcliffe, | of Malahide, | in memory of her beloved husband | Mr. Christopher Radcliffe, | who departed this life | on the 15th day of March 1872, | aged 31 years. | May he rest in peace. Amen. | Not gone from memory, nor from love, | But gone to our father's home above.’

Egan’s mid-1990s description of the condition of his headstone advises it was made of limestone and was in fair condition, but also fallen forward. Above the transcription was an ‘elaborate equal-armed cross’ and shamrocks.

Chances are that my fourth-great-grandfather, Peter Radcliffe, was also interred in the Abbey graveyard. He died on St. Patrick’s Day, 17 March 1887, aged about 90 years. Even though his name was never added to the headstone, I’d like to think he shares a grave with his wife, Anne. He fought in the courts for the right to be buried with her, so it would certainly have meant a lot to him.

See also: Peter Radcliffe and the Abbey Graveyard, Malahide.

Source: Michael Egan, Memorials of the Dead, no. 9, 1996, p. 153.

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© 2014 Black Raven Genealogy

‘Hello Ratty’

As you know from my previous posts, I have been looking at our Radcliffe lineage in the past few weeks and believe I have made another really exciting break-through. I may even have found some 5^th great-grandparents.

Our Radcliffe Pedigree 

My 3^rd great-granduncle, Joseph Radcliffe (1835-1918), brother of John above, was known to his neighbours in Yellow Walls as ‘Ratty’. I had always thought that this was merely an unfortunate nickname. ‘Ratty’ was the last member of our Radcliffe family known to have lived in Malahide, Co. Dublin. He died in 1918, yet memory of him survived. Until relatively recently, there was even a disparaging ditty recited locally concerning his abilities as a house-painter,  but unfortunately, I do not know the words.  

Ratty is certainly not a widely known variant of the Radcliffe surname, even though the renowned Irish genealogist, Edward MacLysaght, recognised it as an 'occasional abbreviation’.  No consistent spelling for 'Radcliffe' was used by my family over the years and I have searched for all the variants. However, never before did I think to check for ‘Ratty’ as a surname. Not until recently.

When I did, I found three more children born to my 4^th great-grandparents Peter Radcliffe and Anne Sarsfield. Their baptisms were recorded in the same Roman Catholic Church, where I had found the baptism of John Radcliffe - St Colmcille’s, Swords.

Originally, I had discovered the following children:

• Peter Ratcliff baptised on 4 May 1826; 
• John Ratcliff on 15 June 1827, my 3^rd great-grandfather; 
• Joseph Radcliff on 1 November 1835; and 
• Christopher Radcliff on 2 June 1841.

Now, I can add three more children to the list, nicely filling the eight-year gap between John and Joseph: 

• Thomas Ratty baptised on 19 Jul 1829;
• The only daughter, Mary Ratty on 9 July 1831; and
• Peter Ratty on 6 August 1833. 

The first Peter, born in 1826, may have died in childhood, with the name being reused for the next boy born.

This Ratty surname has opened up a whole new avenue for further research into our Ratcliff(e)/Radcliff(e) lineage.  It has also provided the names of six additional Godparents, some of whom may well be related to Peter and Anne, and perhaps hold the clues necessary to extend their pedigrees back another generation.

Unfortunately, Peter and Anne’s marriage record is still not immediately obvious in St Colmcille’s records, or in the surrounding parishes. However, I may have found Peter’s baptism record.  A Peter Ratty was baptised in the nearby Baldoyle parish, on 25 November 1798. His siblings’ baptisms were also recorded - John Ratty in 1791, Thomas in 1792, a second John in 1794, Mark in 1797, Ellen in 1806 and Margaret in 1809. Peter’s parents, and possibly my 5^th great-grandparents, were named as Thomas Ratty and Mary Cullen. Coincidentally, or not, these names were given to two of Peter and Anne's children. It's not a common name in Ireland, but it seems that there were two men named Thomas Ratty living in Baldoyle at this same time, adding complications to the search. 

My 4^th great-grandfather, Peter Radcliffe, died on 17 March 1887, and his son Joseph registered his age as 90 years. A 1798 baptism is therefore quite feasible. Proving it, however, is another matter entirely.

Sources:  Edward MacLysaght, The Surnames of Ireland (Dublin, 1985), p. 255; Church records, RootsIreland.ie.

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© 2014 Black Raven Genealogy

What happened to John Radcliffe – Answered

Last week, I wrote about the search for my illusive great-great-great-grandfather, John Radcliffe.  This week you will be delighted to know that he has been located - all thanks to our cousin Phyllis, in California. Phyllis carried out a quick search on Ancestry.com and found a record of his death. It’s hard to fathom how my numerous fruitless searches missed this record, but here it is, now painfully apparent.

 

John Radcliffe, death register index, 1866, Victoria, Australia.

This surely was our John Radcliffe, with his parent’s names correctly listed as Peter Radcliffe and Ann Sarsfield.  We know he was baptised in June 1827, so the estimated birth year given was out by a couple of years, but that was not unusual. He did travel to Australia, just like family lore recalled, but more than a decade prior to when we had suspected. Tragically, he died so very young, not having even reached his fortieth birthday.  

This record opened up a whole new waft of questions. Did his daughter, Anne Radcliffe, travel to Australia with him, only to return to Ireland before her marriage in 1869? More likely she was left behind in Malahide. What about Anne’s mother, Mary? Did she go with him? When exactly did he set off and where in Victoria had he lived?  Why did he die so young? Did he leave a family behind?

Next, I searched the Australian newspapers for an obituary.  Australian newspapers, which have been digitalised and are freely available online, are full of family history information and the notice of John’s death was easily located in a Melbourne paper, The Argus, on 1 November 1866.

John Radcliffe, death notice, 1866, Victoria, Australia

This adds additional comfort that we have located the correct person. John Radcliffe, who died on 30 October 1866, had connections to Dublin and was a builder – our John had been a plasterer in Dublin. It gives his former place of residence as Bay Street in Sandridge, [now Port Melbourne, a suburb of Melbourne].

The death register itself then answered many of my remaining questions:

Details from the Australian death register, 1866, John Radcliffe

It confirmed John’s origins as Malahide, Co. Dublin. He had traveled to Australia nine years previously, so in about 1857. He had married a Bridget Flannagan in Victoria, in about 1860 and they had settled in Melbourne, but had no children. His brother-in-law, Samuel Nobel, the husband of Bridget’s sister, did not recognise John’s daughter, my great-great-grandmother Anne, so presumably John went to Australia without her. She would have been about eight years old in 1857. Perhaps Anne's mother, Mary, had died beforehand, as we still do not know what happened to her. John died of meningitis, having suffered from the illness for two years.

The Argus also gives us John’s final resting place. He was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery at 2 o’clock p.m. on Thursday, November 1, 1866.

John Radcliffe, funeral notice, 1866, Victoria, Australia

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam / Rest in Peace.

Sources: Ancestry, Ancestry.co.uk; The Argus, 1 November 1866, pp 4, 8, accessed Trove, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ 16 March 2014; Deaths in the district of Sandridge in the colony of Victoria, 1866, accessed http://www.bdm.vic.gov.au/utility/ 17 March 2014.

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© 2014 Black Raven Genealogy.

What happened to John Radcliffe?

John Radcliffe was my 3rd great-grandfather, Kevin Wynne's maternal grandmother's father. Got that? I cannot find what happened to him! But, first, to summarise what I already know about the Radcliffes.

Peter and Anne (Sarsfield) Radcliffe (often spelt Ratcliffe, both variants with and without the ‘e’) set up their home in Yellow Walls, Malahide, Co. Dublin, in the early nineteenth century. Peter seemingly had steady employment at Malahide Castle, where, by 1876, he claimed he had worked as a painter and plasterer for over seventy years.  They rented about four acres of land and a cottage in Yellow Walls, from Lord Talbot of the Castle. (For those that remember, I think the cottage may have been on the Swords Road, where Chris Mahon lived) Presumably, they supplemented Peter’s income by farming this plot for potatoes and other foodstuffs, and maybe even had chickens and a goat.

The baptisms of their seven children, six sons and a daughter, have been found in the records of St Colmcille’s Church, in the nearby town of Swords. In the Roman Catholic division, Malahide formed part of the parish of Swords until well into the twentieth century, so it is not surprising to find these records there.

Peter and Anne Radcliffe were my 4^th great-grandparents. Peter died in 1887, at the stated age of ninety years, while Anne predeceased him in 1866. We descend from their son John, who remains somewhat of a mystery. John was baptised on 15 June 1827.

St Colmcille’s baptism register, June 1827

John’s daughter and my great-great-grandmother was Anne Radcliffe. Anne, aged twenty years, with an address in Yellow Walls, married Maurice Carroll in Swords in 1869. Her marriage certificate confirmed her parents as John and Mary Radcliffe. Mary’s maiden name was not stated. John was recorded as being a plasterer by trade, like his father.

No trace of John and Mary’s marriage, Anne’s baptism, or the baptism records of any other children have yet been found. However, the family may have made a brief appearance in Rainhill, Lancashire, England in the 1851 census, where there was a John Ratcliffe, born in Ireland about 1827, who was a plasterer, living with his wife Mary and their daughter Ann, born about 1849. This matches exactly all the little information already known about my great-great-grandmother’s parents. 

Enumerator’s Book, Rainhill, 1851, John Ratcliffe and family

Interestingly, John’s ten year old sister-in-law, Ellen Slanety, was living with them. This theoretically provides Mary’s maiden name, but while ‘Slanety’ may sound Irish enough, it does not appear to be a valid surname. Perhaps the enumerator had difficulty understanding the Irish accent – ‘Slaney’ maybe?  If indeed, it is them at all.

I may be wrong, but Anne’s marriage record suggests to me that John was alive in 1869 and possibly living in Yellow Walls, as Anne was stated as being a ‘plasterer’s daughter’ living there. I have some further work to do in the Valuation Office to see if I can spot a listing for John's holding in the Irish Cancellation Books. Family lore remembers that the Ratcliffes went to Australia after ‘the court case’ in the 1870s. Peter and Anne Ratcliffe died at Malahide, so perhaps it was John who ended up in Australia. No further record of him has yet been found.

Sources: Irish Times, 7 Oct. 1876; Griffith’s Valuation; Parish records, National Library; Copy marriage certificate, General Register Office; Census of England and Wales, 1851 on Ancestry.co.uk.

Update 22 March 2014: John Radcliffe was found in Melbourne, Australia. See 'What happened to John Radcliffe - Answered'.

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© 2014 Black Raven Genealogy