Irish-Welsh Ancestry

While researching my ancestral parish of Much Marcle, Herefordshire, I uncovered a court record that told a story far more desperate than my own family's hardships. It was the story of Milborough Trilloe, a widowed agricultural labourer, whose life reveals the struggle of survival faced by the rural poor in the 1840s. My Evans family line moved to Wales from this same parish. My ancestor Richard Evans, a one-handed farm labourer, knew relentless toil and tragedy, losing three children in a...

Despite the bleak outlook for John McCarthy during his confinement in Grove Hall Asylum, he eventually managed to leave its walls. The last record of his residence there dates from 1881; at some point thereafter, he left the asylum and returned to Ireland. It is unknown exactly when he returned, but he can be found in records in Co. Cork. By the mid-1890s, John McCarthy had returned to his home area, living within the same environment and exposed to the same health risks as his neighbours....

One of those who survived the Great Hunger was my children’s great-great-grandfather, John McCarthy. He was born around June 1844 in Ballyvourney, Co. Cork. The Ballyvourney baptism register records John McCarthy, son of Owen McCarthy and Ellen Ryan. From later records I do know John had a brother named Denis. I have nothing else on John from the time he was born until he joined the British army. Enlistment and Training John McCarthy enlisted into the British Army (65th Foot) on the 13th of...