St John the Baptist Church, Cobh (Queenstown) Via: Cobh Heritage Centre |
Cobh Parish Office, were able to tell me that my 2x great-grandparents, Thomas Jones and Mary Harty had married, on 7 Jan 1844, at St John the Baptist Catholic Church in Cobh (Queenstown). St John the Baptist was the Catholic Church for Cobh from 1810 to 1868, when it was demolished to make way for the bigger St Colman's Cathedral. Nobody in the family had even considered the possibility of an Irish Catholic ancestor.
Thomas Jones, according to his merchant seaman's register ticket, issued on 5 Mar 1847, while on board HMS America, states he was born on 9 Apr 1817, in Swansea, Glamorganshire. (On the 1851 census in England, he is listed as having been born in Swansea, Glamorganshire too.) The merchant ticket goes on to tell us that Thomas Jones, then a Ship's Corporal, was 5 ft 9½ in, with dark brown hair and, it looks like hazel eyes and had a ship [tattoo] on his left arm and a man & woman on his right; that he went to sea as a boy (of 10) in 1827 and, 'when unemployed', resides at Cove of Cork.
Mary Harty, according to what records there are, must have been born around 1821. Although she married in Cobh, I see no reason to assume that she was from there originally. My late cousin in Ireland had said that Mary later went "up country" to where her people were from, so perhaps she may have come to Cobh for work and met Thomas there. What we do know from that 1851 English census is that Mary was born in Ireland and, later from the 1901 Irish census, that she spoke both Irish and English. But I've found no records that tell me where her exact place of birth nor original parish was though.
The 1844 parish marriage record is very scant in detail and does not include the names of the bride and groom's parents and there wasn't civil registration in Ireland at that date, so there aren't any of the usual hints to follow.
The only other clue is that Mary had a younger sister, Ellen Harty (b. 1825), who was visiting them in Sutton Bridge, England in 1851, but who was also one of the sponsors at Nicholas Jones' baptism, in Rath, Ireland in 1853.
Thomas and Mary Jones had six children in all:
- Mary Ann Jones, b. in Ireland in 1844
- Rees Jones, b. 25 May 1849 in Long Sutton, Lincolnshire
- David Jones, b. 10 Jul 1850 in Long Sutton, Lincolnshire
- Anna Jones, bap. 4 Oct 1851 at Sacred Heart Church, Rath
- Nicholas Jones, b. 10 May, bap 17 May 1853 at Sacred Heart, Rath
- Thomas Jones, bap. 17 Sep 1854 at Sacred Heart, Rath
“Erected by David Jones In memory of his beloved father Thos. Jones Who died Jan. 8th 1873 aged 56 years”.
Section S of the Clonmel Old Church Cemetery (Cobh), Cork |