Mary Cashin Condon

Life

How we know this: Very weak: her identity and family connections rest entirely on an unverified our family tree. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

Where they lived

Use the place list first. The map below is optional.

The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 3 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.

Historical context

These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.

What we still don't know

• Birth, parents, marriage, residence, death, and burial
• Whether Patrick Condon and Ellen Condon were both her children
• [A FOURTH SILENCE, AND THIS ONE HAD EVERY REASON TO SPEAK] Her supposed daughter Ellen Condon died at Ipswich, Queensland on 24 August 1882, and the death was registered by someone who knew her well enough to name her father John Condon. The mother's field on that registration is a dash. So the tally against her now runs: her supposed son's 1865 marriage register has no column for a mother; the Castlelyons baptisms 1830–1855 name five wives of John Condons and none is her; the only Condon–Murphy marriage in that parish in forty years is not hers; and now her supposed daughter's death registration, on the other side of the world, leaves the mother blank. One hundred and forty-five people still rest on her.
• [A SPECULATION ABOUT WHERE SHE MIGHT HAVE COME FROM — LABELLED AS SUCH] While sweeping Queensland deaths for Ellen's father, a John Condon turned up who died at Queensland on 15 March 1864, registration 1864/C/239, son of Patrick Condon and Mary Cashell. Set that beside the phantom: a Mary Cashin, wife of a John Condon, mother of a Patrick. The same three names in a different arrangement, in the same colony the family emigrated to. It is not hard to imagine a compiler a century later reading one household into the other. This is a guess and it is filed as one. Nothing ties that man to this family, the spelling differs, and the relationships are inverted rather than matched. It is recorded because a plausible origin for an error is worth having when the error itself has resisted every attempt to source it — and because the next person to wonder where Mary Cashin came from should see this and be able to rule it out faster than I can.
• [THE ALTERNATIVE IS NOW AN ORIGINAL RECORD, NOT AN INDEX ROW] The Castlelyons baptism of Patrick, son of John Condon and Margaret Murphy, 13 May 1838 has been read from the register image itself at the National Library of Ireland. Whatever it finally proves, the comparison is no longer between a documented Mary Cashin and a hypothetical Margaret Murphy. It is between a Mary Cashin who appears in one derivative index quote and nowhere else, and a Margaret Murphy written into the parish register in 1838.
• [A THIRD NEGATIVE, AND THIS ONE NAMES SOMEONE ELSE] A controlled sweep of Castlelyons parish baptisms — the parish where her supposed son married and lived — returns five John Condon households between 1830 and 1855. Their wives are Margaret Murphy, Margaret Cronin, Johanna Cotter, Mary Moynahan and Margaret Joyce. She is not among them. Two earlier searches for the pair John Condon and Mary Cashin returned nothing; this one did not merely fail to find her, it found the parish full of other women. Her only appearance anywhere in this archive is inside the quote on src-041, a derivative index row — and src-577, the register image of that very marriage, has no column for the groom's mother at all. One hundred and forty-five people rest on her.
• [SHE WAS HERE TWICE, AND SHE MAY NOT EXIST AT ALL] She stood in this archive as both Mary Cashin and Mary Cashin Condon, married to the same John Condon, each with a different Patrick for a son. Merged. That is the smaller problem. The larger one is that no record anywhere supports her: her supposed son Patrick's 1865 marriage names only 'John Condon deceased' and no mother; and the Irish Catholic parish registers, now searchable and tested twice, contain no child of any John Condon and any Mary Cashin — not for Patrick, born about 1840, and not for Ellen, born about 1842. Between them those two carry 145 people in this archive. Mary Cashin is a name from a tree with nothing behind it.
• The 1865 marriage does not name Patrick’s mother and cannot prove Mary Cashin as John’s wife or Patrick’s mother; obtain a baptism naming both parents or John and Mary’s marriage.
• The Patrick Condon–Mary Ryan marriage row names only the groom’s father, John Condon deceased; it does not prove Mary Cashin as John’s wife or Patrick’s mother.
• [NEGATIVE] The 1865 marriage successfully names groom’s father John Condon, bride Mary Ryan and her father James Ryan, but has no mother-of-groom field and no Cashin. Six child births consistently say Mary Condon formerly Ryan. A controlled complete linked Dempsey sweep supplied Condon hits but no John Condon–Mary Cashin pair.

References

1. [1] Civil marriage registration — Patrick Condon, 7 September 1865Back to citation 1a Back to citation 1b
2. [2] Irish civil marriage register — Patrick Condon and Mary Ryan, 7 September 1865Back to citation 2
3. [3] civil imageBack to citation 3
4. [4] registerBack to citation 4
5. [5] Castlelyons parish baptisms to a father named John Condon, 1830–1855 — a controlled sweepBack to citation 5
6. [6] Castlelyons parish baptism register — Patrick Condon, 13 May 1838 (register image)Back to citation 6
7. [7] Parish marriage — John Condon and Margt Murphy, March 1836, Castlelyons, Co. CorkBack to citation 7
8. [8] Queensland death registration index 1882/C/2628 — Ellen Hickey, 24 August 1882Back to citation 8
9. [9] Queensland death registration index 1864/C/239 — John Condon, 15 March 1864 (father Patrick Condon, mother Mary Cashell)Back to citation 9

See also

• Return to the Condon branch
• See this family in the full tree
• Browse all original records