Person in this family
Maurice Fitzgerald
This entry is about Maurice Fitzgerald (about December 1870 – 1930). For other family members with the same first and family name, see Maurice Fitzgerald (Born 1833; death not recorded), Maurice Fitzgerald (18 September 1937 – 24 May 2012), Maurice Fitzgerald (Dates not recorded).
about December 1870 – 1930
Probable son of John Fitzgerald and Margaret Fraher baptized as Morice Fitzgerald at Ballylanders on 19 December 1870. A family-tree profile gives an unsupported 1874 birth and 1930 Jersey City death; those claims are retained pending reconciliation with the baptism.
Family story - not yet proved
Maurice Fitzgerald was reportedly born in 1874 and died in 1930, but these claims is recorded here but not yet supported by a document.
Died at Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey
Recorded as: Morice Fitzgerald, Jersey City, NJ, United States
Birth: From our family tree - no record found yet
Death: From our family tree - no record found yet
How is this person related?
Andrew John Leahey’s great-grandparent's sibling
Gina D. Cacace’s spouse's great-grandparent's sibling (by marriage)
Abigail Ann Leahey’s great-great-grandparent's sibling
Marie C. Fitzgerald’s grandparent's sibling
Kevin Leahey’s spouse's grandparent's sibling (by marriage)
Worked out from the recorded parents and marriages. No sex is recorded for anyone in this archive, so the wording stays neutral.
How this person is related to Andrew:
Maurice Fitzgerald is your great-grandparent’s sibling.
Life
Our family tree identifies Maurice Fitzgerald as a son of John Fitzgerald and Margaret Fraher and gives the years 1874–1930. No places or independent records accompany those claims, and nothing else is currently known about him.
How we know this: Recorded here, but not yet supported by a document. [1][2]
Family
Parents
Siblings · birth order
See this family in the family treeWhere they lived
Use the place list first. The map below is optional.
Places listed on this page
- Ireland
- Ballylanders, County Limerick, Ireland
- Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey
The map could not load. The complete place list is above it.
The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 1 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.
Timeline
Baptized at Ballylanders
The baptism index records Morice Fitzgerald at Ballylanders, child of John Fitzgerald and Margret Fraher. This is almost certainly the same son represented by the unsupported family-tree profile dated 1874. [1]
Proved by a record
Born, about December 1870
The 1874 carried here came from the family tree and was never sourced. The baptism index gives 19 December 1870 at Ballylanders, to John Fitzgerald and Margret Fraher, and a baptism is a record where a tree date is not.
From our family tree - no record found yet
Died
1930
From our family tree - no record found yet
What the records say
2 records transcribed.
Record exhibit
Ireland Births and Baptisms: Morice Fitzgerald, Ballylanders, 1870
This is an entry in a church book, often naming a child, parents, and godparents.
Partly proved
Verbatim transcription currently held in this archive — reproduced in full.
Morice Fitzgerald, baptized 19 December 1870 at Ballylanders; parents John Fitzgerald and Margret Fraher.
Record exhibit
Rejected Maurice Fitzgerald birth candidate — 13 March 1874, Clash, Rockhill, Co. Limerick
This old record gives information about the person or family named here.
Proved by a record
Verbatim transcription currently held in this archive — reproduced in full.
Thirteenth March 1874 | Clash, Rockhill | Maurice | Male | James Fitzgerald, Clash | Alice Fitzgerald formerly Casey | Labourer | Alice x Fitzgerald, her mark, Mother, Clash | Twenty-eighth March 1874 | Bruree registrar's district, Kilmallock union, Co. Limerick
Historical context
These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.
Bayonne and the Industrial Waterfront, 1870–1920
The Bayonne in these family records was a new city built around water, rails and heavy industry. Bayonne Township was formed only in 1861, uniting older settlements on Bergen Neck; it became a city in 1869. The…
What Sponsors and Witnesses Can Tell Us
Catholic registers often preserve the people standing just outside a family photograph. A baptism normally names the child, parents, date and sponsors or godparents; a marriage normally names the couple and wit…
Reading Irish Civil Registration
The year 1864 is the dividing line in this family’s Irish paper trail. Civil registration began in 1845 for non-Catholic and civil marriages, but from 1 January 1864 the law required registration of all births,…
Farmers and Labourers in North Cork
Two words in the Cork records—“farmer” and “labourer”—describe different positions in the same rural economy. When John Fitzgerald married Margaret Fraher at Kildorrery in 1870, the register called John, his fa…
Islandeady and Derrycriff, County Mayo
Islandeady is not an island off Galway. It is a rural parish between Castlebar and Westport in County Mayo, set among lakes and low hills in the shadow of Croagh Patrick. That distinction solves a long-standing…
The Irish Road to Ipswich, Queensland
Most branches on this site point toward New York or New Jersey. The Hickey–McGreevy–McGuire cluster points in the opposite direction, to Ipswich, Queensland. The Australian evidence is uneven: cemetery records …
What we still don't know
- Records confirming his birth and parentage
- His life and the place and date of his death
- [HE WAS BAPTISED FOUR YEARS BEFORE HE WAS BORN — SO THE BIRTH YEAR WAS WRONG] This page had a baptism of 19 December 1870 and a birth of 1874. The birth was tree-supplied and unsourced; the baptism is a record. Corrected to about December 1870. It makes him the eldest child, and the dates fall into place. John Fitzgerald and Margaret Fraher married at Kildorrery on 25 February 1870; a baptism on 19 December is ten months later, which is exactly where a first child belongs. Richard, previously the eldest here, was born in April 1872. What would settle it: his civil birth registration, which should exist — civil registration began in 1864 — and has not been searched for under a December 1870 date.
- [NEGATIVE, CONTROLLED — HE HAS NO CIVIL BIRTH REGISTRATION] Having moved his birth to about December 1870, the obvious test was the civil register: registration had been compulsory since 1864, so a birth should be there. It is not. A national sweep of irishgenealogy.ie returns 49 Maurice Fitzgerald births in all of Ireland for 1868–1874, and the districts are overwhelmingly Kerry — Dingle eleven, Tralee eight, Caherciveen five. Exactly one falls in this family's part of Limerick, at Kilmallock, and its register image has been read and excluded: 13 March 1874 at Clash, Rockhill, to James Fitzgerald and Alice Casey. So there is no civil birth for him under this name in these years. That cuts two ways and both should be said. It removes the last support for the tree's 1874, which now rests on nothing at all. And it means the December 1870 baptism stands alone — under-registration of births was common in rural Ireland in the 1860s and 70s, especially for a first child, so an absence here is unsurprising rather than damning. What would still settle it: a Galbally or Mitchelstown registration under a variant spelling, or the Ballylanders baptism image itself, which the NLI holds.
- Resolve the unsupported 1874 birth year against the indexed Ballylanders baptism of Morice Fitzgerald on 19 December 1870; obtain the parish image and later records that connect him to the reported 1930 Jersey City death.