Every document, one card each

John Weily “late of Cullenter”, aged 69, and Mary Weily alias Brown

Here Lyeth the Body of John Weily Late of Cullenter who Departed this Life April ye 3 1749 Aged 69, also his wife Mary Weily alias Brown who Died October 30th 1753 Aged 69, also John Weily Son of the above who Erected this Stone and Died Febry ye 15 1756 Aged 34.

A small weathered slab in the Church of Ireland parish graveyard at Rathmolyon, transcribed and photographed by the Baconstown Heritage Group.

What it says. John Weily of Cullentry died on 3 April 1749 aged 69, so he was born about 1680. His wife was born a Brown. Their son John, born about 1722, raised the stone and died on 15 February 1756 aged 34.

What it shows. The parish register agrees with the stone at every point it can be checked: it buries “John (Snr.) Weily” on 4 April 1749, the day after the stone's date of death; Mary Weily on 2 November 1752 (the stone says 1753; one of the two years is wrong); and “John (Jnr.) Weily, Highlane” in 1756. The register also holds four Weily baptisms between 1744 and 1754 with the parents not recorded: Michael (29 July 1744), Robert (8 June 1746), William (6 January 1752) and Catherine (13 January 1754). By date they are John junior's children. Heghlane, the farm the later records name, was already the family's address in 1756.

Robert Weily's farm on the Rathmolyon estate map

What it says. “Robt Weily & Widw Walker's Holding in Big Cullintree called Heghlane. Arable & pasture. 183 acres 2 roods. Scattered bog reclaimed in sundry places 1 acre. Scattered waste 1 rood 20 perches.” Later hands add Wm Wyley 97, Michl Wyley, Jno Wyley, Robt Wyley and J. Wyley on the same farm. Nobody of the name appears anywhere else on the estate.

What it shows. A generation after the stone, the family held the largest farm in the townland, and the Flynn farms lay along the road to Longwood chapel. The parish register has one Robert of the right age: baptised 8 June 1746, buried 4 July 1802, one month before the parishioners' list of August 1802 in which no Robert heads a Rathmolyon household. Full page: The Farm at Heghlane.

Five Wiley households at Rathmolyon, two Weily households at Rathcore

What it says. In 1802 the Bishop of Meath ordered every incumbent to list the Protestant parishioners with their families. The Rathmolyon return, made in August 1802, and the undated Rathcore return of the same series give these households:

What it shows. Every household of the name in the two parishes was Church of Ireland in 1802. The heads John, William, Michael and George are the red and brown-ink names on the estate map and the men of the 1825 tithe book: John junior's sons, and so Robert's brothers, most simply. William's children were Henry, Michael and Eleanor; John's included a William; George's included a William and a Grace. Our William Weily, born about 1796, was a boy of about six in one of these houses.

Three Weilys at Heghlane in the tithe book

What it says. The Tithe Applotment Book for the parish of Rathmoylan, 1825, lists Michl Weily, Wm Weily Senior (two entries) and Willm Weily Junior at Heghlane; Robt Weily at Castletown; and Robt Wiely at Rathmolyon.

What it shows. Heghlane is the farm the estate map calls “Robert Weily and Widow Walker's Holding, called Heghlane”, so the 1825 Weilys sit on Robert's farm. Two grown Williams were farming it in 1825, and the parish register names them: William Senior is the William baptised on 6 January 1752, the head of 1802, buried in September 1836 “aged 96”; William Junior is the William born about 1788 who took the 1835 lease and was buried in May 1836 aged 48. Michael is “Michael Weily, gent, of Highlane”, who witnessed a marriage settlement in 1800 and was buried in November 1836 aged 76. Our William, born about 1796, holds nothing in the tithe book: at 29 he was a younger man of the house with no farm of his own. The tithe was the tax every occupier of land paid to the Church of Ireland, whatever his own religion; see Ireland Then.

William Wiely leases the farm for “2 lives or 21 years” at £178 a year

What it says. “Lease of part of the lands of Cullintre by Rev. Robert Fowler, Bishop of Ossory, to William Wiely for 2 lives or 21 years at an annual rent of £178.1s.1d., 1835 Jan. 1.” In the same year the estate leased two smaller parts of Cullintre to John Wielly (1 February, £44 3s 2d) and John Wiely (30 June, £37).

What it shows. £178 a year in 1835 was the rent of a large Meath farm, roughly 150 to 165 Irish acres at the rents pencilled on the estate map: Robert's farm. The landlord's own clerks spelled the name Wiely and Weily, so that spelling is the family's own, not a priest's guess. A lease for “2 lives or 21 years” ran for whichever was longer; counting 21 years from 1 January 1835 brings us to 1 January 1856. The lessee did not live to see the second year of it.

Two William Weilys buried at Cullinter in one year, aged 48 and “96”

William Weily, aged 48, Cullinter, buried 31 May 1836. William Weily, aged 96, Cullinter, buried 22 September 1836.

Index entries; the register's own wording has not been seen. The same year the register buries George Weily, aged 86, Cullinter (9 April) and Michael Weily, aged 76, Cullinter (26 November).

What it says. Four old men of the house died at Cullentry in 1836, two of them named William. The younger, born about 1788, was the age of the “William Junior” of the tithe book. The elder's “96” would put his birth at 1740, before the register's Weily baptisms begin; the William baptised on 6 January 1752 was 84, and very old ages in burial registers usually run high.

What it shows. Both Williams of the tithe book were dead by the autumn of 1836, seventeen months after the big lease was signed. That is why a woman took the next lease. Neither of these men is the William who was baptising children at the Catholic chapel from 1839.

Ellen Weily leases the same farm

What it says. “Lease of part of the lands of Cullentre … to Ellen Weily for 2 lives or 15 years at an annual rent of £172.9s.8d., 1841 Apr. 28.”

What it shows. Five years after William B's death, a woman of the family took a farm of almost exactly his rent. In 1854 she is still there, on Cullentry lot 5, 228 statute acres valued at £182: the leased farm. Fifteen years from April 1841 is April 1856. William B's wife was Eleanor; the register baptises their children at Highlane and Cullinter from 1814 to 1832, and buries “Ellen Weily, aged 73, Cullinter” on 17 October 1862, six years after her lease fell in.

Three marriages that name “William Weily” as the groom's father

2 June 1851, Rathmolyon: John Weily of Cullinter and Mary Pigott; husband's father William Weily, wife's father Philip Pigott. 4 September 1860, Rathmolyon: Charles Weily of Cullenter and Elizabeth Douglas; husband's father William Weily, wife's father George Douglas. 28 July 1865, Killaconnigan: Charles Weily of Rathmolyon, farmer, and Isabella Reynolds; father William Weily, farmer; wife's father John Reynolds.

Index entries. Charles's first wife Elizabeth was buried at Cullinter on 18 April 1865 aged 22.

What it says. John Weily, born 5 May 1814 at Highlane, and Charles Weily, born 8 September 1827 at Cullinter, both sons of William and Eleanor, married in the parish church with their father's name on the record.

What it shows. John is John Weily of Maryville, the lessee of 1861, whose marble stone stands in Rathmolyon churchyard; Charles is Charles Weily of Cullintra House, who died in 1901, and whose grandson Charles Watson Weily farmed at Cullentry until 1976. Their father is William B. The Protestant line at Cullentry is his, and it is not ours.

Three Wileys side by side at Cullentry, and two fields at Ballin

What it shows. Ellen's lot 5, 228 statute acres at £182, is the big farm of the 1835 and 1841 leases, still in the widow's name two years before it fell in. John's and Joseph's farms are the Protestant house's other holdings. Lots 3 and 4 are something else: two small houses side by side, each with a detached field at Ballin beside the other's, one in a William's name and one in a Margaret's, 41 acres and 40 acres, held at will with no lease in the estate papers. That is what a farm looks like when a father has died and a widow and a grown son have divided it. Our William Weily had been dead four years when this page was printed; Margaret Flynn, his widow, married John Flynn of Ballin lot 5 in May 1854. The valuers standardised every spelling to Wiley.

The farm passes on: Purdon in 1855, John Weilly in 1861

What it says. 26 March 1855: lease of part of Cullentry to Henry Purdon for 31 years at £73 8s 9½d. 30 October 1861: lease of part of Cullentry to John Weilly (also written Wiely) for 31 years at £105.

What it shows. The leases of 1835 and 1841 ran out on 1 January and 28 April 1856. Part of the big farm went to an outsider in 1855, and part came back to the family in 1861 under John Weilly. He is John Weily of Maryville, born 5 May 1814, William B's eldest son, whose marriage record of 1851 names his father. The farm passed within the Protestant house, and the house kept its land at Cullentry until 1976. None of this touched our branch, which held its eighty acres at will and had no lease to lose.

John Weily of Mary Ville, grazier, aged 61

In loving memory of John Weily, Mary Ville in this parish, died 28th Novr 1876, aged 61 years. Erected by his fond wife. Psalm CIII, XV, XVI, XVII, V.

A white marble headstone in Rathmolyon churchyard. Psalm 103:15-17, “As for man, his days are as grass”, is a standard Church of Ireland epitaph.

What it says. The civil register records his death at Cullentry on 28 November 1876, a married grazier of 62, by accident, a coroner's case. Mary Ville was a named house: a gentleman-farmer's residence.

What it shows. The lessee of 1861 died on the farm he had leased, fifteen years into a 31-year term, and his widow raised a marble stone in the parish churchyard. Charles, his brother, farmed on at Cullintra House until 1901.

Ellen, daughter of Wm Wiley and Bid Belagh

Bd Ellen. Pts Wm Wiley & Bid Belagh. Ss Pat Down & Mary Hely.

Baptised Ellen. Parents William Wiley and Bridget Belagh. Sponsors Pat Down and Mary Hely.

What it shows. A William Wiley of this parish had a Catholic wife named Bridget in 1839. The RootsIreland index of the same entry gives the family's address as Highlane, the Weily farm, and reads the mother's name as Betagh, an old Meath name; our reading of the page is Belagh (perhaps Bellew), and the letter wants a second look. The Longwood book is written in English, which is unusual and makes it easy to read. No Weily child appears in the book between 1833 and this entry, and there is no marriage of a Weily man in the Longwood book between 1833 and 1878, so this William's marriages were made in the Rathmolyon chapel, whose book before 1878 is lost. Ellen has no later record.

Mary, daughter of William Weilly and Margaret Flynn

25 · B: Mary: P: William Weilly & Margaret Flynn: Sp: Elizabeth Flynn.

25 [March]. Baptised Mary. Parents William Weilly and Margaret Flynn. Sponsor Elizabeth Flynn.

What it shows. A couple named William Weilly and Margaret Flynn were baptising children in this parish in 1842. Those are exactly the names William II gave for his own parents when he married in Illinois in 1878. This is the only Weily family in 45 years of the Longwood book. The same child was christened a second time: the parish church at Rathmolyon baptised “Mary, daughter of William and Eleanor Weily, Cullinter” on 10 July 1842, born 21 March, four days before the chapel entry, and buried her on 13 April 1843, aged one. A child of a mixed marriage christened in both churches was ordinary in the 1840s; the mother's name on the parish-church card is discussed on the next card.

Five children of “William and Eleanor Weily”, Cullinter

Mary Weily, born 21 March 1842, baptised 10 July 1842. Grace Weily, born 14 September 1843, baptised 16 October 1843. Michael Weily, born 10 March 1845, baptised 1 May 1845. Robert Weily, born 10 April 1848, baptised 29 June 1848. William Weily, born 12 December 1849, baptised 2 January 1850. All at Cullinter; father William Weily, mother Eleanor Weily.

Index entries; the register pages have not been seen.

What it says. Between 1842 and 1850 the Church of Ireland curate at Rathmolyon baptised five children of a William Weily of Cullentry, and the index gives their mother as Eleanor.

What it shows. These are the names, and the dates, of Margaret Flynn's children. Mary was born four days before the chapel baptised “Mary of William Weilly and Margaret Flynn”. Grace, who died in 1886 “aged 43”, was born 14 September 1843. Michael, who married in 1870, was born 10 March 1845. Robert, “64” in the census of 1911, was born 10 April 1848. Two William Weilys at Cullentry each having a Mary in the third week of March 1842, then each a Grace, a Michael and a Robert, is not credible. The children were christened in their father's church as well as their mother's, and the mother's name “Eleanor” on all five cards is most simply an indexing error: the index was built as family groups, and an older “William and Eleanor Weily, Cullinter” (William B and his wife, children 1814 to 1832) was already in it. The register page itself will show what the curate wrote. The fifth child, William, born 12 December 1849, is new to the story: he has no record in Meath after his baptism.

“William (Sen.) Weily”, Cullinter, aged 54

William (Sen.) Weily, aged 54, Cullinter, buried 19 January 1850.

Index entry; the register's own wording has not been seen.

What it says. A William Weily of Cullentry, born about 1796, was buried on 19 January 1850, seventeen days after the parish church baptised the infant William, son of William Weily of Cullinter. The “Sen.” marks him off from that newborn.

What it shows. He is the third William of the house, the one the tithe book of 1825 does not list as a holder, born about 1796 to one of the 1802 households. His death closes the gap in our branch's story: Grace's marriage record of 1876 and her civil marriage of 1881 call her father William Weily, farmer, deceased; his widow Margaret remarried in 1854. He left Margaret with Grace aged six, Michael four, Robert one and William five weeks, and Bridget's Ellen, eleven.

Grace Weilly stands sponsor with James Flynn

B: John: P: William Doran & Anne Nugent: Sp: James Flynn & Grace Weilly.

What it shows. A Grace Weilly stood godmother at Longwood in September 1853, beside a Flynn. If she is the Grace born on 14 September 1843, she had just turned ten. Her own records pull two ways on her age: she gave 36 at her marriage in 1876, which points to about 1840, and her death entry of 1886 says 43, which points to 1843, the parish register's year. A ten-year-old sponsor is unusual, not unknown. Otherwise the 1853 sponsor is another Grace of the family, and one Protestant Grace Wiley is in the 1802 list.

Margaret Flynn “alias Weilly”, a widow, marries John Flynn

22 · Marr'd John Flynn & Margaret Flynn alias Weilly. Wit'ss James Brady & Mary Kelly.

What it shows. In this clerk's usage “alias” marks a widow's other name (he writes “Widow Murphy alias Duignan” in 1850). So a widow connected to both names, Flynn and Weilly, remarried in May 1854, with a Brady as witness, twenty-two years before Grace Weily married a Brady. John Flynn held Ballin lot 5, the next farm to the Weily fields, and the four-year-old widow's holding of 40 acres sat in Griffith's that same year under the name Margaret Wiley.

Michael Wiley, labourer, son of William Wiley, farmer, marries Anne Daley

What it says. Michael Wiley, 21, bachelor, labourer, of Longwood, son of William Wiley, farmer, married Anne Daley, 18, spinster, servant, of Longwood, daughter of John Daley, labourer. Witnesses Thomas Kelly and Bridget Daley; priest Joseph Brennan, C.C. The registrar wrote “deceased” against six of the other seven fathers on the page and not against William Wiley. Their children, in the civil and chapel registers: John, born 16 June 1871 at Longwood; Mary, 1 September 1872; Eliza, 30 May 1874 by the chapel register, the one child of the eight with no civil entry of her own yet found; Hugh, born 20 April 1876 at Moyvalley (the chapel entry was read as 9 April, which cannot be right, and is being re-checked); Anne, 1878; the twins Rose and Julia, born December 1880; Michael, 27 September 1886 at Moyvalley. In December 1887 Eliza, 14, and the infant Michael, 15 months, died at Enfield; their mother Anne Weily registered the deaths.

What it shows. Michael was born on 10 March 1845 by the parish register; the “21” is the register's usual figure for a groom of full age. His father William had been dead twenty years, and the missing “deceased” is the registrar's omission. Michael stayed in the district as a labourer, at Longwood, Moyvalley and Enfield, for at least seventeen years and raised eight children. After December 1887 the whole family disappears from Ireland: none of them is in the census of 1901 or 1911 under any spelling, and no death of Michael or Anne is registered in Meath to 1925. Where they went is not yet known; the Australian indexes have been searched and are negative. A Daly held the mill land at Little Cullentry on the old estate map.

John Brady marries Grace Wiely, “farmer's daughter, Cullentra”, father William Wiley, deceased

John Brady & Grace Wiely. Wts Patk Larkin & Mary A Flynne.

What it says. The chapel book has the names and the witnesses. The civil record adds the rest: John Brady, 50, widower, farmer, of Rathmoylan, son of Patrick Brady, farmer, deceased; Grace Wiley, 36, spinster, farmer's daughter, of Cullentra, daughter of William Wiley, farmer, deceased. Witnesses Patrick Larkin and Mary A. Flynn; priest Thomas Cassidy, P.P.

What it shows. Grace's first marriage. Her father was dead, as the parish register says he had been since January 1850; her home was still Cullentry; and a Flynn stood witness, as one did at every wedding of the branch. Five years later she would be a “farmer's widow”.

Margaret Flynn, 60, wife of a farmer, dies at Cullentry; informant Robert Wiley

What it says. Margaret Flynn, married, aged 60, wife of a farmer, died at Cullentry on 13 June 1877 of disease of the heart, six months, uncertified. The informant was Robert Wiley, present at the death.

What it shows. A Margaret Flynn born about 1817 died on the Cullentry land as a farmer's wife, and the man at her bedside who went to the registrar was a Wiley. That is the 1854 bride, “Margaret Flynn alias Weilly”, by name, place and son: the widow of our William Weily, twenty-three years married to John Flynn, with her son Robert Wiley, then 29, in the house. She never left Meath. On the same page James Dempsey, 70, farmer, of Clonmowley.

Grace Brady, formerly Weily, of Cullentry, daughter of William Weily, farmer, deceased

What it says. James Byrne, full age (a “58” is written above), widower, publican, of Clonard, son of Michael Byrne, farmer, deceased, married Grace Brady otherwise Weily, full age, widow, farmer's widow, of Cullentry, daughter of William Weily, farmer, deceased. Priest Patrick Curry, C.C. Witnesses Christopher Geraghty and Jane Flynn.

What it shows. This is the record that broke the case open. It is a state document, not a church one, and it puts a William Weily, farmer, at Cullentry, dead by 1881, with a daughter Grace, and a Flynn at the wedding. The online family trees of the DNA matches had garbled her as “M Wiley Brady Byrne”; this record explains every word of that garble. Her daughter Catherine Byrne, born at Clonard in 1884, married Charles Edward Kenny and died in Chicago in 1973.

Ellen, Roseanna and John Byrne of Clonard, mother “Grace Byrne formerly Wiley”

What it says. Three children of James Byrne, publican, of Clonard, and “Grace Byrne formerly Wiley”: the twins Ellen and Roseanna, born 25 October 1882, and John, born 30 January 1886. Catherine Marie Byrne, said to have been born on 13 April 1884, is not in the birth index under any spelling tried; many births of the 1880s went unregistered.

What it shows. The family trees of the DNA matches give “twins Rose Anne and Eleanor, 25 October 1882” and “John, 30 January 1886”: matched to the day, from the state register, with the mother's maiden name. The Byrne-Wiley family of Clonard that those trees descend from is real, and its mother is the Grace of the 1876 and 1881 marriages.

Grace Byrne, 43, publican's wife, Clonard, puerperal fever

What it says. Grace Byrne, married, aged 43, a publican's wife, died at Clonard of puerperal fever after one week, certified by a doctor; the informant was P. Byrne, her stepson, present at the death. The registrar wrote the date as the third of January.

What it shows. Puerperal fever follows a birth, and John was born on 30 January. The entry stands among the deaths of early February and was registered with them. The written month is a slip of the pen: Grace died on 3 February 1886, four days after her son's birth, aged 43, which is the parish register's 1843. Her stepson “P. Byrne” is a son of James Byrne's first marriage.

“Robert Wiley, step son, 45, Roman Catholic” in John Flynn's house

What it says. In 1901: John Flynn, head, 78, widower, farmer, Roman Catholic, born Co. Kildare; Michael Gill, 31, son-in-law; Mary A. Gill, 38, daughter; Maggie and Katie Gill, granddaughters; Robert Wiley, 45, step son, Roman Catholic, farmer, not married, born Co. Meath; Ellen Byrne, 18, niece. In 1911, in Michael and Mary Ann Gill's house: Robert Weilly, 64, brother-in-law, assistant on the farm, single.

What it shows. This is the record that closed the question of the 1854 bride. A Wiley man is John Flynn's stepson, so John Flynn's late wife had a Wiley husband before him; Mary Ann Gill is that man's half-sister. Robert's true age was 52 in 1901 (the 1911 return and his death entry agree with the parish register's 1848); census ages of the unmarried often ran young. The Ellen Byrne, 18, “niece” of 1901 may be Grace's twin daughter Ellen, born 1882: Possible, no more.

John Flynn, widower, 83, farmer, dies at Cullentry; informant Michael Gill, son-in-law

What it says. John Flynn, widower, aged 83, farmer, died at Cullentry on 11 December 1903 of senile decline; the informant was Michael Gill, his son-in-law, present at the death.

What it shows. Margaret's second husband died where she had, twenty-six years after her, on the Cullentry land, in the Gill household that had moved from Ballin. The page holds the two houses together: the Protestant Weilys of Cullintra House on the line above, the Catholic Flynn-Wiley-Gill household on the line below, neighbours in the same registrar's book fifty years after the 1854 marriage.

Robert Wiley “from Clonmouly”, 67, bachelor, labourer, Trim workhouse

What it says. Robert Wiley, from Clonmowley, bachelor, aged 67, labourer, died in the Trim workhouse on 17 November 1915 of cancer of the stomach, one year; the informant was Laurence Rooney, the workhouse's occupier.

What it shows. Robert Wiley, born 10 April 1848, never married; in 1901 he was the step son in John Flynn's house at Ballin, and he died in the Trim workhouse on 17 November 1915. Clonmowley is the Flynn farm on the road to Longwood. He is the last of William Weily's children we can follow in Ireland: Grace died in 1886, Michael's family left after 1887, and William, born in 1849, has no Irish record at all after his baptism.