Jack and Robert

 I hope this email finds you well. My brother John has asked me to pass on some information which we have managed to put together on our side of the family.

 All three of us, John, James and myself Francis Eardley from West Calder in Scotland ( I am now based in Edinburgh) visited Dublin in early March, ostensibly to do some genealogical research. However being in the land which is so famous for producing Guinness, it would have been rude of us not to partake in a pot or two, so we did.

 We spent some time in the General Registers Office, the Valuation Office and The National Library. Though we were unable to locate my grandfather's birth certificate, despite a liberal search of records either side of his alleged birth date ( the clerk at the GRO informed us that this was not uncommon in rural Eire and that many people simply fail to register). We did however have help in the form of the Eire Census of 1901. From this we were able to establish the household in which my grandfather was born and raised and even more significantly, or so we thought at the time his age (allegedly).

 We took this information to the Valuation Office and were there able to establish that the family had tenanted a farm of some 27 acres stretching back to at least 1858 (the time when records were first kept in a centralised form). Further that they had bought the farm under a right to purchase scheme  which came into being soon after the Republic had emerged following the uprising and rebellion. The purchase was registered in 1923.

 We can therefore now trace back through my grandfather Patrick, to his parents John and Mary and  to my great great grandparent's Patrick and Honoria who are documented as living on the farm in 1858.   In 1858 the land was owned by the Countess of Kingston

 We now intend to turn this information over to the local genealogical society and/or Catholic Church in Co Roscommon as a start for the family tree.

 We were able to pinpoint the location of the farm and were given a map extract of such by the Valuation Office.The full address of the land being given at the 1901 Census as :

County- Roscommon
Poor Law Union- Boyle
District Electoral Division - Loughallen
Barony - Boyle
Parish - Kilronan
Townland - Glasdrumman   

In our unsuccessful attempt to locate my grandfather's birth certificate we did search through many records pertaining to Co Roscommon and it's immediate neighbour Co Leitrim. During these searches we came across a town in Co Roscommon by the name of Stokestown. Are you familiar with this place name and if so could there be a connection to Stoke on Trent?  On further research we now think it may in fact be Strokestown and not Stokestown.

 I know it's a bit tenuous, but John has his theories on a connection.

 Just in closing a significant fact which emerged throughout our searches, was the consistent spelling of our ancestors names as EARLY.

 I will keep you in touch as we progress this and meantime would appreciate any thoughts you might have.

 Keep up the good work

 Francis Eardley (father of Nicholas who you may remember wrote to you saying he thought the get together a wonderful idea though would be on holiday in France at the time and would not be therefore able to attend)

 ps Our holiday plan having changed we did in fact spend the night on return from France (Thursday before the get together), in the Hilton Stoke on Trent. I managed to speak with your brother before having to depart to Edinburgh on the Friday. I also managed to visit St James Church in Audley en route and have a treasured photograph of myself with my three boys, Nicholas, Dominic and Mark in front of the altar.