Re: Sweeney update

In article
<87f8f216-74ca-49de-b32f-91990c83e2e1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
The Chief <The_Chieftain@xxxxxxx> wrote:


Irish rural communities have amazingly long memories, If I were
seriously interested in resolving this puzzle, as some profess to be,
I would hot-foot it to Donegal. I can guarantee that a few days of
research with the right people would absolutely resolve this one way
or the other.
You may disagree with this all you want, but I am certain of it.

Your certainty on this does not impress me. I have already said that it
is a weak argument from silence.

But this particular alleged descent seems rather shaky; indeed, it seems
to me that it could well be a force fit between the claimant's known
ancestor and a contemporary of the same name. Because I know this to be
a reasonably common form of genealogical deception (self-deception or
conscious deception of others), I am ready to hypothesize that it might
be so in this case.

Perfectly possible, but the current claimant would undoubtedly know
that his was not the correct family, and he would indeed be a fraud.

Indeed.

Having multiple lines of my own with folk of the same name all over
the place, I would also say that almost any explanation is possible,
and being perhaps simply old fashioned I prefer to believe that Mr
MacSweeney is an honest gentleman, absent conclusive evidence to the
contrary.

You are free to believe what you wish.

How many Edward Sweeneys there are in other nearby townlands in the 1833
tithe valuation is a red herring. The fact that there is exactly one
Edward farming at Altnadague, right where one finds an older man of the
same name farming in the census 18 years later, suggests that that
particular Edward might be the same man. This suggests an alternative
story which seems more plausible, and therefore inclines me to doubt the
Eamon Rua - Edward Sweeney identity.

Oh, it is trivial to come up with alternatives. Remember, even at the
best of times, Irish BMD and parish records do not provide enough data
to define a unique genealogy, so personal knowledge is **always**
required.

You fail to understand (or pretend to fail to understand) the
significance of this particular tithe book entry. A genealogist
recognizes the role it plays in compromising the unsupported claims of
Mr. Sweeney.

Nat Taylor
a genealogist's sketchbook:
http://www.nltaylor.net/sketchbook/
.

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