Sometimes the answer is partially in front of you. I have been searching for birth records for all of the Children of Bernard McCauley (I) (1830-1902) and Anne Kerrin (1842-1928) and could not find one for their daughter Ellen McCauley. In corresponding with staff from the Fermanagh Genealogy Center for an upcoming visit, they sent the following birth record for Elenor McCawly. At first, I thought this was a mistake and then thought it could be a child that may have died early in life. Further scrutiny of the birth order of the children yielded the discovery that the birth dates for Ellen McCauley in other documents matched the birth date of Eleanor McCawly and in fact the birth parents matched as well. It then made sense; Elenor is Ellen. She had adopted and used the shorter name Ellen all her life and the E she used as her middle initial was for her given name Eleanor. I doubt that without another person pointing this out, and with the alternative spelling of the last name, that I would never have identified this record. Thanks to the Fermanagh Genealogy Center Staff I now have birth records for all ten of the children of Bernard McCauley and Anne Kerrin.


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