In the first article in this series, we identified John Aloysius Hankard's paternal grandparents as John Hankard and Anastasia Lawton, both born in Ireland. On her marriage record, Anastasia said her father's name was John. Could we find Anastasia's Irish county of origin?
On November 22, 1902 in Boston, Massachusetts, my wife's great aunt, Abigail Ellen "Abbie" (Page) Heise married John Aloysius Hankard. John's parents were recorded as John Hankard and Hannah Keegan. I recognized Keegan as an Irish name, assumed Hankard was also, and decided to see if I could trace either family back to at least the county of origin in Ireland.
Having found John Hankard's father's name (Thomas) and a range of years for his birth (1820-1830), I started to look for his county of origin in Ireland. The first thing I did was to try the Irish Times surname search page for "Hankard". The results said ...
Another way to find a Irish townland of origin is to trace the brothers and sisters of the person you are interested in, in this case the John Hankard who married Anastasia Lawton. His siblings' records might have the information we are looking for. There were a few other Hankards in the Boston area at the same time as John. Were they related?