My name is Tim Griffin. My wife of 45 yrs and I live in Deltona Florida between Orlando and Daytona. Please excuse the lengthy introduction but I want you to feel comfortable with communications. I hope you will find it an interesting read.

One of my primary hobbies is Genealogy every since I took over my late Fathers tree. He had about 350 names. Now, with the help of Ancestry.com, have over 6,000. But none as close to me as the hope of successfully finding My 2x Grandfather, John Griffin and my roots in Ireland.

One of the biggest roadblocks I have is my lineage from John Griffin who citations show came over on the Ship Houghton from Liverpool arriving in New York with his family of 3 kids on 13 Nov 1849. His wife Sarah soon lost an infant who was born on the voyage. There were three Griffin families that came over on that ship.

My John Griffin - He eventually moved to Bethlehem Pennsylvania to work in a Zinc mine processing company and his kids later migrated from Bethlehem, PA to Selmer Alabama and Rome Ga with the expansion of the Railroads.

We have found on his daughter\'s death certificate, that his wife Sarah\'s Surname was Kelley. But no other citations to substantiate her surname.

We can observe through declarations in the American Census and the ships manifest the families originated in Ireland with the ship having a brief layover in Liverpool before coming to the USA. What city they are from in Ireland, is not known or recorded.

Jeremiah, also on the ship, was the father of the other larger family, and his wife Mary and child Bid died on the Voyage. We hypothesize this was John’s brother, Jeremiah, came with him carrying his own family. We think they were two families traveling together Their names are recorded on the manifest in immediate succession. (The manifest was not in alphabetical order). Clearly that alone is not proof it was his brother.

I have reviewed the Griffith\'s Valuation. I think there is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that my Griffins came from Cappaclogh.

I am relying somewhat on the GV (Griffiths) Valuation Books of 1849, which record a John Griffin, who had lived in the townland of Cappaclogh West, but the name is crossed out, meaning he had left (or died) recently. The crossing-out would have happened between 1848 when the initial survey was finalized for Co. Kerry in 1852. Since we know he took ship for America in 1849, this is very suggestive. Cappaclogh, is located in the RC Parish of Ballinvoher, which has a gap in the register of baptisms covering the years when John\'s children brought to America were presumably born. The only other John Griffin named in (and deleted from) the County Kerry Valuation Books was from a townland a long way off on the other side of Tralee.

I did a search for \"Griffin\" and \"Kerry, Ireland\" (simultaneously) on Ancestry and got 7 matches. The interesting thing is that three of them have Griffin forebears from Tralee. A fourth one had Griffin from Camp, which is also close to Tralee and just a couple of kilometers from Cappaclogh, home of your Jeremiah. (and John). This suggest strongly that the Dingle Peninsula is highly likely.

Add to that the fact that, Church Records show the Jeremiah Griffin, we think the same on the Ship Houghton, was married in Tralee and had 4 children baptized there, and that is where I have continued my search.

Not in Tralee Parish itself, though, because there are no gaps in that baptism register. My John Griffin’s children, Margaret, David and Cornelius Griffin, who were born in the 1840\'s, would have been recorded there. My family must come from one of the neighboring parishes where the baptism register for the 1840\'s have been lost. That would be the case for Ballymacelligot, for example, which has no baptisms before 1868, or Ballanvohir, which has a gap between 1839 and 1851.

My primary goal is to discover where John Griffin was from and initiate a continued search from the years before his 1849 arrival to the USA.

I have a Ancestry.com DNA done. I also have a “father to son” special Y-111 test completed that had yielded quite a few relatives from County Kerry Ireland. I have also ordered the Big Y-700 Test from FTDNA as we;; at a Mitochondrial DNA Test and am waiting on the results. I hope to have them in 60 days or so.

Hopefully we can collaborate with on the Griffin lineage.

Sincerely
Tim Griffin