Ken Lennan
Events and entries in the data
Each birth, death or marriage event usually implies more than one entry in the database. Thus a marriage event of a Lennan male will result in at least three entries (husband, wife and father of the husband) and sometimes five (two additional Lennan witnesses). A birth event usually results in three entries (child, father and mother) while a death event will sometimes result in two entries (a Lennan witness) but often only one. In the data generally all participants in an event are cross referenced by their ID numbers in the first column of the data.
Gender balance
Of the data contained on page 5, as of end August 1999, there were approximately 4300 male Lenn*n events covered as against 3700 related to females. This imbalance stems principally from the fact that the father of the spouse on a marriage cert will be included in the data. In addition full certificates were probably sought for more Lenn*n males than females.
Christian names
The prevalence of Christian names in the Dublin data is
shown in the charts. For females Mary is the name of
choice, with Anne, Margaret, Catherine and Elizabeth other
preferred names with, in or about, the same frequency.
However, if Kate were to be added, Catherine would jump to
second place. For males, the clear hierarchy is John,
James, Patrick and William. Since my Lennan research is
concentrated on my ggrandfather John, with a father James,
and mother, seemingly, Mary, I am not really in luck!
If second names are also taken into account, for males, Joseph gets a substantial boost (from 193 to 303 occurrences, more than half of which are Patrick, John and James Josephs) thus passing Thomas and Michael in the top 10. Patrick also gets additional support (+33) but still remains below James (+11). For females, Anne, with an additional 99, moves rapidly away from Margaret (+12) but still lags well behind Mary (who adds 74). At the lower end of the scale Jane, receiving an extra 50 (40 of which are Mary Janes), jumps three places to above Kate.
Era
About 1500 of the 8000 events took place before registration became a requirement in 1864. However a significant proportion of that number represent births derived (on the basis of age given) from later death events registered.
Areas
As noted elsewhere, there is a strong concentration on the Dublin South - Rathdown area, although all Irish Lennans found were included from the outset. Later in the data gathering exercise, Dublin North was added as well as familiar Christian names in surrounding areas. Thus of the +/- 8000 events recorded, 3600 were in Dublin South, 1800 in Dublin North, 1100 in Rathdown and 800 in Dublin (unspecified). Events recorded elsewhere ranged from 125 in Louth (principally Dundalk), through Wicklow (52), Baltinglass (41), Wexford (47), Carlow (37), Monaghan (29), Down (25), Westmeath (21), with lesser pockets elsewhere.
Name variations
There are likely to have been a number of Lann*ns and Linn*ns missed, since these were often over the page from the main concentration of interest. However, from several more intensive examinations the impression got was that the LA and LI varieties the relatively few events that occurred were more prevalent outside Dublin. In summary of the 'LE' variety in my data, there are 6700 Lennons, 1070 Lennans, 40 Lenons, 17 Lenans, 13 Lennanes, 13 Lennens & 3 Lenanes. The 'LA' variety was represented by 32 Lannons, 12 Lannans, 2 Lannins and 1 Lannen, while the 'LI' branch were represented by 6 Linnens, 3 Linanes, and 2 Linnons and Linnanes.
Main events recorded
While the main category would appear to be births (3000), as already noted many of these entries are derived from the ages given at the 2000 or so death events (either on the basis of registrations, gravestones or parish records). Given the cut-off date for the published data, a further 1000 or so births events are not included. There are approximately 1000 marriage events (effectively divided by two since both spouses appear). The remainder of the data represent witnesses and parents at these events as well as miscellaneous data from street directories and other sources.
Main sources of data
The principal source of data was material at the General Registration Office. Of the 6200 events from the GRO most came from the index for Births, Deaths and marriages, with 1800 events coming from the upwards of 500 photocopies of the entries obtained (implying duplication of the principal in the data). Other significant sources were parish records (520), Dublin directories (400), IGI (300), graves (200), wills (200) etc.
Return to Lennan Index page, or go to
page 7, for John Lennan 1850-1879
my specific research interest
Or
return to data for the Dublin
Lenn*ns
Alternatively,
go to my railwayana.com
pages for Irish railway data
Or
even, go to my railwayana
auction pages
