Search for My County Mayo Roots
by William G. Masterson

I am a third generation Irish-American on my mother's side and second generation on 
my father's side. My mother's people came from Counties Cavan and Donegal around 1842 
and 1852, respectively, my father's from Burrishoole Parish, County Mayo, around 1877. It is 
this latter parish that I am discussing relative to my research on the Chambers' and 
Mastersons. My interest began in 1976 with my mother's stories of her life in Philadelphia.
My mother was only eight years old when she moved with her parents to Cleveland, 
Ohio, in 1901, but with her remarkable memory she was able to tell us about her early years. 
Her great aunt Jane would often visit the family for tea after attending Mass in the morning. 
The day the family left town by streetcar for the railroad station, Aunt Jane did not come to 
say good-bye and my mother wondered ever after, Whatever happened to Aunt Jane? 1 think 
the curiosity about Aunt Jane was what started me in my search for information about my 
ancestors.
About 1976, I decided that I should review and record my mother's stories before she 
grew too old and her memory deteriorated. Unfortunately she did not know what part of 
Ireland her family came from. Her family name was Tully and my investigation later proved 
that the family was from Killeshandra Parish, Co. Cavan. As the result of finding the Tully 
family in the surviving 1841 Census for Killeshandra Parish (about 1989), I decided that I 
would transcribe all the census records for that parish in order to make it available to other 
researchers. This was the first of my projects of transcribing and indexing Irish records.
My father knew the names of the townlands in Burrishoole Parish where his ancestors 
were from, Mulrany (Mallaranny) for the Mastersons and Roskeen for the Chambers'. My 
grandfather, Patrick Masterson, died in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1899, when my father was only 
six years old and as a result my father had a limited knowledge of the Masterson family, 
although his aunt, Kate Masterson of Mulrany, had also emigrated to Cleveland. Patrick 
Masterson's Petition for Citizenship was found at the Cuyahoga Co. Archives, Cleveland. He 
stated he had arrived in the U.S. on 3 April 1877 and that he was born 1 December 1862 at 
the town of (blank) in Ireland. His address was 16 Mulberry St., Cleveland.
My grandfather married Mary Chambers in 1890 in St. Malachi's Church, which is 
located on the west side of Cleveland in an area called "The Angle". She took in boarders and 
had a saloon. The story goes that a beer company set her up in business, but because she was 
a woman, the saloon had to be in her husband's name, therefore Patrick Masterson was listed 
in the city directory as a saloon keeper. However, he worked on the docks unloading ships. 
Grandmother Chambers married Michael O'Grady, a Westport man, after my grandfather 
Patrick died in 1899. Other Chambers families had settled on the west side in the 1860s 
before my Chambers' and Mastersons arrived. Fourteen Patrick Mastersons are listed in the 
1898 city directory.
One of the offspring of an earlier Chambers family had married into our family. At 
the time of my birth my mother's parents were both dead as well as my grandfather Pat. I feel 
fortunate in that I had one grandparent who survived after my birth, Mary Chambers 
Masterson O'Grady, the daughter of William Chambers (Tyler Mor) and Bridget McGlynn of 
Roskeen. Grandmother Chambers died in Cleveland in 1937. 
There were two Masterson girls that "came out" from Ireland in the mid 1920s, these 
were Ann and Sarah Masterson, the daughters of my father's uncle, James (Salter) Masterson, 
who lived in Mulrany until his death in 1937. These ladies gave my father some information 
about the remaining Mastersons of Mulrany. One important piece of information was the 
address of their sister, Mary Masterson, which my father sent me while I was serving 
overseas with the U.S. Army in WWII, in England, France, Belgium, and Germany. My dad 
thought that just maybe, I would be able to visit Ireland while overseas. However, I never got 
the opportunity to visit but I did use the address to write to Mary during the war. After the 
war I continued to write to her until her death in 1984. We didn't touch on genealogy very 
much and I probably didn't show much interest in it at the time. My wife and I visited with 
her and her sister-in- law, Maggie Burke Masterson, in 1965, but because we were 
constrained by my vacation schedule we didn't have time to explore the area.
On this our first trip, I didn't have any idea where Mulrany or Roskeen were located 
in County Mayo and I remember hunting for the area in northeast Mayo. A kind soul directed 
me to the Clew Bay area west of Newport. I knew that some day I would have to return and 
explore the area. Our next trip in 1978 wasn't much more productive than the first because 
my vacation time was again limited, but at least I knew which direction to take.
After my retirement from General Motors in 1989, we bought our first computer and 
started to use it to build a database for our various families. We only had spotty information 
for my Chambers and Masterson families. It became apparent that we should rent films from 
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter referred to as LDS), for Newport 
Chapel, Burrishoole Parish, County Mayo, and extract the various Chambers and Masterson 
families from it. The objective was to formulate a family structure using the birth and/or 
baptismal dates indicated. Fortunately the parish register had both the father's name and 
usually, but not always, the mother's maiden name. From these family structures we had 
hoped to determine which of the families were ours and furthermore we thought an indexed 
transcription in book form would be useful to other researchers who do not have access to the 
LDS films.
My wife and I decided to transcribe the religious records for Burrishoole Parish for 
the years 1872-1890 because after 1890 there were only sporadic listings for my families, 
particularly for baptisms. Apparently our Chambers' and Mastersons were using another 
chapel, possibly the one at Tiranaur, because Tony Donohue, of the North Mayo Historical 
Society, sent me listings for Masterson family baptisms, which were not in the Newport 
Chapel registers. 
Our next phase was to obtain the LDS films, which contained the civil birth records 
for Burrishoole Parish for the available years of 1864 to 1881. There is a break in films 
between 1881 and 1900. They have filmed more recent birth records, which begin in March 
of 1900 and end in 1955. Ireland, at the time, made quarterly reports by the year, therefore it 
was necessary to rent four films for each year. (The more recent records were registered on a 
monthly basis.)
These were useful for the Chambers family but the Masterson family was tougher to 
trace because most of my grandfather's brothers and sisters were born before the start of the 
Newport Chapel record keeping and they were not on the civil birth records, which date 
from 1864. However I found my grandfather's brother's marriage (James Masterson) in 
1890 in the Newport Chapel records. We had to rely on U.S. census and death records for 
some birth dates of persons born in Ireland.
In my efforts to trace the Mastersons, I had to he satisfied initially with Griffith's 
Valuation of 1856 for Mulrany. Having this data only forced me to ask more 
questions and as result, the 1832 Tithe records were consulted and also transcribed into 
another book for my use and for the use of other researchers. As I looked at these tithes 
recently I have to conclude that the John Masterson (Red), listed as paying a tithe while he 
lived in Murrevagh, was actually my great-grandfather. His land, at these early dates, 
straddled the line separating Mulrany from Murrevagh. Thus we have some records, which 
list Mulrany and are not found at the Registration Office in 1991. The record they sent me 
has her death as 1893 at age 70; both these records pointed to John (Red) in the Tithes.
Darby Masterson started his family in Mulrany with two children by his wife, 
Margaret Gibbons; no marriage record found to date. Three more children were born in 
Cleveland. My father never mentioned this man's name but he and his family lived in the 
same neighborhood in Cleveland as my grandfather Pat. I obtained his death record from the 
Ohio Historical Society located at the state capital of Columbus, Ohio. His death record 
states that his father was John Masterson and his mother Sarah Farrie of Ireland (same as my 
grandfather's), that he was born 17 March 1851 and he died on 1 July 1911 in Cleveland.
On our trip to Ireland in 1991, we spent a day in Dublin searching records at the 
Registration Office where we found the death record of my great-great-grandfather, Thomas 
Chambers of Roskeen, who died at age 76 in 1886 at Roskeen, also that of my great-
grandparents, William Chambers, who died at age 74 (should be 83) in 1921 and his wife 
Bridget McGlynn, who died at age 85 in 1923. (Ages shown on death records and censuses 
are not reliable.)
At the National Archives in Dublin we reviewed the 1911 Census for Mulrany and 
Roskeen and obtained additional data on our Chambers and Masterson families. Probably the 
most important piece of information was found in the estate papers of Sir Richard O'Donnell, 
the original of which is held in the Manuscript Room of the National Library. I found a lease 
dated 1800 which was let to William Chambers and his two sons, Thomas and John (John 
was reported dead in a later lease). The same William Chambers had a lease with a man 
named "King". My father said we had Kings in our family who later settled in New York. I 
was able to identify William and Thomas as ancestors of mine from this and other family 
information. William was probably born about 1775, in or around Carrowbeg North. The 
data outlined above are typical of what can be found in Ireland and not in the U.S., that I 
know of.
My wife and I visited the National School in Mulrany and reviewed the school 
registers for the 1870s. We were able to get a better picture of the family members who had 
remained in Mulrany. My great-uncle James was registered in 1871.
However we did not find a birth record for him nor for my grandfather, Patrick, in the 
government records, which begin in 1864. It was on this same trip that we were finally able 
to do some sightseeing in the adjacent parish of Achill. In Burrishoole Parish, while visiting 
the cemeteries at Murrevagh, St. Brendan's Well, and Burrishoole Abbey we encountered 
rainstorms most of the time, particularly when we stopped to inspect the Burrishoole Abbey 
graveyard. The driving rains made it very difficult to manage the umbrella and record grave 
stone inscriptions at the same time. The growth on some of the tombstones has eroded the 
stone to the extent that they are unreadable. I hope local researchers will record the 
information from them before it is too late. We managed to record some of the Chambers 
and Masterson data from the cemeteries, although not all of the deceased were my relatives. 
I found out recently that some of these belong to other Chambers families who lived in the 
mountains.
We had an interview one evening with the late Thomas Chambers, the retired 
policeman, who gave us much Chambers family information and related that our Chambers 
had emigrated from County Tyrone to Burrishoole Parish just before Cromwell had arrived in 
Co. Mayo. Thomas said that our surname Chambers was originally MacAmbrose and 
MacCambridge in Argyle, Scotland, before their coming to Co. Tyrone. While in the area we 
visited with Mary Alice Conway Chambers the widow of my cousin Francis Chambers, and 
her son John George, in Roskeen. We also visited my other cousin, Annie Chambers 
O'Malley, in Treanbeg. Mary Alice related to me in a letter that during her early years in 
Ardagh she had heard that the Chambers' had come to County Mayo from County Tyrone, 
which cheeks with Thomas's story.
My sister's son, William Gone, married Maureen Masterson of Cleveland. Maureen's 
ancestors were also from Mulrany and she was curious as to whether her husband was a close 
cousin. My investigation of her family of Mastersons led me to Maureen's ancestor, Anthony 
Masterson, who died in Mulrany at age 80 on 30 Dec 1864, which means Anthony was born 
about 1784.1 was able to trace her family to the present day and did not find a relationship. 
We had better luck with her family Masterson than with my own because we lacked a death 
record such as the one for Anthony. I told her that her husband was probably a cousin but the 
relationship would go back to 1784 or before. Years ago, as a young student, Maureen had 
spent a summer in Mulrany working at the former Great Southern Hotel.
There were three Patrick Mastersons listed in Griffith's for 1856, two of them listed as 
Patrick Masterson (White) and Patrick Masterson (Black). A third Patrick was listed without 
a nickname living next to James Masterson, who I think was my great-great-grandfather. I 
believe Patrick was James's father but I have not proved it. James apparently had at least two 
sons, one James (Red) and the other John (Red), John being my great-grandfather.
As in Ireland, nicknames were used by the first generation Irish-Americans in 
Cleveland. Some that I knew of were: my father Willie known as "Chesty", my uncle John 
Masterson was called "Luther", my mother's brother-in-law, James Kelly, born in Rosturk, 
was "Teapot Kelly" or "Rockport Kelly", another John Masterson from Achill was called 
"John the Dude", still another John was "Coal Oil John". Then there were "Dolly Cleary", 
Bemard "Fairplay" Masterson (great-grandfather of Maureen Masterson mentioned above), 
"Brick" Masterson, a Cleveland politician, and "Skid" Stanton. Katie "Nipper" Masterson 
had lived in Cleveland but returned to Mulrany; she had visited with my grandmother, Mary 
Chambers Masterson O'Grady, from time to time.
I didn't know that Grandmother spoke another language until I was sitting alongside 
of her at her home at the wake for one of her boarders. She had offered me fifty cents if I 
could sit still for half an hour. She was conversing with an Irish friend of hers and they were 
talking about preparing the bodies for burial when Grandma saw that I was listening. All of a 
sudden she smoothly went into Gaelic without me hardly realising it. This was also the first 
time I had heard the "keeners" wailing in front of the coffin. Half an hour later the two of 
them were in the basement where the food and drink was to be had and they were joking and 
having a grand time.
I have tried to give the reader some idea of the resources I have used to date in tracing 
my families' roots. There are many branches of my family that I have not made any progress 
on, namely my mother's Peter Murray and Mary Devanny families of County Donegal, and 
the Gannons, supposedly from County Mayo but in the U.S. about 1838. Some of the 
information I was able to acquire in the U.S. would not be available in Ireland. Much of the 
material my wife and I have transcribed and indexed for the Burrishoole Parish area from 
LDS films is in books in various libraries (such as the County Mayo Library in Castlebar), 
which may be of some help for people who can trace their ancestors to this western part of 
County Mayo.
For starters it is difficult to do Irish family research if one doesn't have an idea of the 
geographical location of the family and the time frame. If the location of direct ancestors is 
not known, one should consider tracing relatives such as brothers and sisters or even sponsors 
on baptismal records and witnesses on marriage records. I would especially recommend the 
perusal of the land valuations, which I found for Co. Mayo on films dating from the 1860's to 
1966 (LDS films 0857742 and 0857743). The records show the leases and transfer of 
property, usually through the male line, but sometimes there are females shown.

SOURCES:
Interviews: with Thomas Chambers (R.I.P.), Nea Fioun, Newport, Anthony 
Masterson and Thomas Masterson of Ballycroy; with my cousins, Thomas Chambers 
(R.I.P.), Fairview Park, Ohio, and Michael Chambers, Cleveland, Ohio, both formerly of 
Roskeen, Mary Masterson Jennings, formerly of Mulrany, now of Galway City; Mary 
Masterson (R.I.P.), Mulrany.

Libraries:
Family History Library of LDS (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), Salt 
Lake City, Utah, British and U.S. sections, and local Family History Centres for reading and 
rental of films: (1)1832 Tithes for Burishoole Parish (their film 0256576); (2) Griffith's 
Valuation for Burishoole Parish (film 0844988) and rate valuations from 1860 to 1966 (films 
0857742 and 0857743; (3) Civil records registered in Newport, some dating from 1864 to 1 
88 1; (4) Religious records for Newport Chapel (film 1279207); (5) Westport Chapel records 
(1854-1880 film 12792 1 0; 1862-1905 film 1279211); (6)1901 Census for Burrishoole 
Parish (films 0846259 and 0846260); (7) Social Security Death Index for U.S.A.
Indiana State Library, Genealogy Division, Indianapolis, Indiana: films and indexes for U.S. 
Federal censuses for the years 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920;
Cleveland Necrology files (obituaries from Cleveland newspapers which begin after) 1911); 
St. Malachi's Catholic Church marriages and baptisms on film (also available at the 
Cleveland Public Library).
Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana: Irish journals; U.S. census films and 
indexes; films of Tithes; microfiche of Griffith's Valuation and Ordnance Survey maps.
Cleveland Public Library: newspapers, city directories, Cleveland necrology files on film 
(also available at the Indiana State Library, Indianapolis).
Ohio State Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio: Marriage and death records to 1937; city 
directories,
National Library of Ireland, Dublin (1991 visit): Originals of the O'Donnell estate records 
held at the adjacent Genealogical Office Manuscript Room; back issues of the Mayo News.
Mayo County Library, Castlebar, Co. Mayo: maps and Ordnance Survey Books for 1832 and 
other miscellaneous material.
Civil records
Civil records registered in Newport, held at the Registration Office, Lombard St., Dublin.
Cleveland City Hall records for births, deaths and wills (some but not all.)
Cuyahoga Co. Archives, Franklin Blvd., Cleveland, Ohio, civil marriages, deaths, 
immigration and citizenship information (some but not all).
Cemeteries: Calvary Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio; Burrishoole Abbey Cemetery,
Killeen Cemetery/St. Brendan's Well, and Mulranny/Murrevagh Cemetery.
Schools: Mulrany National School attendance rolls for the 1870s.

U.S. Federal Records
Immigration and Naturalisation Service Office, Cleveland, Ohio.

Publications of William Masterson.

Anybody interested in the history of the parish of Burrishoole will find a mine of information 
in five publications by William G. Masterson.
The publications are:
County Mayo, Ireland, Newport Area Families 1864 - 1880 by William G.Masterson, April 
1994, 144 pages indexed, no permission required by General Register Office. Price $18.
Newport Chapel, Co. Mayo, Ireland, Baptisms 1872-1891 by William G.Masterson May 
1996, 128 pages, indexed, permission granted by the parish priest. Price $16
A Collection of Newport/Westport Co Mayo Marriages 1821 - 1911,by William 
G.Masterson, March 1999, 206 pages, indexed, permission to publish from Archbishop of 
Tuam. Price $23
Burrishoole Parish, Co Mayo, Ireland, Tithe applotment Book Transcription (1832) by 
William G. Masterson June 1992, approximately 60 pages, self indexed, with permission to 
publish from the National Archives, Dublin. Price $13
1901 Census, Burrishoole Parish, Co Mayo, Ireland, by William G. Masterson Dec 1990, 
171 pages, transcription and index, with permission to publish from the National Archives, 
Dublin. Price $20.
There are also four publications on Achill parish and two on Ballycroy parish. Spiral bound 
xeroxed copies are available as a service at cost from William G. Masterson, 829 Fernwood 
Court, Indianapolis, IN 46234-2102. Tel (3 17)-271-5736