I wonder Debbie, if the surname Matdam could actually have been Madden? The difference in spelling could be that the name was written as it sounded and/or transcribed incorrectly. When people said they came from somewhere like Tuam, they could have been speaking of one of a few types of Land Division. They may have meant the town itself, the Civil Parish or even the Poor Law Union. So, they could have lived any where within about a ten mile radius of Tuam town itself, and could have actually lived in any one of a few parishes. I'm not trying to make this harder for you, it's just you've said that this is your brick wall. Now, this is not evidence per se but in the Griffiths Valuation for Tuam civil parish, (later than the time frame you'd need), there is only one person of the surname Curley listed, plus, there is one 'Madden' reference and bot of these people were leasing land in Tuam town, on the same street even. Just something for you to think about. Jane ----- Original Message ----- From: "Debbie Bert" <debbiebert@ameritech.net> To: <IRL-GALWAY-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 7:42 PM Subject: [GALWAY] My Brick Wall, CURLEY , Taum, Galway > Ontario, Canada > Our CURLEY line came to Canada from Ireland. Their son Thomas was born in > Ireland in 1827, but I believe they could of been in Canada by 1832. > This line is my brick wall so to speak. To different branches of the > family (that did not know