We have a Godmother to one of our great aunts who was a COAKELY. Supposing that if she was a Godmother she must almost certainly have been kith if not kin, I have searched around the south Cork registers ( Templemichael, Dunderrow, Inishannon, Ballymartle ) for this name and only found a few - but was then informed that it could be written as COCHLAN / COGHLAN / COUGHLY....... or even COLCLOUGH! There were a few in and around, it certainly wasn't a common name. But were all these names related?? In other words, are all these names referring to the same " family " groups in the same way as, say all the O BRIEN are of the same family? And speaking of family ( or " Clan " ) surnames, one thing has always puzzled me. Surely not all those sharing the same surname can be of the same family? If your name is O SULLIVAN, could it mean that somewhere back your family was a either 1) related by blood 2) a servant, slave, retainer etc 3) just came from the area over which the O SULLIVAN'S had control And if they WERE all actually related, how come some names ( i.e. MURPHY, McCARTHY, O SULLIVAN etc etc ) have trillions of members, and others only a handful? Were some families just more pushy than others? Slan, Mary

I would say in the beginning yes they were all related, perhaps by blood, perhaps simply by the banner of the sept in the area. Today I can only say, that some families did not have a lot of children, war, famine, shortage of food etc etc, would have done a natural cull on the generations following on, so therefore some of them were quite simmply better breeders than others. Much like today I reckon when it could be simply based on a gene pool, thing, some are stronger than others. Colcough, was a strong name in Wexford and some of the children named in his surname are not his, they simply were given the name, if there was no father, I have not proven the above but it is one of Cyrils wifes beliefs and she is herself right into history of this family Cheers Cara ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary Simpson" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 12:19 AM Subject: [IRL-WEXFORD] Corcoran and other surnames > We have a Godmother to one of our great aunts who was a COAKELY. > Supposing that if she was a Godmother she must almost certainly have > been kith if not kin, I have searched around the south Cork registers ( > Templemichael, Dunderrow, Inishannon, Ballymartle ) for this name and > only found a few - but was then informed that it could be written as > COCHLAN / COGHLAN / COUGHLY....... or even COLCLOUGH! There were a > few in and around, it certainly wasn't a common name. But were all > these names related?? In other words, are all these names referring to > the same " family " groups in the same way as, say all the O BRIEN are > of the same family? > > And speaking of family ( or " Clan " ) surnames, one thing has always > puzzled me. Surely not all those sharing the same surname can be of > the same family? If your name is O SULLIVAN, could it mean that > somewhere back your family was a either > 1) related by blood > 2) a servant, slave, retainer etc > 3) just came from the area over which the O SULLIVAN'S had control > > And if they WERE all actually related, how come some names ( i.e. > MURPHY, McCARTHY, O SULLIVAN etc etc ) have trillions of members, and > others only a handful? Were some families just more pushy than others? > > Slan, > > Mary > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >