As is often the case with women, very little information is available. With Catherine Tumbleton, that is even more true.
Trying to determine if a death certificate is the correct one, we can often be assisted by the recorder indicating what the husband’s occupation was. Such would be the case if the recorder for Catherine’s death had recorded “baker’s wife”, where we would have been confident that we had found the correct one, or even “labourer’s wife” or “farmer’s wife” where we would know we had the wrong document.
In the case of Catherine, the recorder wrote “married”. Well, everyone has a bad day. As the death was recorded on Irish Street in Enniscorthy, and future generations did live at Irish Street, there appears to be a connection there. In addition, she is the only Catherine Whelan of an appropriate age with a death certificate from the time they started (1864) and the death of her husband as a widower in 1885.
Our only small question is that she could have died after her last recorded child was born (1861) and before the recording of civil records (1864). This brief 3-year period of information means we cannot be 100% confident that we have the correct Catherine; however, we will accept an 85% comfort level for now.
