Given Stephen Lyons was born in Cork in 1827 and emigrated to Bermondsey around 1851, I am going to put some background here on the situation in Cork at that time. Of 1596 entries in Griffiths for the surname "Lyons", 20% are in Cork and Cork City, 13% in Galway, 9% in Limerick, 7% in Kerry with the other 51% of the Lyons mentions in Griffiths being scattered across all the other counties. Cork has the most Lyons in Ireland
All below no , 2015, obsolete!. Stephen Lyons/Lyhane/Lehane muct have come from the West of Ballyvourney, regions 20, 53 & 7 on the green maps - this proved by all 37 DNA Marker match with Jim Lehane
In maybe neighbouring townlands[ different parishes, Ballyvourney & Kilnamartyra] we have a James Lehane b. 1800-1823[ trying to prove - if only someone could come up with what the L in Patrick L Lehane 1877 stands for!!- closer to 1800] and a Stephen Lehane ~1800. They could have been brothers. And maybe they had a brother Timothy, father of our Stephen~1827 . If not, the common ancestor- for the 3 perfectly matched DNA families- must be back ~1770 .
Parish records, even with O'Kief!, can not help us at all
We know exactly where James and his son Daniel 1843 were living in 1852 and in 1901 & 1911
Have not placed exactly where the Stephen Lehane 1800 was before he left for America in 1850, but think it was in a western townland of Kilnamartyra, bordering, or almost, on Derreenaling, Ballyvourney.. He married Joana Healey of Ballyvourney- supporting this theory.
Have asked Jim- descendant of James- and about to ask Paul- descendant of Stephen- for photos of their male ancestors.
Finding Stephen Lyons in Cork covers the search in more detail, but my feeling at the moment is that the most probable ancestor is Stephen Lyons, born to Patrick Lyons and Mary Daly at Ardprior, Buttevant Parish on 3 February 1827. The other possibility is Stephen Lyons born to Edmund Lyons and Mary Warren on 23 February 1829 at Ardskea, Buttevant Parish.
The Irish National Archives has a list of genealogy websites to investigate
The two maps below show the spread of Lyons geographically in Griffiths around 1850. Each circle shows the number of Lyons families per Civil Parish. The second map confines positioning to only showing mentions of "Stephen Lyons" and "Timothy Lyons"
Care has to be taken to distinguish between "civil parishes" "catholic parishes" and "church of Ireland parishes". Further the Roman Catholic church has an odd division of Dioceses with a finger of Kerry Dioceses coming into the area that we are most interested in. I feel that I have undertaken a thorough research of the records in the National Library of Ireland . It is probable that we are not going to make much further progress unless we can find a Lyons locally in the Mallow area (I have written to all in the Phone Book) or from a family researcher on the web with additional records.
