Pryal family from Co Mayo
My great grandfather was James Pryal born 1834 who was a tailor and came to Birkenhead, England from Co Mayo sometime in the 1850s. He married a Mary Dooley who had also emigrated from Ireland ,in 1857.His father was John Pryal a gardener.He had several children including Andrew,Mary, Christopher, Peter ,Dennis and my grandmother Helen or Ellen. Andrew went to San Francisco where he worked as contact man for WR Grace on the waterfront. He married a Mary Ann Houlihan and had several children including James, George, Andrew HelenT Ellen, John and Edmund .They were born between 1888 and 1910.Helen married a Carl J Saxenmeier.
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Re: Pryal family from Co Mayo
Hi yeah! Its Karen and Allan Pryal here from Dublin. My great grandfather was also a James Pryal. He was a policeman working for the Royal Irish Constabulary. He had a son named James Pryal. I think he might be related to your family. Maybe a distant cousin. Thanks for your email. Keep in touch!
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Re: Pryal family from Co Mayo
James Pryal was my Great,Great,Great Grandfather. My Great, great Grandmother was Mary Agnes Pryal, Andrew's sister. What might interest you is that my mother is in posession of a medal which was made out of a south american coin which was given to Mary Agnes by Andrew, or so I assume as the inscription reads, 'Presented to Mary Agnes Pryal, from her brother, A Pryal.' We guessed that Andrew must have worked in South America at some point, or had at least visited there, which would explain the coin. Mary Agnes married John R Bennett and they had a daughter Marie Bennet. She had a son, Stanley Russell Bennett, my grandfather, out of wedlock and so abandonned him to be brought up by Mary Agnes. By this point the family were still living in Birkenhead. Stanley grew up to work as a shipyard worker during WW2 and he helped build some of the submarines such as 'The Thetis'. However he attended nightclasses and eventually became a doctor and moved to Newcastle Upon Tyne. He married and had two children, my mother Jane and her sister Dianne. The family moved up to the Orkney Islands in 1967 where Stanley found work as an island doctor, which is why we have lost touch with any Liverpool routes.
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Re: Pryal family from Co Mayo
Also, I have found a census from 1891 which shows your grandmother Helen and my great, great grandmother Mary working in the Rainhill asylum together as attendants, which you might already know of.
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Re: Pryal family from Co Mayo
Thanks so much for this. Your GGG Grandmother was also called Mary Agnes Pryal. She was married to James and died in 1877. They had a daughter called Mary, though I did not know she was also Mary Agnes. She was known in the family as Minnie.She had a younger sister , Helen, my grandmother, and an older brother Andrew, who was a sailor who eventially settled in San Francisco, so that might account for the South American medal.My grandmother, Helen, married on 9 August 1891 and her address is given as Rainhill near Prescot. One of the witnesses on her marriage certiificate is Minnie (sic) Pryal. I knew my grandmother was a nurse, and the story is that she left home when her father James married again to a much younger woman, and then sent for Mary (Minnie) her older sister.However I had not realised that they were both at Rainhill together. You mentioned they were 'assistants' according to the census and it would be interesting to know what that meant. I was very interested to hear about Stanley Bennett,your grandfather, who showed such determination in studying medicine. Amazing to realise we have relatives in the Orkneys. I had always wondered what had happened to Mary Pryal as she was only two years older than Helen, according to the 1881 census but four years older according to the 1871 census.Also what happened to Marie Pryal who abandonned her son Stanley to be looked after by her mother? Do you know?
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Re: Pryal family from Co Mayo
Your very welcome. This really quite interesting, as I have so many queries about this side of my family. Are you still situated in the Liverpool area? It's also quite interesting to that there is a history of people in the medical proffession in our family. My mother is a nurse and my sister works in a nursing home for disabled people. My mother and I are somewhat stuck when it comes to Stanley Bennett's mother..it really is all guesswork, you see. My grandfather Stanley was brought up by Minnie believin g that she was his mother. It was only when Minnie died in the 1950s and he realised her true age that he suspected that she was actually his grandmother. He suspected that his mother was really an Auntie May who used to visit every so often who lived in London and was married to a Harley Street Suirgeon. Have you perhaps heard of her? We have yet to find an Auntie May, but we have found that Minnie had a daughter, Marie, who was born in 1898 and therefore could have been Stanley's real mother as he was born in 1918. Also, Stan had a sister, Marie Irene Bennett, known to us as Auntie Irene, who was born in abt 1915. Have you perhaps heard of her? The most puzzling thing about Stanley Bennett is his father's name. On his birth certificate it says that his father's name was James Russell Bennett, but on his marriage certificate it say his name was John Richard Bennett. we hae never otherwise heard of a James Russell Bennett, but we new that Minnie had been married to a John Richard Bennett. On both certificates, both fathers' occupations are 'Master Mariner'. Although I doubt you can shed any light on that, as it is more to do with Bennetts than Pryals. We had heard of James Pryal having a second family in his seventies, actually. One of those tales that has been passed down. In the 1891 census it says that Minnie and Helen are not 'assistants', but 'attendants' which I presume is a type of nurse. My mother and my Auntie Dianne are very interested in this connection that we've found, as they are your second cousins once removed which isn't that distant, and yet the have never heard of you or met you. You are welcome to take a look at my family tree on my profile and I hope we may both be able to help fill the gaps in eachothers information. Sarah Sutherland.
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Re: Pryal family from Co Mayo
Dear Sarah No, we have never lived in the Birkenhead area. The family home of James Pryal was 106 Argle Street, and when my grandmother Helen left home, she later married Albert Bower and went to live in Dewsbury.Her daughter, Vivien, my mother,married Charles Gibson, who was in the Army and they lived in Aldershot, China, Singapore and the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham, now the Defence College.They retired to Bournemouth and died in 1993 and 95.I have my parents' old address books and am looking through them to see if there are any Pryals in them. There is an Etta Owen who lived in Birkenhead, who would be dead by now.When my grandfather died there was a wreath from an Eric and Etta, so I assume that it was some connection of my grandmother,formerly Helen Pryal. I was also in touch earlier with Joyce Cassidy, the grand daughter of Denis Pryal, younger brother of Mary and Helen. Denis married a Margaret Alldred and moved to Leigh. They had several children Jack,James,Dorothy,Peggy and Lilly who all moved back to Birkenhead, apart from Jack, father of Joyce Cassidy.There is apparently a Brent Pryal, who lives on the Wirral. His father and Joyce are cousins, so presumably he is desended from either Christopher or Peter Pryal, younger brothers of Mary and Helen. The contact is the Pryal family board.
I do not know anything about the descendants of Mary (or Minnie)and have not heard of Marie, May or Irene. I will ask my cousin who is 15 years older than me and she may remember something. It is very odd as you say about the disparity in the name of Stanley's father on the birth and marriage certificates. It's interesting that the two names both have the same initials J.R., and the same occupation. I have found odd discrepancies like this in my own family research, but not one that appears to confuse two names that are different both is print and aurally. For instance my grandmother helen is referrred to as Ellen on her birth certificate and Helen on her marriage certificate.She was known in the family as Nell. Just as a matter of interest how old was Mary when Stanley was born?According to the census of 1871 she was born in 1863 or 64, whereas in the census of 1881 she was born in 1866. I have never lived in Birkenhead, although when I was a child up to the age of 5 we lived in Burscough, Lancs. Interestingly my second sister, Mary, went to train to be anurse in Liverpool, but had to interrupt her training when my father was stationed in Singapore and we all had to move. II have spent all my married life in London and live in hHighgate. It is amazing that this large family was scattered to the wwinds and is only now beginning to make contact and try to sort out some of the mysteries. Do tell me where I can find your profile and I will look it up. Best wishes Carol Burgess.
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Re: Pryal family from Co Mayo
Dear Carol, It is indeed very interesting how spread out our family is, especially to me, as on the other side of my family everyone is from Orkney and never went anywhere further than Aberdeen, perhaps! Having said that, it is actually a lot harder to research my family history on the Orkney side as there are a lot of people with the same names within a small area and everyone's occupations are farmers... Also, the Scottish records office don't release their BMD results on this site, just the census results, but I plan to get an appointment to see the real documents in Edinburgh.
When my grandfather died, his diary from his teenage years was left in my Auntie's possession and she is currently in the process of looking through it, as it has a lot of names and addresses listed in it. I discovered the Argyle Street address a few months ago and I looked it up on googkle street view. You will be interested to hear that it is actually a set of flats above a shop encompassing three different addresses, including 106. The shop is a Newsagent and Tobacconists and the sign above the door reads 'Pryal's'. Thank you for this information about the other Pryal descendants. I will try to make contact as they might have information relevant to my research. It would be great if you could ask your cousin, even if she recognises names it would be great. Also, could you ask her if she knows anything about the Teare family. It turns out that Marie Irene Bennett, my grandfather's sister was actually born Marie Irene Teare. I know now that her mother was defenately Marie Bennett, daughter of Minnie Pryal and that her father was a Harold Teare. Again, even if she just recognises any of the names, it would be so beneficial.
As for the discrepencies in Birth and marriage certificates, the reason the marriage certificate lists his father as John Richard Bennett is because that is who he was brought up to believe his father was and at this point his John Richard was dead and could not tell him any different. My grandfather must have had a shock when a few years before hand, when he retrieved a copy of his birth certificate to find that his father had a different name with the same initials. He may have believed it to be a mistake and that the handwriting had been misread and typed up wrong, but he could not verify this, as his original certificate had been lost in a house fire. However, my mother and I are dubious to it being a case of misread handwriting as it would be hard to misread both the forename and the middlename and there is the added factor that James Russell Bennett carries the same middle name as my grandfather, his apparent son, which we think is too much of a coincidence to be a mistake.
Minnie Bennett (nee Pryal) was, as far a I can gather born in 1864, though I have found discrepencies in this also, and so she would have been around 54 when my grandfather was born. Although it wouldn't be impossible for her to have been his mother, it's highly unlikely.
If you look at the list of replies below, there should be a 'sas194941' in green. if you click on it then it should take you to my page, but if it doesn't, contact me and I will send you a link.
best wishes, Sarah Sutherland
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Re: Pryal family from Co Mayo
I remember old Mr Pryal from the sweetshop in Argyle Street. Sweets were on ration in the early fifties and he used to add some sweets to my mother's weekly sweet purchase, which were from under the counter,i.e. "off ration"
It was a very small pokey shop with an L shaped counter and bottles and bottles of sweets. Mr Pryal was quite small and almost hidden behing his counter. He seemed to peer through the gap in the bottles on the counter
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