Q My great grandfather, ThomasWhitmore, was born in Clonroche, County Wexford, Ireland. His army records state that he was a Roman Catholic born c1867–1868, but I cannot find any birth records. His British Army First World War pension record names his father as John Whitmore and mother as Kate Whitmore née Kelly, and his brothers. Jacqueline Payne
A On Irish Genealogy (irishgenealogy.ie), a free website for Ireland’s civil records, I found that John and Kate married in Cloughbawn (AKA Killegney) Catholic parish on 24 February 1865. This is the parish into which the village of Clonroche falls. Checking for civil births in the registration district of Enniscorthy (which encompasses Clonroche), I identified seven children born to the Whitmore and Kelly marriage: John (February 1866), Mary (January 1871), Laurence (February 1873), William (August 1875), Patrick (November 1877), Peter (April 1880) and Joseph (September 1882). You will note a clear gap between John and Mary.
I searched the scanned images of the parish register for Killegney (available at the National Library of Ireland’s website nli.ie) between 1864 and 1872, and the only baptism records I found were those for John (February 1866) and Mary (January 1871). The Whitmores must have been residing elsewhere during that period, because if other children had been born in Clonroche then it would be most unlikely that both their civil birth and baptism would go unrecorded. Interestingly, the civil birth record for Mary notes her father’s occupation as “musician”. In every other instance it’s “labourer”, other than for Peter in 1880, when it’s “dealer”. Had John been working as a musician elsewhere?
You should cast your net wider: look for the civil birth/baptism record of Thomas Whitmore in other parishes in County Wexford and/or throughout Ireland. Also, allow for spelling variants and errors. Search at nli.ie (free), irishgenealogy.ie (free) and RootsIreland (rootsireland.ie; paid for). If this isn’t successful then move on to check relevant sources in other parts of the UK.