Thursday, December 31, 2015

Irish Genealogy In North America - 2015 In Review

Compared to 2014, 2015 was a quieter year when it came to new developments and record releases in relation to Irish genealogy in North America. However, there were some very positive additions. The year kicked off in great fashion with the addition of editions of the Gaelic American newspaper on GenealogyBank.com and the release of Reproductive Loan Fund Records on Findmypast.

March saw the launch of a new website, Irishnewspapers.com, that allows people to pay in dollars for access to digitized local newspapers from Ireland. In the same month, the Ulster Historical Foundation had a very successful annual tour of the U.S. and Canada. They managed to fit in a phenomenal 15 stops in 17 days, no doubt taking planes, trains, and automobiles to get to all their destinations. They have already earmarked their 2016 tour, so watch out to see if they will be visiting a city near you.

Season six of the U.S. Who Do You Think You Are? featured actor Sean Hayes and his Irish-American ancestry. This was quite a good episode that showcased a number of detailed record sets in Illinois and Ireland.

The New York Public Library launched an interested website in November called Emigrant City. The website is an effort at crowd-sourcing the transcription of mortgage and bond record books from the Library’s collection of Emigrant Savings Bank records. Many of those who banked with the Emigrant [Industrial] Savings Bank were Irish immigrants and their descendants.

Lastly, the Irish Government released two documents this past year that have the potential to positively impact Irish genealogical research efforts in the United States and Canada. Global Irish: Irish Diaspora Policy and Local Diaspora Toolkit encompass a wide range of ideas and it is fantastic to see genealogy begin discussed in a government policy document. Read my two opinion pieces about these documents here and here.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Chicago and Great Lakes Lecture

The Ulster Historical Foundation (UHF) recently posted a lecture on their YouTube channel called "All Roots Lead to Chicago: Irish Railroad Workers and Canal Workers in the 19th Century." Debra Dudek of Fountaindale Public Library, Bolingbrook, Illinois and Tina Beard of Plainfield Public Library, Plainfield, Illinois travelled from the US to the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) where they presented the talk.

The lecture is divided into two sections: (i) where Irish immigrants settled in the states around the Great Lakes regions and what attracted them, and (ii) Irish immigration to the city of Chicago. Below you will find some of the main points of the talk, but I encourage you to watch the full lecture if you had Irish immigrant ancestors who settled in any of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania or New York.


  • Irish immigrants worked as canal builders in the early to mid 19th century. The canals were built towards the lakes (from states in the eastern US) and then built out from the lakes, for example south into Illinois
  • Minnesota and Indiana did not received a lot of Irish settlers
  • There was a lot of mining in Minnesota that attracted Irish immigrants – there are still pockets in Minnesota today that are communities of Irish miner descendants
  • Wisconsin had a lot of railroad work and shipping
  • Immigrants from Ireland came to these states into the 1920s and 1930s
  • A lot of Irish immigrants and their descendants were involved in the labor movement in Michigan. The Michigan State Department of Natural Resources has mining records  that contain full dossiers on such people. They are not online or indexed

  • There were 14 Irish newspapers in Illinois, most were in Chicago and there was one in the city of Moline
  • Chicago newspapers also had Information Wanted advertisements, like in the Boston Pilot newspaper
  • Chicago Irish neighborhoods included Bridgeport, Back of the Yards, Canaryville and Brighton Park
  • Many of Chicago's first Irish immigrants had worked on the Illinois & Michigan (I&M) Canal and the Erie Canal before that.
  • In Illinois, canal building efforts went from Bridgeport to Purdie where it connected with the Illinois river
  • There are Illinois records for the (I&M) Canal in Springfield, the state capital, and each of the communities along which it was built e.g. Jolie, Lockport
  • Roman Catholic parishes opened along the way of construction
  • The workers were given land instead of wages but they were not registered – those records do exist for the Lockport area, but don’t seem to exist for other communities
  • Ottawa, IL Genealogical Guild has canal records for the Irish immigrants that stayed in the area

  • Chicago neighborhoods Canaryville and Back of the Yards were near the train stock yards that arose from the 1860s onwards
  • Bridgeport was largely an Ulster neighborhood, particularly Cavan and Derry
  • After 1865 there was a lot of immigration to these neighborhoods as there were new jobs on the railroad
  • St. Gabriel’s was the RC parish in Canaryville
  • In the 1830s and 1840s Albany, New York had a large Irish population. Many went to Chicago to build buildings and canals
  • Pre-1854, Catholic baptisms in Chicago occurred in Old St Patrick’s Parish and served the Irish immigrants for the entire city. They are on Familysearch.org.

Thanks to the UHF and PRONI for posting it online and the Irish Genealogy News blog for highlighting it last month.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Tracing The Irish In Washington State

The November/December edition of Irish Lives Remembered genealogy magazine has hit the virtual newsstand and in this edition I've written about research in Washington state. Don't forget, this magazine is completely free for anyone to read.


This is my last article for the magazine and I would like to sincerely thank editor Eileen Munnelly for bringing me on board almost two years ago.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938

The National Home (called Asylum up to 1873) for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was founded in 1865 to look after volunteer soldiers who had been injured or disabled during the American Civil War. Twelve homes were opened across the United States, beginning with the first home in Togus, Maine in 1866.[1]

Home
Location
Date Established
Eastern Branch
Togus, Maine
1866
Central Branch
Dayton, Ohio
1867
Northwestern Branch
Wood, Wisconsin
1867
Southern Branch
Hampton, Virginia
1870
Western Branch
Leavenworth, Kansas
1885
Pacific Branch
Sawtelle, California
1888
Marion Branch
Marion, Indiana
1888
Roseburg Branch
Roseburg, Oregon
1894
Danville Branch
Danville, Illinois
1898
Mountain Branch
Johnson City, Tennessee
1903
Battle Mountain Sanitarium
Hot Springs, South Dakota
1907
Tuskegee Home
Tuskegee, Alabama
1923
Bath Branch
Bath, New York
1929
St. Petersburg Home
St. Petersburg, Florida
1930
Table 1: Chronological year of opening of National Homes for Disables Volunteer Soldiers

Both Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org have the database United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938. It contains almost 400,000 records and the page for each veteran in the registers is divided into four parts: military history, domestic history, home history, and general remarks.  Just over 28,100 of the entries are for men who were born in Ireland. Of those, the Irish county or place of birth is recorded for almost 500 men.

County
No. of records
Dublin
124
Cork (inc. 2 Queenstown)
60
Galway
43
Limerick
32
Tipperary (incl. 1 Templemore)
28
Donegal (incl. Donnegal)
18
Derry/Londonderry
18
Mayo (incl. May & 1 Charlestown)
18
Tyrone
14
Sligo
14
Kilkenny
13
Roscommon (incl. Rosecommon)
12
Waterford
11
Kerry (incl. 1 Killarney)
11
Kildare
8
Cavan (incl. Caven)
6
Antrim
6
Clare
6
Armagh
5
Down
4
Offaly (incl. Kings)
4
Westmeath
4
Monaghan (incl. Monoghan)
3
Leitrim
3
Longford
3
Wexford
3
Wicklow
3
Fermanagh
2
Carlow
2
Laois (incl. Queens)
2
Meath (incl. 1 Navan)
2
Louth
1
Castle Borough, Ireland
1
Clashmore, Ireland
1
Rockville, Ireland
1
Drummond, Ireland
1
Barr, Ireland
1
Kilduff, Ireland
1
Kenmore, Ireland
1
Bangor, Ireland
1
County Carney, Ireland
1
Grey Abbey, Ireland
1
Ardmore, Ireland
1
Clifton, Ireland
1
TOTAL
495
Table 2: No. of records that give Irish county/place of birth

The questions asked on the pro-forma registers changed slightly over the years but a core of questions were asked throughout:[2] (i) military history - time and place of each enlistment, rank, company and regiment, time and place of discharge, cause of discharge, kind and degree of disability, when and where contracted; (ii) domestic history - where born (state or country and town or county), age, height, complexion, color of eyes, color of hair, read and write, religion, occupation, residence subsequent to discharge, marital status/social condition, name and address of nearest relative; (iii) home history - rate of pension, date of admission re-admission and transfer, condition of re-admission, date and discharge of transfer, cause of discharge, date of death, cause of death (iv) general remarks - papers, effects, location of grave and remarks.

Not every question is answered for each resident, especially in the records of those who were admitted to the first few national homes.  However, most questions were usually answered and this is a tremendous amount of detail about one individual, especially in the 19th century. It is also unusual to see a government document ask about the religion of a person.

Entry for Austin Connelly, born about 1810 Dublin, Ireland
To share one example, Austin Connelly entered the Central Branch home in Dayton, Ohio on 13 July 1875. He was born in Dublin, Ireland about 1810. In the United States, he worked as a shoemaker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He first enlisted in the 109th Pennsylvania volunteers on 22 February 1862 at Philadelphia. He was discharged in 1863 before re-enlisting in the 116th Pennsylvania volunteers in February 1864. A relative was named as John Finnell of Camden, New Jersey. Austin Connelly died on 4 May 1891.[3]

Access this database at Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org.



[1] National Parks Service. History of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. Date Unknown.  http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/veterans_affairs/History.html: accessed 28 November 2015.
[2] Questions with strikethrough were asked in later years
[3] "United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VZ39-D1Y : accessed 28 November 2015), Austin Connelly, 1875; citing p. 5403, Dayton, Ohio, United States, NARA microfilm publication M1749 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 32; FHL microfilm 1,547,614.