Catholic Cemetery, Norfolk, Virginia

The land for St Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Norfolk, Virginia was purchased in 1854. Since that date, it has served as the resting place for Catholics from the Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach areas of the state. This is an area of the United States that did not see a lot of immigration of Catholic from Ireland. As a result, the few Catholic parishes and cemeteries that they helped to create are important resources for genealogical research.

The About section of the cemeteries' website has a link to a database of interments that is hosted on the US Gen Web Archive. The database is considerable, with burials from the 1850s to the 21st century included. What makes this such a useful resource is that the information provided for each person was drawn from a number of different sources including original cemetery records, parish records, local death records, headstone inscriptions, obituaries and other records.

Names, dates of burial, dates of death, estimated years of birth, actual dates of birth and a link to an image of the headstone are provided for those in the database. Significantly, place of origin in Ireland is also included for some of the deceased.

For example, John M. O' Connor died on 16 October 1908. He was born about 1866 in Galway. Even though he is buried in Norfolk, Virginia, he died in Baltimore, Maryland.[1] Patrick McCarrick was born in Ballina, County Mayo on 16 June 1821 and died 3 February 1888. He was a captain in the Confederate Navy.[2]

Note: It is important to remember that the information in this database is a secondary source and was derived from primary source documentation. It is possible that mistakes occurred in the creation of this database so the primary source should be obtained wherever possible in your research.

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[1] Alesia Raper, Tim Bonney, Robert B. Hitchings, Bill Inge, Colin Boklage, Marian Rudd, Emilie Hauser, Connie Kean & Candice Cheshire. St Mary's Cemetery Interment Database - O. Date Unknown. http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/norfolkcity/cemeteries/stmarys/sm-o.html : 10 October 2015

[2] Alesia Raper, Tim Bonney, Robert B. Hitchings, Bill Inge, Colin Boklage, Marian Rudd, Emilie Hauser, Connie Kean & Candice Cheshire. St Mary's Cemetery Interment Database - McC - McK. Date Unknown. http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/norfolkcity/cemeteries/stmarys/sm-mcc-mck.html : 10 October 2015

Archives Of Irish America

The Archives of Irish America is a repository of primary research materials at New York University that aims to transform our understanding of the Irish migration experience and the distillation of American Irish ethnicity over the past century.[1] Sometimes, it is not obviously apparent how a university archive collection can help with genealogy, but searching through the catalog can reveal some hidden gems.

The oral history collection contains a large number of interviews with Irish-born immigrants and those who are descendants of Irish immigrants from previous generations. Some of the interviewees from Ireland were born in the 1930s and could possibly give an insightful understanding about coming to America and assimilating in the first half of the 20th century. Places of origin in Ireland and the names of parents and grandparents could also possibly be provided.

The Archives also houses the Gaelic Society of New York Collection and the John T. Ridge Collection, among many others. Both of these collections have documents and information from the 19th and 20th centuries. Many Irish immigrants joined fraternal, cultural, social, and political organizations in the U.S. These collections cans shed light on their involvement in such organizations and possibly provide pertinent genealogical information.

For a full list of the collections, click this link and select Archives of Irish America (AIA) Collection at the top of the page.

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[1] New York University. Archives of Irish America. Year Unknown. www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/aia: accessed 7 May 2015.

St. Joseph's New Cemetery, Cincinnati

St. Joseph's New Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio opened in 1854 and was purchased due to the original St. Joseph's Cemetery—located closer to the center of downtown—filling up. That first cemetery housed the remains of the growing German and Irish Catholic population of the city and was open from 1842 to 1853. [1]

The website for the new cemetery has an extensive database of over 120,000 interments, covering the time period from the 1850s to 2008. There is also a helpful browse option, useful for names that have been erroneously transcribed or spelled in an unconventional manner. Information returned from the database includes name of deceased, date of interment, and where known, age, date of death, spouse's name, and parents' names.

The cemetery is located at 4500 Foley Road, to the west of downtown Cincinnati. 

Click here to access the database.

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[1] Blevins, Michael J. St. Joseph Cemetery Association. 18 November 2008.  http://www.stjoenew.com/history.html: accessed 13 January 2015. 

St. Peter's Catholic Cemetery, Baltimore, MD

St. Peter's Catholic Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland is located on Moreland Ave., to the north-west of the downtown area. It opened in 1851 and was associated with St. Peter the Apostle parish which was founded on the corners of Hollins and North Poppleton Sts. in 1842. This parish, known as the "mother Church of west Baltimore", was built to provide a place of worship for the growing Irish population who moved to the west side of the city to work on the B&O Railroad.[1]

Three different online indexes of burials for the cemetery, in .pdf file format, are available to view for the years 1851 to about 1970. Each of these indexing efforts come from different sources and cover a majority of, though not all, entries. It is recommended to read the 'Preface' for each set of files to understand from what source they were transcribed and what years they cover. You can access all three sets by clicking here and a cemetery map by clicking here.

Note: St. Peter the Apostle parish is now closed. In 2004 it merged with St. Jerome and St. Martin to form Transfiguration Catholic Community. Phone: 410-685-5044 or visit the parish website for more information, such as the location of parish registers.

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[1] Spalding, Thomas W. The Premier See: A History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, 1789-1989. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1989.

Diocese of Wilmington Cemetery Database

The Diocese of Wilmington was established in 1868 and today covers the state of Delaware and nine Maryland counties on the Delmarva Peninsula.[1] The three largest cemeteries in the diocese are Cathedral cemetery (Wilmington, DE, opened 1876), All Saints (Wilmington, DE, opened 1958), and Gate of Heaven (Dagsboro, DE, opened 2002). 

A searchable database is available on the diocesan website for these three cemeteries. Details in the database include name, date of death, and plot location. Existing headstone/grave markers in Cathedral cemetery have been photographed and are also available to view. The diocesan website also lists location and contact information for 18 current and 4 closed parish cemeteries.

Search the database by clicking here.

Cemetery Maps

All Saints map

Cathedral cemetery map

Gate of Heaven map

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[1] Catholic Diocese of Wilmington. A Brief History of the Diocese of Wilmington. Year Unknown. Available online at http://www.cdow.org/about-the-diocese/history: accessed 13 May 2014 

Omaha Catholic Cemeteries

The Archdiocese of Omaha was originally founded as the Vicariate Apostolic of the Nebraska Territory in 1859.[1] Since then, it has decreased in size and increased in importance, becoming an archdiocese in 1945. Currently, the archdiocese consists of 23 counties in north-eastern Nebraska.

Since the late 19^th century, the archdiocese has had five cemeteries under is auspices: Saint Mary Magdalene (opened in 1868, traditionally German), Holy Sepulchre (1873), Saint Mary (1883), Calvary (1952), and Resurrection (founding year unknown, but after 1952).

Burials at these cemeteries are available to search via the Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Omaha website. Where known, you will be provided with name, date of death and plot location. Click here to search the database.

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[1] Archdiocese of Omaha. Prelate History. Available online at http://www.archomaha.org/about/history/prelate-history : accessed 6 May 2014.

Lowell, MA Burials 1895-2011

St. Patrick's Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts, was founded in 1832 in response to the need for a consecrated burial ground for the growing Catholic Irish community. The website of the cemetery has a genealogy section where you can search for information about burials that occurred from 1895 to 2011. All burials for those years are listed alphabetically in PDF documents. Provided information includes name, age at death, date interred, the location of the grave, and the name of the funeral director who arranged the burial, if know. This final piece of information could potentially lead to funeral home records.

More information about records before 1895 can be found in the comprehensive history of the cemetery. The website also has detailed maps of individual lots to help you locate a specific grave.

Contact details are also available on the website, should you need to get full interment records.

Kentucky Irish American

A very important resource for Irish genealogical research in the state of Kentucky is the Kentucky Irish American newspaper. Statewide newspapers aimed at the Irish community, and that were published for decades, are not that common. This publication hit the newsstands on a weekly basis from the 1890s to 1968.

Based in Louisville, it catered to the needs of the concentrated Irish community. In the early decades there was regular reporting on fraternal organizations, such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians, with members and officers named on a weekly basis. Other features included society news, focusing on the burgeoning middle-class Irish, and deaths that occurred. Some obituaries, such as the one below, for Mary Boyle Featherstone, give a county of birth.[1]

Obituary of Mary Boyle Featherstone from the Kentucky Irish American

Microfilm editions for all years are available at the University of Louisville. Some years (1900, 1901, 1909, 1910) are available on the subscription website Fold3. Copies from 1898-1921 can be accessed for a fee on Newspapers.com, and for free on The Chronicling America website.

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[1] Author Unknown. Mourn Her Death. 11 March 1905. Kentucky Irish American. p. 1. Available online at 

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86069180/1905-03-11/ed-1/seq-1/#fullscreen=true: accessed 17 March 2014.

Brenan Funeral Home Records

Funeral home records are not a source that is often easily accessible. Therefore, it is most welcome when such records find their way into a public archive. In St. John, Canada, the Brenan Funeral Home records are available at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.

Some of these records have been transcribed and are available online at the New Brunswick Irish portal website. They cover the time period 1901 to 1960, with a subset of 1136 records—from the full c.32,000— available on this database. One particular use for these records is that they can plug a gap if the death was not registered with the relevant local authorities. The full database and more information about these records are available here.