Beara Peninsula Genealogy

Riobard O'Dwyer has studied the genealogy, history and social customs of the families on the Beara Peninsula, Counties Cork and Kerry, for more than 40 years. Many people from this area emigrated to the United States and Canada over the last 200+ years. In 2009, he published three volumes of The Annals of Beara. The work contains information on families from the Roman Catholic parishes of Adrigole,  Allihies (both in Volume 1), Bere Island, Eyeries (both in Volume 2), Castletownbere and Glengarriff (both in Volume 3).[1] Volume 3 also contains a brief history of the O'Sullivan clan.[2]

Roman Catholic Parishes Beara Peninsula. Courtesy National Library of Ireland[3] 

The foreword to volume one outlines that he consulted every church record in the area. This was combined with local knowledge of who married whom, what occupation they had and where they lived locally or emigrated to.[4] The combination of these aspects allowed the author to tie many North American immigrants to what townland there were originally from on the peninsula.

The volumes were digitized earlier this year by the New England Historic Genealogical Society and are available on their website, americanancestors.org. Currently, only volume one has been indexed, while volumes two and three are browse only. A table of contents for all three volumes is available here (pdf).

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[1] Rregisters.nli.ie notes that Castletownbere and Bere Island are the same Roman Catholic parish.

[2] Description. Beara, Ireland: The Annals of Beara. 2016. Available online at https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/ireland-the-annals-of-beara/about/?rId=0&filterQuery=page:5http://www.americanancestors.org/databases/annals-of-beara/about: accessed 30 July 2017.

[4] Search the map, Roman Catholic Parish Registers at the National Library of Ireland. http://registers.nli.ie: accessed 30 July 2017.

[4] O'Dwyer, Riobard. The Annals of Bears: Volume I Adrigole and Alihies Parishes. Statesboro, Georgia : Gold Stag Publications. 2009. p. i.

Ulster Historical Foundation U.S. Tour Webinars

The Ulster Historical Foundation annual tour of the United States finishes today in Little Rock, Arkansas. Last week, they visited Fountaindale, Illinois, and the Fountaindale Public Library has made all of their presentations available to view on Youtube and their Fountaindale Public Library Genealogy & Research blog.

Of particular interest to this blog are the presentations:

Emigration from Ireland to North America: An Overview



Emigration from Ireland to North America: Strategies for Researching Emigrant Ancestors

 

From Ulster to Philadelphia

An Alphabetical Index of Ulster Emigration to Philadelphia, 1803-1850 dates from the early 1990s and was compiled by Pennsylvanian Raymond D. Adams. The specific and succinct nature of the title quickly tells the genealogist what this publication should be used for. There are entries for almost 2,000 individuals who arrived into Philadelphia in the first half of the 19th century. Some combination of name, age, family members that traveled with them, ship, year of arrival, port of embarkation and address in Ireland is provided for each person. The address is typically a townland.

The main disadvantage of this book is that the primary sources from where the information came from is only hinted at - "Customs Lists and passenger Lists contained in the National Archives [presumably of the United States], existing passenger lists recorded voluntarily by ship's masters of the Cunard and Cooke shipping lines, and civil parish emigration lists retained by the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland."[1] Without clear citations, you still have to try and track down the original documentation that provided the information so as to help prove the Philadelphian immigrant's Irish place of origin.

Based on this description of sources and the specific years of arrival listed in the book, I'd suggest following up with Brian Mitchell's books to learn more about where the information comes from.

Mitchell, Brian. Irish Emigration Lists, 1833-1839 - Lists of Emigrants Extracted from the OrdnanceSurvey Memoirs for Counties Londonderry and Antrim. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company. 2007.

Mitchell, Brian. Irish Passenger Lists, 1847-1871 - Lists of Passengers Sailing from Londonderry to America on Ships of the J. & J. Cooke Line and the McCorkell Line. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company. 2001.

Mitchell, Brian. Irish Passenger Lists, 1803-1806 - Lists of Passengers Sailing from Ireland to America. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company. 1995.

An Alphabetical Index....is also available as a searchable database on Ancestry.

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[1] Adams, Raymond D. An Alphabetical Index to Ulster Emigration to Philadelphia, 1803-1850. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company. 1992. p. vii.

Upcoming Talks

I have two talks coming up next week, details of which you can find below.

Tuesday, 6 September: Ten free websites for U.S. genealogical research

This is part of the lunchtime series at the National Library of Ireland. It starts at 1pm and is free to attend with no booking required.

Thursday, 8 September: Tracing Galway's Emigrants in the United States and Canada

I will be giving this talk at the Emigration and our Galway County Diaspora conference. There is an excellent lineup across the day and my talk is at 3:45pm. The conference is in Clarinbridge and is free to attend.

Immigrant Ancestors Project

The Immigrant Ancestors Project is located at the Center for Family History and Genealogy at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is a project and database that is very useful for genealogists in that it provides the place of origin from countries such as Ireland for immigrants to the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. It sources from "emigration registers to locate information about the birthplaces of immigrants in their native countries, which is not found in the port registers and naturalization documents in the destination countries."[1]  It began in 2014 and is ongoing. Currently, it lists the National Library of Ireland, Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, The National Archives (UK), and the British Library as institutions it has worked with.

A search for those from Ireland who immigrated to the United States and Canada returns over 1,500 entries. Some of those records come from small, but interesting record sets and publications:

• Castlecomer [Kilkenny] Poor Law Union Assisted Emigrants 1847-1853
• Irish Emigrant Letters 1842-1910
• Irish Emigrant Personal Accounts 1838-1901        

At the time of writing, information for more than 90% of Irish immigrants to North America in the database comes from one collection - WO23, Examination of Invalid Soldiers from The National Archives (UK). This is a collection which lists invalid soldiers who were given permission to stay in what was British Canada in the 19th century.

This clearly is a project with a lot of potential as there are many less well known record sets in Irish and British archives that contain Irish place of origin information for many who immigrated from Ireland to the United States or Canada. Dependant on funding, hopefully this is a database that will grow over the coming years.

Access here.

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[1] Center for Family History and Genealogy. Immigrant Ancestors Project. 2014. Available online at http://immigrants.byu.edu/about/iap: accessed 6 May 2016.

Maine Gaeltacht DNA Project

Last week, I profiled the genealogy holdings and services at the Maine Irish Heritage Center (MIHC) in Portland. The jewel in the crown at MIHC, though, is undoubted the Maine Gaeltacht[1] DNA Project.

It was started in 2011 and is essentially an attempt to trace the genealogy of Irish immigrants to Maine via the traditional paper trail and DNA. To date it has collected information on more than 142,000 such immigrants and their descendants and 535 people have participated in autosomal DNA tests.[2] The well known Irish genetic genealogist, Maurice Gleeson, has described it as "the most advanced DNA project of its kind in existence."[3]

The project is named so due to the high number of Irish immigrants who came from the Irish speaking areas of County Galway, such as Connemara. What makes the project even more valuable is that many people from Connemara have submitted samples for DNA testing.

The project was profiled in the Portland Press Herald newspaper back in March. The article gives an excellent overview of the project and what it has achieved so far. Members of the project traveled to Ireland last year to present a lecture at the Back to Our Past Genetic Genealogy Ireland conference. You can watch that presentation below (53 mins).

If you want to participate in the project you can contact the MIHC online.

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[1] Irish word for an Irish speaking area.

[2] Bouchard, Kelley. Thanks to DNA ancestry project, Mainers with Irish ties find family. Portland Press Herald. 17 March 2016. Available online at http://www.pressherald.com/2016/03/17/thanks-to-dna-ancestry-project-mainers-with-irish-ties-are-smiling: accessed 3 April 2015.

[3] Ibid.

Familysearch Letures

There are myriad online resources to help with genealogy research in Ireland, Canada and the United States. What is harder to come by are lectures that focus on researching in the United States and Canada with the aim of getting back to Ireland. Luckily, Familysearch have some resources available in that category. Their website is primarily known for the billions of free records from all over the world. However, less well explored sections of the website include the Family History Research Wiki and the Learning Center.

The learning center has a number of interesting lectures that are specifically aimed at those who are trying to find where their ancestor(s) came from in Ireland.

• Ireland Beginning Research Series Immigration Part 1: Strategies (21 mins, slides and handout)
• Ireland Beginning Research Series Immigration Part 2: Famine and Post Famine Sources (31 mins, slides and handout)
• Ireland Beginning Research Series Immigration Part 3: Ulster and Scots Irish Sources (27 mins, slides and handout)
• Ireland Emigration (1 hour 28 mins, slides)
• Irish Emigration to North America: Before, During, and After the Famine (47 mins, handout and slides)

U.S. Consular Registration Records, 1907-1925

The Ancestry databases U.S., Consular Registration Certificates, 1907 - 1918 and U.S., Consular Registration Applications, 1916-1925 contain records pertaining to "naturalized or native born American citizens who intended to stay in a foreign country for a protracted length of time."[1] Records from these databases have a lot of information about the individual who was requesting to stay outside the United States. 

There are almost 800 entries across the two databases for people who were born in Ireland, became a citizen of the United States when they moved there, and then were required to file registration with a U.S. consulate when they resided outside the United States. In almost all examples for Irish born people, their county or area of birth was recorded. The majority of these people moved back to Ireland for various lengths of time but some also moved to Great Britain.

Denis Barry was born in Sunday's Well, County Cork on 15 May 1860.[2] At some point in his life he moved to the U.S., naturalized, and lived in Washington D.C. He arrived back in Ireland in 1900 to reside at 17 Friars Avenue, Cork City. His reason for returning to Ireland was 'health failing and it is my intentions [sic] to return to the United States, if health improves." His Certificate of Registration of an American Citizen is dated 18 September 1907. A search of the 1901 Census of Ireland shows Denis Barry residing with his two unmarried sisters at the address he provided.[3]

Page from Consular Registration Certificate of Denis Barry, 1907

If you find a person of interest in these databases, be sure to look at the pages either side of the relevant image as there will usually be more than one page in a person's application. Typically, a witness who believed the applicant's statements to be correct is also listed on the document. In the case of Denis Barry, William Ellis of 11 Douglas St, Cork, verified the information provided by Barry. Other records from applicants provide the name of a spouse, any children and all their birth places, if the applicant was married and had children. 

These databases are an interesting example that shows a small subset of Irish people who returned to Ireland from the United States, either temporarily or permanently. Access them at:

U.S., Consular Registration Certificates, 1907-1918
U.S., Consular Registration Applications, 1916-1925

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[1] Ancestry.com, U.S., Consular Registration Certificates, 1907 - 1918. 2013. http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=2995: accessed 7 February 2016.

[2] United States, Department of State, Bureau of Citizenship, Certificate of Registration of an American Citizen, Number 48774, Denis Barry, dated 1 September 1907; digital image, U.S., Consular Registration Certificates, 1907 - 1918, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com), accessed 6 February 2016.

[3] The National Archives of Ireland, 1901 Census of Ireland, County Cork, DED Cork Urban No. 4, Townland/Street Friars Avenue or Granbraker Road, house 4, Form A , Denis Barry; digital image, The National Archives of Ireland, http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000518111: accessed 7 February 2016.

The New Catholic Parish Registers Website And Ne Temere

Unless you have been under a rock for the last two weeks, you will know all about The National Library of Ireland's brand new website for Catholic parish registers. Simply put, it's a joy to use. There has been plenty of coverage all about it so there is no need for me to rehash it all. So what can researchers in the U.S. and Canada get from the website? Well, the most obvious benefit is free, unlimited access to digitized images of the registers. That's a no brainer.

Beyond that, there are some other benefits that will be of particular use to researchers who are tracing immigrant Irish ancestors. Genealogy research is all about trying to get original records, or if that is not possible, a photocopy, picture, or digital scan of the record; it allows a researcher to see all that has been written on the document. This includes all the necessary information needed to create the document and any possible notations, later amendments or commentary that has been added by the record creator or another party. Having access to digital scans of the Catholic register microfilms allows a researcher to do this.

This ability can be very useful when we consider the possibility of Ne Temere positively impacting on our research. Ne Temere was a decree of Catholic matrimonial law in relation to marriage, with one part stipulating that all marriages must be registered in the place or places where the contracting parties were baptized.[1] With Ne Temere coming into force in 1908, conceivably, it can be expected that such register amendments will be found from about 1848 to 1890, if a person who is born in Ireland gets married in the U.S./Canada between the ages of 18 and 60.

Some examples of this are evident in the registers. The following entry is found in the baptismal registers of Kilmore Erris parish in County Mayo:

Married John Naggius [?] 27 June 1928 in St Paul's Cathedral, Pittsburgh USA

13 [February 1870] Mary Barrett [daughter of] Richard [and] Peg Murphy [from] Cross [townland]; [Sponsors] Tom Barrett [and] Ellen Do [Ditto, therefore Barrett][2]

Another example comes from Keel parish in County Kerry:

15 [Septembris 1878] Idem bapt Juliaus f. leg. Thomas Griffin et

matrimonius _____ est ___ Ioanne Hennessy ____ S. Benan ___ New York ___ 20 Julius 1910

Julia Duggan Sp Ioannes Flynn et Maria McElligott[3]

[15 September 1878; the same, baptism, legitimate daughter of Thomas Griffin

Marriage ____ of __ John Hennessy ____ S. Benan ___ New York ___ 20 July 1910
and Julia Duggan; sponsors John Flynn and Maria McElligott]

With this example, the proof of this later addition can be seen in the index for marriage records from New York City[4]

Other interesting notations that can provide possible clues about immigration to the U.S. are also evident, such as this example, also from Kilmore Erris parish:

                                    America
16 [December 1860] Wm [?] Dixon [son of] Rodger [and] Bridget Kilcar [from] Tip [? townland]; [Sponsors] Pat Dixon & Mary McDonald[5]

If you come across a relevant entry in the registers, make sure to examine closely around it and elsewhere on the page for such notations and additions.

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[1] Galles, Duane. "Roman Catholic Church Records and the Genealogist." National Genealogical Society Quarterly. No. 74 (December 1986). p 272.
[2] Kilmore Erris Parish (Mayo, Ireland), Baptisms 24 June 1860-13 May 1881, unnumbered, p.6, William Dixon, 16 December 1860; digital image, Catholic Parish Registers at the NLI  http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000634629#page/33/mode/1up: accessed 18 July 2015.

[3] Keel Parish (Kerry, Ireland), Baptisms 1 March 1845-7 November 1880, unnumbered, p.155, Julia Griffin, 15 September 1879; digital image, Catholic Parish Registers at the NLI http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000634275#page/155/mode/1up: accessed 18 July 2015.

[4] New York City, NYC Grooms Record Index, Grooms Database 1908-1937, John J Hennessy  and Julia A Griffin, 20 July 1910; index entry, Italian Genealogical Group  http://italiangen.org/records-search/grooms.php: accessed 18 July 2015.

[5]Kilmore Erris Parish (Mayo, Ireland), Baptisms 24 June 1860-13 May 1881, unnumbered, p.33, Mary Barrett, 13 February 1870; digital image, Catholic Parish Registers at the NLI http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000634629#page/6/mode/1up: accessed 18 July 2015.