I'm Speaking At The Genealogy Event

The Genealogy Event takes place in Adare, County Limerick, from Thursday, 31 August to Saturday 2 September. There is a great lineup of speakers with topics such as DNA, military research, church records and newspaper just a sample of what will be available to attendees. I am presenting two talks on the Saturday - Researching Uncle Sam: Genealogy Resources in the USA and Finding Your Irish Ancestors in New York City.

Full details

• Website: The Genealogy Event
• Venue: Woodlands House Hotel, Adare, County Limerick
• Tickets
• Conference schedule and topics (pdf) including -
• Researching Uncle Sam: Genealogy Resources in the USA, 11:20am-12pm, Saturday, 2 September
• Finding Your Irish Ancestors in New York City, 1:50pm-2:30pm Saturday, 2 September

U.S. Census Series: Bald Eagle, Pennsylvania

Bald Eagle in Clinton County, Pennsylvania is a very small town broadly halfway between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, the state capital. In the 1860s, the Bald Eagle Valley Railroad was completed as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad.  Some of the men from Ireland who worked on the railroad had their county of birth recorded in the 1870 U.S. Federal Census. They are found among farmers and laborers who also had their Irish counties of birth recorded. The same information was also recorded for some female immigrants from Ireland.

It is interesting to note that all those that had their Irish counties of birth recorded were from Munster. However, the enumerator, assistant marshal J.P. Heard, only recorded this information in the first five pages in his enumeration of Bald Eagle. All other immigrants from Ireland just had their country of birth recorded. One wonders if all the other Irish immigrants were also from Munster counties and their presence in Bald Eagle was due to chain migration from the south and south west of Ireland. Of those with counties of birth recorded, Cork and Clare have the largest concentrations.

Irish County of Birth	Number
Cork	21
Clare (incl. Claire)	15
Waterford	3
Kerry (incl. Carry)	3
Limerick	1
Total	43

Browse the enumeration for Bald Eagle by clicking here.

The Patrickswell Brownes Blog

It is always refreshing and insightful to see what research problems others have to grapple with as they aim to uncover more about their Irish ancestors and where they come from in Ireland. Learning how other do their research, and the sources they have consulted, can help us become better genealogists.

I recently stumbled across the Patrickswell Brownes blog. Started in December 2015, it walks readers through the research of an unnamed person as they learn more about their Browne ancestors. The posts are insightful, detailed and show a very good knowledge of sources in the United States and Ireland. Bonus points, too, for the healthy dose of citations. 

There have been 14 posts so far and it is worth reading from the beginning.

Patrickswell Brownes blog - First post. 

U.S. Census Series: Ward 12, Scranton, Pennsylvania 1870 - Part 2

Click here for Part 1.

The first place that I profiled for the Census Series posts was Scranton, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. In this series, I highlight examples from censuses where the Irish county or place of origin was noted for those that were enumerated. Tables have been compiled showing the number of Irish county examples for all other places in the United States that I have written about, except Scranton. This has now been rectified.

Almost 600 people from Ireland had their counties of birth record by William Carling as he traveled around the 12th Ward of Scranton in his job as a census enumerator for 1860. Scranton is know for its large Irish-American population of Mayo origin and this is reflected in this ward. Carling did not record the county of origin for every Irish person that he met, but we can see that more than half of those that he did were from the western county.

County	Approx. no of entries
Mayo	348
Sligo (incl. Slago)	89
Tipperary	31
Cork	23
Kerry	17
Down	9
Waterford	9
Kilkenny (incl. Killshiney, Killiney, Kilenny, Klinny)	7
Limerick	7
Cavan	5
Laois (Queens)	5
Leitrim (incl. Lutraim)	5
Dublin	4
Offaly (Kings)	4
Galway	3
Roscommon	3
Antrim (incl. Belfast)	2
Armagh	2
Tyrone	2
Donegal	1
Longford (incl. Longfort)	1
Meath	1
Unknown (Fairfield)	4
TOTAL	582

U.S. Census Series: Ward 2, St. Louis, Missouri 1860

One of the recurring features of this blog is the U.S. Census Series, where I highlight the rare examples of Irish place of birth/origin recorded on census documents. To date, seven locations have been explored and they can be accessed at the Census Series page. This post is about Ward 2, St. Louis, Missouri in the 1860 U.S. Federal Census.

St. Louis, Missouri 1871 Ward Map. Click to enlarge.[1]

We can be thankful to census enumerator Edward Thierry for going beyond the norm when gathering answers to the question 'Place of Birth, Naming the State, Territory or Country.' In total, he recorded an Irish county or place of birth for approximately 323 people. There were also a few other very interesting efforts by him to document place of birth, such as 'County Neals, Ireland,' 'Not Ascertained, Ireland' and 'Born at Sea, Ireland.' He collected this census information between 1 June and 31 July of that year.

County	Approx. No. of Entries
Tipperary	55 (incl. 3 Thurles, 1 Chermill [?], 2 Littleton)
Cork	29 (incl. 3 Bandon, 2 City, 2 Bantry)
Cavan	29
Wexford	21
Dublin	19
Limerick	17
Mayo	17
Meath	15 (incl. 2 Oldcastle)
Galway	14 (incl. 1 Hedford)
Kilkenny	11
Tyrone	10
Roscommon	9
Waterford	9
Westmeath	7
Kerry	6 (incl. 1 Kenmare)
Kildare	6
Monaghan	6
Clare	4
Carlow	4
Derry	4 (incl. 2 'Londy' possibly Londonderry)
Down	4 (incl. 1 Newry)
Leitrim	4
Sligo	4
Offaly	3 (incl. 1 'Fardown' [?])
Antrim	3 (3 Belfast)
Fermanagh	3
Wicklow	3
Armagh	2
Donegal	2
Laois	1
Longford	1
Louth	1
County	323
Co Neals, Ireland	2
Born at Sea, Ireland	1
Portage, Ireland	1
Co City, Ireland	1
Co Casey, Ireland	1
Not ascertained, Ireland	1
Not known, Ireland	1
Other	8
Final Total	331

  

He did not record the county of birth of every Irish born person he encountered, but we get a flavor of the Irish county makeup of the 2nd Ward of St. Louis. Tipperary and Cork feature the most, with counties Cavan, Dublin, Wexford, Limerick and Mayo all heavily featured. At least one person from every county in Ireland had their place of birth recorded.

You can browse all 356 pages of the 2nd Ward and also perform the usual name search.

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[1] Tracey, J. L. Map Of The City Of St. Louis For Tracy's Guide To Missouri. 1871. Available online at David Rumsey Maps           http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~215834~5502559:Missouri-And-St--Louis?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No?: accessed 23 May 2016.

Prince Edward Island Repeal List 1843

The Act of Union came into effect on 1 January 1801 and created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Various efforts at repealing the act occurred both within and outside Ireland. Those who were of this mindset became known as repealers and many Repeal Associations were established in the United States and Canada. One such example was in Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada in the 1840s.

In the 1980s, Terrence M. Punch (more about him in a recent blog post) wrote  in The Island Magazine about finding newspaper articles from 1843 that listed the names of Irish repelaers in PEI. Importantly, an Irish place of birth was also provided for many of the men. The newspaper in questions was the Halifax-based Register and the lists of names were published in various editions from October and November of that year.

Punch's first publication[1] provides the names of 149 men and over 100 Irish places of birth. His second[2] lists 253 men with the majority of names also having an Irish birthplace provided. You can access both publications on the website of the University of Prince Edward Island, as they have digitized old editions of The Island Magazine, or click the links below.

A Prince Edward Island Repeal List for 1843 (pdf)

A Prince Edward Island Repeal List for 1843 Part Two (pdf)

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[1] Punch, Terrence M. A Prince Edward Island Repeal List for 1843. The Island Magazine. 1986, no. 20 Fall Winter. pp. 29-31. Available online at http://vre2.upei.ca/islandmagazine/fedora/repository/vre%3Aislemag-batch2-266: accessed 31 January 2016.

[2] Punch, Terrence M. A Prince Edward Island Repeal List for 1843. The Island Magazine. 1987, no. 21 Spring Summer. pp. 33-36. Available online at http://vre2.upei.ca/islandmagazine/fedora/repository/vre%3Aislemag-batch2-281: accessed 31 January 2016.

U.S. Census Series: Ward 1, Boston 1860

One of the recurring features of this website is the U.S. Census Series, where I highlight the rare instances of Irish place of birth/origin recorded on census documents (access other examples in the Census Series section of the website). This example is probably the most well known: Boston, Ward 1 in the 1860 federal census.

Boston 1865 (Ward 1/North End dark pink color) [1]

The population of Boston at the time of the 1860 census was 177,840.[2] Irish-born people accounted for a large proportion of that count at almost 26%.[3] Ward 1 was the electoral district for the famous North End. Today, this area is known as an Italian American community, but the area was dominated by the Irish from the time of the Famine to about 1880.[4] 

Approximately 3,200 Irish born people in Ward 1 had their county of birth recorded. More than one third of these people were born in Cork, with other significant populations from Galway, Derry/Londonderry, Sligo, and Dublin.

County	Approx. No. of Entries*
Cork	1,376
Galway	496
Derry/Londonderry	251
Sligo	264
Dublin	180
Roscommon	101
Waterford	82
Limerick	77
Clare	66
Laois (indexed as Queens)	57
Longford	46
Wexford	39
Kildare	30
Tipperary	25
Down	19
Offaly (indexed as Kings)	19
Kerry (some indexed as Carey)	14
Carlow	10
Westmeath (indexed as West Made)	11
Monaghan (some indexed as Monahan)	7
Fermanagh (indexed as Fermanna/Fammana)	4
Leitrim	2
Armagh	1
Donegal	1
Mayo	1
Wexford	1
Tyrone (indexed as Terone) - see comment	1
Cavan	0
Louth	0
Meath	0
Antrim	0
Wicklow	0
County not listed, place is	10 approx
TOTAL	3191

The 1860 federal census can be accessed on websites such as Familysearch (index only), Ancestry, Findmypast, and Fold3.

*Note: numbers are very close approximates as it is difficult to count every single example.

EDIT (5/16/15): The ward boundaries in Boston changed a number of times in the 19th century. The ward boundaries in operation during the 1860 federal census were enacted in 1850. This map is from an 1865 publication and they were changed during that year. However, the map has a date of 1855 in the lower right corner (see link in footnote to view) and the boundaries on this map seem to be congruent with the description of the 1850 boundaries. For more information, read here.

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[1] Colton, G.W. 1865. Colton's Map of Boston and Adjacent Cities. New York, NY:  J. H. Colton, No. 172 William St. New York. p.31. Available online http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~208629~5003410:Boston-and-Adjacent-Cities-?qvq=w4s:/where/Boston+(Mass.);lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=6&trs=221# :accessed 25 April 2015

[2] United States Census Bureau. 1860 Fast Facts, 10 Largest Urban Places. 2014. https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/fast_facts/1860_fast_facts.html: accessed 25 April 2015.

[3] The Familysearch.org index gives a figure of 46,026 for the Irish born population.

[4] Goldfeld, Alex R.  The North End: A Brief History of Boston's Oldest Neighborhood. Charleston, SC: History Press. 2009.