Chronicling America Newspaper Database

Chronicling America is a website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress .[1]

In total, almost 9.5 million pages of digitized newspapers are currently available view. One of the most useful features on the website is the US Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present. This database contains information for over 153,000 newspapers that were published in the U.S. since the 17^th century. You can use many different filter options to search the database, one of which is ethnicity. Using the ‘Irish’ option gives a return of 127 titles. The majority of the titles are from the state of New York, however, in total, newspapers from 16 states are listed. They are:

Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia

The span of years and cities they cover range from the brief to the broad. Some interesting examples include:

The Irish Pennsylvanian (Pittsburg, PA), 1890-1921

The Northwestern Standard (Minneapolis, MN), 1885-1886

The A.O.H. Journal (Richmond, VA), 1878-1881

Just one of these 127 newspapers is digitized and available to view on the website. It is the Kentucky Irish American and you can search editions from 1898-1921.

Chronicling America website

US Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present

List of ethnic Irish newspapers in the directory

You can read other blog posts about newspapers relevant to Irish genealogy research by selecting the ‘newspaper’ label at the end of this post.

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[1] Chroniclingamerica.gov. About Chronicling America. Year Unknown. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about: accessed 5 May 2015.

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.

Greeley County, Nebraska

Almost everyone and their dog is familiar with how millions of Irish immigrants came to cities such as New York and Boston.  Many though are unfamiliar with the migration of Irish immigrants to other parts of the United States, save for people from those areas and their descendants.

One such example of this is Greeley County, Nebraska. Every year they have an Irish festival and they are very aware of their late 19th century Irish origins. The vast plains of the mid-west were the destination for the curious settlement experiments of the Irish Catholic Colonization Society (ICCS). This article will just concentrate on Greeley county, with another to focus on the ICCS to come.

Patrick Hynes and Michael McCarthy are credited with establishing this Irish colony in 1877.[1] In the 1880 U.S. Federal census there were approx. 1460 residents in Greeley County. [2] Of these just under 10%, or approx. 136 are listed as born in Ireland.[3] This might seem like a small number but these Irish comprised 45% of non-US born residents in Greeley County.[4] The legacy of these beginnings can still be seen in the streetscape of Greeley today. Wicklow Ave., Curran Ave., North Galway St., and North Shannon St. are just a few of the street names that give a nod to those early Irish settlers.

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[1] Author Unknown. History of Greeley Irish Settlement http://greeleyirishfestival.com/greeley_irish_history.htm : accessed 24 July 2013.

[2] Familysearch.org, 1880 U.S. Federal Census; Index of Greeley County, Nebraska residents; online available at https://familysearch.org/search/record/results#count=75&query=%2Bresidence_place%3A%22greeley%2C%20nebraska%22~&collection_id=1417683 : accessed 24 July 2013

[3] Familysearch.org, 1880 U.S. Federal Census; Index of Greeley County, Nebraska residents who were born in Ireland; online available at https://familysearch.org/search/record/results#count=75&query=%2Bbirth_place%3Aireland~%20%2Bresidence_place%3A%22greeley%2C%20nebraska%22~&collection_id=1417683 : accessed 24 July 2013

[4] Approx. 302 of the 1461 residents of Greeley county are listed as being born outside the United States in the 1880 census. Irish born residents account for 146 of these 302 inhabitants.