Irish Immigrants in New Brunswick Census 1851 & 1861

In the years following 1845 New Brunswick experienced an influx of Irish immigrants due to the failed potato crop in Ireland. The wave abated by 1851 but is commonly remembered as the sole contribution of Irish to New Brunswick. Yet thousands of Irish were living in New Brunswick prior to these events. In 1851 and 1861 New Brunswick conducted full censuses which were to become invaluable records documenting the makeup of the province. In particular these records highlight the “Irishness” of the province, bringing to light a substantial number of Irish persons who made their home in New Brunswick prior to the famine in their homeland. Unlike previously gathered statistics, such as those from 1841, these returns enumerated the birthplace of immigrants living in New Brunswick, identifying those born in England, Scotland, Ireland.[1]

These are valuable census records beyond the obvious notion of looking for Irish ancestors who lived in New Brunswick:

New Brunswick shares a long border with the U.S. state of Maine. Therefore, there would have been a lot of migration to the New England region and vice versa.

The port city of Saint John is in New Brunswick. Irish immigrant who stayed in the city for an initial few years in 1849-51 and 1859-61 period will be recorded.

Many Irish immigrants might be captured in these censuses who then moved elsewhere in Canada.

For more detailed information about the Irish in New Brunswick in the mid 19th century, you can read this paper by P.M Toner - The Irish of New Brunswick at Mid-Century: The 1851 Census.

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[1] Library and Archives Canada. Irish Immigrants in the New Brunswick Census 1841 and 1851. Date Unknown. Available online at http://archives.gnb.ca/Irish/Databases/Toner/?culture=en-CA: accessed 22 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.

I Found My Townland, Do I Have Any Long Lost Cousins?

After the joy of finding your townland of origin is realized, the next question on your mind can be: do I have any cousins in Ireland? Due to the nature of Irish social history, you might very well find some long-lost cousins still on the same piece of land that your ancestor left in the 19th century.

However, if you don't, tracing forward from some point in the 19th century to find modern-day cousins can be a difficult process. Last Monday, John Grenham provided a helpful list of resource to do just that in his weekly genealogy column.

Click here to learn about this "reverse genealogy."

New Irish Directories Database

City directories are one of the most useful genealogical resources in the Unites States. Did you know that directories, in various formats, have been published in Ireland since the mid-eighteenth century? Many of these publications have come online over the last number of years. However, one stumbling block to utilizing them for research is the fact that they are spread across a large number of free, subscriptions, and fee-paying websites.

Myself and Shane Wilson, a Dublin based family historian and owner of the excellent Irish genealogy website, www.swilson.info, have created the Irish Directories Database. This database will allow you to easily find Irish directories that are currently online.

To access the database, click here.

How A Professional Genealogist Found Her Townland Of Origin, Part II

This is the second post from professional genealogist, Lisa Walsh Dougherty, about how she found her townland of origin. To read her first post scroll down, or click here.

Lisa (Walsh) Dougherty has been an avid family history researcher for nearly 20 years.  Since 2009, she has shared her knowledge and experience with many through her volunteer hours, workshop trainings, and commissioned research.  A member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) and a graduate of the ProGen Study Group, she specializes in helping people with Irish roots discover their “Townland of Origin”.  Lisa is based in Upstate New York near Albany, and provides a free consultation toward assisting you in finding your own unique family story! You can find out about Lisa's professional genealogy services on her APG profile page.

Her website is Upstate NY Genealogy.

My great-great grandmother, Anne Mortimer, left County Laois (then Queen’s County), Ireland in the mid-1860s.  She married a man, James Walsh, who was native to nearly the same area, and they settled in Troy, NY.  Two brothers and a sister also emigrated and lived nearby, at least initially.  A brother John remained in Ireland, where he raised a large family.  The Mortimer letter writers of the 1970s, and the Mortimers who remain in the area today, are descended from John and his wife Maria Bennett.

Over the years 2000 to 2013, while busy with raising our son, I posted on a variety of genealogy message boards, and received sporadic replies from various family members, telling me of other Mortimer family members.  One who owned a pub in Kinsale, another who played in Wham’s backup band, still another who was a member of a popular UK “boy band” of the 1990s.  Those Mortimers were indeed a talented and diverse bunch, scattered all over the globe.

Recently, comparing family trees on Ancestry.com, I stumbled across a tree that contained many of the same Mortimers that mine did.  I contacted the owner, who turned out to be a local Laois woman with a wealth of knowledge about the area and its families.  She gave me information about family members who had remained in Ireland that I did not have, and I was able to fill her in on those who had emigrated. After an absence of 14 years, I finally returned to Ireland in April 2014. My new-found Ancestry contact was able to arrange for me to meet my cousin, Sean Mortimer, brother of Brendan Mortimer who had shown us around in 1999, now, sadly, deceased.  We had a wonderful visit—he lives very nearby the townland of Killinure where my great-great grandmother was born.

3^rd cousins Lisa (Walsh) Dougherty and Sean Mortimer, Killinure, County Laois, April 12, 2014

Since returning home, I've become Facebook “friends” with several other Mortimers from County Laois, many of whom heard of my visit through the grapevine.  Plans are underway for the formation of a Facebook group dedicated to the descendants of Michael Mortimer and Catherine Phalen, where we can all connect, share pictures, stories and interesting tidbits, 140 years after the family was separated.  Modern technology continues to propel my research forward, but the foundation laid by those 1970s letters is the strength the Mortimer family tree is built on.  My dad would approve, wherever he is today. 

How A Professional Genealogist Found Her Townland Of Origin, Part I

This week and next, Townland of Origin is delighted to have guest posts from professional genealogist, Lisa Walsh Dougherty. Lisa has been researching her Irish ancestry since the 1990s. In her article, she outlines how she found her townland of origin.

Lisa (Walsh) Dougherty has been an avid family history researcher for nearly 20 years.  Since 2009, she has shared her knowledge and experience with many through her volunteer hours, workshop trainings, and commissioned research.  A member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) and a graduate of the ProGen Study Group, she specializes in helping people with Irish roots discover their “Townland of Origin”.  Lisa is based in Upstate New York near Albany, and provides a free consultation toward assisting you in finding your own unique family story! You can find out about Lisa's professional genealogy services on her APG profile page.

Her website is Upstate NY Genealogy.

I grew up being aware and very proud of my Irish roots.  It was something that made a huge impression on me, and I remember it always being a part of my life.  When I was a teenager, my father, Jack Walsh, became interested in genealogy, and his one goal was to find out about his Irish roots.  I don't think I was aware until much later that my dad was only half-Irish, because this was the only part of his origins that he was interested in.  He pursued his family history the way many people did in those days, by visiting family plots in cemeteries, utilizing local libraries, and writing letters.  A gravestone found in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Troy, New York, revealed a puzzling place of origin for his great-grandfather James Walsh—Osary, Queen’s County.  Research in the local library told us that Queen’s County was now called Laois, and Osary was actually Ossory.  An ad placed in the Laois Nationalist newspaper seeking information on the Walsh family (with a mention of the wife’s maiden name, Anne Mortimer) yielded surprising results in the form of several letters from Mortimer family members who very well could have been cousins!

Alas, Dad passed away in 1990, after a short-lived interest in genealogy only got him so far.  His desire for answers and legacy lived on—I found his genealogy folder 5 years after his death, stuffed in a drawer and forgotten.  With the dawn of the internet, and a whole new world of possibilities opening up, the time was ripe for new discoveries. This was the beginning of my own personal obsession with family history, and for me it has been not fleeting, but life-changing.

My husband and I went on our first of 4 trips to Ireland in the 1990s, with a guided tour in 1996.  It was not nearly enough to satisfy my hunger for all things Irish.  I dug out the Mortimer letters from the 1970s, booked a B&B nearby where they had been sent from, and started my journey.  In 1997, I met Jim Mortimer, one of the letter writers, knew we were cousins, but did not know how.  By our 4th trip in 1999, the B&B owners where we stayed had become good friends, and were seeking out my Mortimer relatives for me so I could meet them when I got there!  Their detective work introduced me to more members of the Mortimer clan, including an audience with an elderly gentleman, Michael Mortimer, who had a razor-sharp memory, and his son Brendan who showed us the family homestead high in the Slieve Bloom Mountains.  A chance meeting in the local pub with the parish priest’s bridge partner got my sister and I in to copy the baptism and marriage records.  Only after a thorough examination of those, together with the memories in the 1970s letters, was I able to piece together everyone’s relationship.

On Monday, learn more about those relationships and which townland Lisa’s ancestors came from.

From Tipperary to Rutland County, Vermont

In a random browse through the online version of Bruce Elliott's Irish Migrants in the Canada's[1] (see my article about this fantastic book), I came across a short reference to a migration of Irish people from north Tipperary to Rutland County, Vermont. Peter Patten, who is from that part of Vermont, is an expert on this migration and has researched it extensively.

He outlines that, "In the 1800s the Portroe Slate Quarries were one of the largest employers in North Tipperary. However, the onset of the Great Famine in the 1840s saw a significant decline in the numbers employed in Portroe. Many of those who lost their jobs decided to emigrate and...they pretty much reformed their community [in] Castleton, Vermont, in a strikingly similar landscape."[2]

The density of numbers who made this Tipperary to Rutland County, VT migration is illustrated in this transcribed list of men who naturalized in Rutland County, VT from 1859 to 1873.

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[1] Elliot, Bruce S. Irish Migrants in the Canada's: A New Approach. Belfast. McGill-Queens Press. 2004. p251.

[2] Ormond Historical Society. Portroe to Castleton - The Slate Quarry Emigrants; Rebuilding a Tipperary Community in Rural Vermont. 2013. www.ormondhistory.ie: accessed 27 March 2014.

Emigration To New York

This image of Irish emigrants waiting to board ships to New York comes from an 1866 edition of Harper's Weekly. There is a large crowd on the docks with many ships moored and ready to bring them across the Atlantic. 

The image was sourced from the Historical Archaeology journal.[1]

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[1] Linn, Meredith B. Elixir of Emigration: Soda Water and the Making of Irish Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City. Historical Archaeology. Vol. 44. No. 4. 2010. p. 73.

Poetic Place Of Origin

I came across this fantastically poetic example of an Irish place of origin in an article about indentured servitude of Irish people in Philadelphia.[1] Along with his home town of Belfast, a lot of other valuable genealogical information is included. 

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[1] Clark, Dennis. Babes in Bondage: Indentured Irish Children in Philadelphia in the Nineteenth Century. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 101. No. 4. October 1977. p. 478.

Originally from Geiser, Karl Friedrick. Redemptioners and Indentured Servants in the Colony and Common wealth of Pennsylvania New Haven, CT. 1901. p. 6.

Where The Irish Lived In Canada 1901 II

In my last post, I highlighted two maps that show where people of Irish origin lived in Canada in 1901. These two maps, below, show the rest of Canada - Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Alberta. Scroll down to the first part of this blog post or click here to read it.

Origins of the people of Canada 1901
Manitoba and Saskatchewan
Green sections = Irish origin

Origins of the people of Canada 1901
British Columbia and Alberta
Green sections = Irish origin

The maps come from the excellent David Rumsey website. You can zoom in for more details, and find more information about the maps on the site. Click here for Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Click here for British Columbia and Alberta.

Where The Irish Lived In Canada 1901 I

I have previously posted social data maps showing concentrations of Irish people in the U.S. These maps were created from federal census data (see 1874, 1910 & 1930, and 1990). North of the border, similar, and very beautiful maps exist for Canada, with data drawn from the 1901 census. This post, and the next, will show the four maps that were created for the country, as it existed then.

Areas with people  predominantly of Irish origin are color-coded green.

Origins of the people of Canada 1901
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia & Quebec (south)
Green sections = Irish origin

Origins of the people of Canada 1901
Ontario (south) & Quebec (south)
Green sections = Irish origin

The maps come from the excellent David Rumsey website. You can zoom in for more details, and find more information about the maps on the site. Click here to access  the top map (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Quebec [south]). Click here to access the bottom map (Ontario [south] and Quebec [south]).

Are You Related To A Bishop?

Finding out that you have an ecclesiastical figure in your family tree can be very useful for discovering your ancestor's place of origin in Ireland. In the Catholic Church, some form of study at a seminary is required to become a deacon, priest, or bishop. The first seminaries in the U.S. date back to the early 19th century and, if they survive, their records can be of value.

After ordination, members of the clergy were often profiled in parish publications or historical overviews of the Catholic Church in a particular city of state. For example, for more information about this topic in New York City, see Chapters 4 and 7 of my book, Finding Your Irish Ancestors in New York City.

That self-promoting segue brings me to an interesting title I recently came across, Bishops of the United States of Irish Birth or Descent.[1] Chances are, if you have a Catholic bishops in your family tree you more than likely already know about it. If you don't know, or do, but don't know about their ancestry, then this book is worth a look. It contains a valuable amount of genealogical information about the 466 bishops profiled, from John Carroll, appointed in 1784 as Bishop of the Apostolic Prefecture of the United States (it became the Diocese of Baltimore in 1789), to John Ford, appointed as Bishop of Kaying, China, in 1935, the year before the book was published.

Entries from p.38 of  Bishops of the United States of Irish Birth or Descent

When known, information is provided about the birth date and place of the bishop, where his parents were from, surname history information, and other useful nuggets about their origin. The chapter, Mothers of the Bishops, is particularly innovative, and provides the maiden names of all, bar three, of the bishops. There is also an Irish county and U.S. state breakdown of where bishops were born. Up to 1935, Tipperary and Massachusetts lead the way with twelve and twenty-nine, respectively.

The book is available to read on the excellent Hathi Trust website. If anyone has a bishop in their family tree it would be very interesting to hear from you in the comments section.

EDIT (25 April): A commenter on a previous post made the excellent point that information in these types of publications should be treated just the same as any secondary source. Citations are not provided for the claimed genealogical information. Use them as a guide in your research and be prepared to find evidence to the contrary of what is published in such volumes.

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[1] Hackett, James Dominick. Bishops of the United States of Irish Birth or Descent. New York, NY: American Irish Historical Society. 1936.

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.

Representative Young Irish-Americans of Troy, NY....

.....is the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin title of a series of biographical sketches of 72 men of Irish heritage who lived in the city in the 19th century.[1] The book was published in 1889 and contains excellent genealogical material for those who are profiled. Dates of birth, parents names, years of immigration, schooling, work history, and notable achievements are included where relevant, or known. Profile sketches are also to be found in this publication.

You can read the book on the archive.org website.

William J. Roche in Representative Young Irish-Americans of Troy, NY,  p. 13

Michael Francis Collins in Representative Young Irish-Americans of Troy, NY,  p. 17

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[1] E.H. Lisk. Representative Young Irish-Americans of Troy, NY. Troy, NY: E.H. Lisk. 1889.

Ottawa Valley Irish

Ottawa Valley Irish is a website maintained by M.C. Moran. It's one-half database, containing his Irish and French immigrant family tree, and one,half guide to doing Irish genealogy in Ottawa and wider Canada. The introduction outlines that:

This website covers the family histories of a number of Irish and French Canadian families in the Ottawa Valley area, including the Morans of Huntley township; the Laheys and Killeens of March township; the McGlades of Perth; the McCarthys of Kitley township; and the Derouins of Otter Lake.

It also offers tips and tricks for the pursuit of Irish and Canadian genealogy: how to trace your Irish ancestry through Canadian sources; how to search the census records and census substitutes; how to decipher, translate, and interpret the Catholic parish records; and more.[1]

The second paragraph of the introduction is achieved through Moran's blog posts. Interesting examples are highlighted from various records, such as this example of a marriage blessing. Many Catholic records in Canada were written in French, so it is very useful to see Moran's translation of these documents.

The 'resources' section contains links to websites and institutions, primarily in Canada, but also in Ireland, the U.S, France, and the United Kingdom. There is also a number of useful articles in the 'reading' section, in particular those about the Catholic Church in Canada.

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[1] MC Moran. Home. Ottawa Valley Irish. 2010. www.ottawavalleyirish.com: accessed 13 March 2014.

We Are The 3.75% - Wisconsin Death Records

Nineteenth century vital (birth, marriage, death) records are usually not a source that can give the Irish place of origin. Exceptions abound, but their main value is providing the names of parents, if that question is asked on the record and if the answer is known. With that in mind, any state vital record set that has a larger than normal amount of records with an Irish place of origin is to be welcomed and highlighted.

One such set of records is Wisconsin, Death Records, 1867-1907 on Familyserach.org[1] (there is also a record set on Ancestry.com, Wisconsin Deaths, 1820-1907, but this does not seem to contain the same level of information for Irish entries). In total, there are c.33,700 records that list Ireland as the place of birth (the total number of records in this database is 432,959). About 3.75% of the Irish entries give a county or town of birth. 

Small numbers, but a probably larger percentage than will be found in other state vital record sets of the same era. The county breakdown is as follows (grouped by Irish province):

Tipperary 51                Cork 223                         Kerry 49                       Waterford 65

Clare 79                       Limerick c.75

Galway 70                    Mayo 72                          Sligo 75                        Roscommon 28

Leitrim 4

Donegal 16                   Antrim 42                        Armagh 2                      Derry 12

Down 29                       Fermanagh 1                   Tyrone 20                      Cavan 32

Monaghan 14

Dublin 136                    Wexford 20                    Kilkenny 40                   Carlow 10

Louth 10                        Wicklow 22                   Kildare 1                       Meath 28

Offaly 34                       Laois 24                         Westmeath 9                  Longford 27

Dublin and Cork lead the way, probably reflecting emigration from the county with the largest population in Ireland (Dublin) and the county that has traditionally had one of the largest numbers of emigrants (Cork). Other prominent counties in the database are from the western seaboard: Clare, Galway, Mayo, and Sligo, again counties with traditionally large emigration numbers.

The record set contains some interesting and very valuable examples. In the entry for Ellen Kerin Scanlan[2], she is listed as born in Ennistimen (Ennistymon), Co. Clare, about 1830. Her spouse, religious affiliation, and parents (including their place of birth) are also named. Catholic Church records for Ennistymon parish begin in 1823[3], so if this is your ancestor you would hopefully be able to find a corroborating baptismal entry (assuming that the listing of Ennistymon was not just an approximation of where she was born in Clare, when in fact she was from a neighboring parish!)

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[1] Wisconsin, Death Records, 1867-1907. Index. FamilySearch. http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 2014. Citing Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin.

[2] "Wisconsin, Death Records, 1867-1907", index, FamilySearch 

(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XLDW-8L5: accessed 12 Mar 2014), Ellen Kerin Scanlan, 1898.

[3] Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors. 3rd ed. Dublin: Gill and MacMillan. 2006. p. 376 (listed as Kilmanaheen)

Huntress

This unusual portrait is of Annie Cooney, born in Williamsburg, Mass. as the last child of an Irish immigrant saloon keeper who had done fairly well for himself and could afford to indulge her. It casts her in the quite extraordinary (for a woman of the 1880s) role of huntress, posed in a plaster simulacrum of the outdoors, outfitted with a shotgun and a large supply of shells. It displays her prowess in the form of a couple of well-worn stuffed rabbits and a quail or grouse. One wonders whose idea this was: was it a gag?--and what her friends (and the lawyer she married a few years later) thought when they saw it.[1]

A search of the 1880 U.S. federal census turns up a likely candidate: Annie Cooney, 12 year old daughter of Michael Cooney, living in Williamsburg, MA. [2] Michael is listed as a saloon keeper.[3] Both Michael, and his wife, Rosina, are listed as born in Ireland.[4] Annie was probably born on 7 July 1867 in Williamsburg (see below).[5]

Probable birth record for Annie Cooney

It would be great to find out if Annie's modern-day descendants are aware of their ancestor being captured in such an unusual photograph. Any readers from Williamsburg, MA?

Picture Source: Williamsburg Historical Society, MA. Many thanks to this organization for allowing me to publish this picture.

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[1] Williamsburg Historical Society. Annie Cooney Cabinet Card c. 1885. Year Unknown. Online at http://dlib.cwmars.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/williamsbrg&CISOPTR=35: accessed 4 March 2014.

[2] "United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MH6G-TBG : accessed 04 Mar 2014), Annie Cooney in household of Michael Cooney, Williamsburg, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States; citing sheet 240C, family 3, NARA microfilm publication T9-0537

[3] "United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MH6G-TBK : accessed 04 Mar 2014), Michael Cooney, Williamsburg, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States; citing sheet 240C, family 0, NARA microfilm publication T9-0537

[4] "United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MH6G-TB2 : accessed 04 Mar 2014), Rosina Cooney in household of Michael Cooney, Williamsburg, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States; citing sheet 240C, family 1, NARA microfilm publication T9-0537

[5] "Massachusetts, Births, 1841-1915," FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11047-20255-94?cc=1536925&wc=11695133: accessed 04 Mar 2014), Births registered in the town of Williamsburg for the year of 1867, p. 94, line no. 15, Annie Cooney, 1867.

Ancient Order Of Hibernians, Pittsburgh, PA

On Mark Holan's Irish-American Blog, there is a very interesting article about his use of Ancient Order of Hibernian records, housed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[1]

These records are available for in-person research at the Senator John Heinz History Center. Their collection of AOH records includes Allegheny County Board Records 1896–2012 and another Allegheny County set of Board records covering 1902-1980. Death benefit records, membership applications, and photographs are just some of the useful record subsets that a genealogist can avail of.

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[1] Holan, Mark. Pittsburgh Ancient Order of Hibernians records available for review. 13 October 2013. Mark Holan's Irish-American Blog. http://www.markholan.org/?p=591 :accessed 26 February 2014.

Records Of The Ancient Order Of Hibernians

The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) is a fraternal, Catholic organization founded "concurrently in the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania and New York City in May, 1836."[1] It is no exaggeration to say that tens of thousands of Irish immigrants, and their descendants, have been members throughout its history, and up to the present day.

As a genealogist, an immediate question springs to mind: how can I get access to their records to see if an ancestor was a member? Well, you may have to take a number of approaches. It is also important to point out that records did not survive in their entirety for every division (local group). Also, while being Irish-born was a requirement in the early decades of existence, a members place of origin in Ireland was not necessarily recorded on their application.

Firstly, contact information for the four main archive sites is listed on their website:

Dr. Timothy Meagher, Archivist

Catholic History Research Center

Catholic University of America

101 Life Cycle Institute

620 Michigan Avenue NE

Washington, D.C. 20064

202-319-5065

FAX 202-319-6554

meagher@cua.edu

Click here for more information about holdings.

Mr. Lee Arnold, Director of the Library

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

1300 Locust Street

Philadelphia, PA 19107-5699

215-732-6200

FAX 215-732-2680,

www.hsp.org

Click here for more information about holdings.

New York State Irish-American *(see first comment below)

Heritage Museum

991 Broadway, Suite 101

Albany, New York 12204

518-432-6598

FAX 528-449-2540

www.irishamericanheritagemuseum.org

Mr. Kevin Cawley, Archivist

University of Notre Dame Archives

607 Hesburgh Library

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

574-631-6448

FAX 574-631-7980

archives@nd.edu

Click here for more information about holdings.

AOH members Colcade, PA 1917

Secondly, you may need to contact the division in the area where your ancestor lived, to find out about surviving records and where they might be located. A directory and map is available on the AOH website. Records could be stored at a members house, at a division building, or in a local library/institution. Later this week, I will write about an example of local records.

Thirdly, the AOH website has online digital copies of two national directories of officers. They are for the years 1884 and 1902. It is a good idea to firstly read the introduction about these directories.

AOH members Kilkenny, Minnesota 1910-1915

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[1] Ancient Order of Hibernians. About the AOH. Date Unknown. Ancient Order of Hibernians. http://www.aoh.com/about-the-aoh: accessed 26 February 2014.

Colcade, PA picture courtesy of Colcade High School Alumni website.

Kilkenny, MN picture courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society Collections.

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.