Collins Tracing Your Irish Family History. Ryan Tubridy

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      Censuses

      There have been censuses every ten years since 1790. All are searchable to 1930 at www.ancestry.com (with 1880 free at www.familysearch.org too). Up to 1840 they recorded heads of households with numbers but not names of other people present, divided into sexes and age groups – frustrating for lack of detail, but not entirely uninformative. From 1850, all names and ages are recorded along with place of birth, and the relationship to the head of the household is stated from 1880. Much of the 1890 census was accidentally burned. From 1880–1920 the countries of birth of everyone’s parents is stated as well. Those for 1900 state how long people had been in America. Those for 1910 indicate on which side veterans of the Civil War had fought. Censuses will tell you who was from Ireland, but don’t state precise places of origin.

      Directories

      Flourishing from the 19th century, these are especially strong for cities, where many Irish migrants went, and list much of the working population. They are a great source for tracking ancestors year by year, thus working out roughly when they arrived, and identifying possible relatives living nearby.

      Religious registers

      In fortunate cases these go back to the foundation dates of communities. Most are with their churches or church archives, and most are on MMF. Some records, especially marriages,

      may identify migrants’ places of origin. Church archives, more so Protestant ones, may also contain letters of recommendation written by the migrant’s clergyman back home.

      Newspapers

      Much is available in local and state repositories and increasingly online. Especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, obituaries for migrants or their descendants often state the place of origin. Also worth seeking are reports of ships’ arrivals and adverts for people in America or Ireland seeking relatives. Such adverts from the Boston Pilot (1831–1916), for example, are published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society as The Search for Missing Friends. Catholic newspapers flourished locally in the 19th century, including Philadelphia’s Erin (1822) and the Catholic Advocate and Irishman’s Journal (1823). By 1911 there were 321 of them: see www. newadvent.org/cathen/11692a.htm.

      Biographical dictionaries

      There are many of these for cities and states, and overall the Dictionary of American Biography (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1996).

      Wills

      Most wills were proved in local county courthouses (which also house local legal records): many are on MMF.

      Naturalisations

      These often state residence and occupation, the ship of arrival, and date and rough place of birth, though seldom in any detail – usually you’ll just find ‘Ireland’. They are normally at the court where the naturalisation took place. From 1868, however, they were issued at Federal Naturalisation Centres, though detailed records only date from 1906. L.D. Szucs, They Became Americans (Ancestry, 1997), goes into detail. The NARA have pre-1906 federal naturalisation indexes for Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island up to 1906, and for all states from 1906 until 75 years ago (i.e. 1932 for people searching in 2007). Citizenship applications up to 1941 and passport applications 1795–1919 are on MMF.

      Shipping lists

      The best overall guide to passenger lists for ships between Ireland and America is www. genealogybranches.com/irishpassengerlists.

      Some lists of Irish people leaving for America have been published, especially B. Mitchell, Irish Passenger Lists, 1803–06, Lists of Passengers Sailing from Ireland to America Extracted from the Hardwick Papers (GPC, 1995) (about 4,500 people) and B. Mitchell, Irish Passenger Lists 1847–71, Lists of Passengers Sailing from Londonderry to America on Ships of the J. & J. Cooke Line & the McCorkell Line (GPC, 1988) (about 27, 500 people).

      Generally, the best records are at the port of arrival. Some have been published and are indexed in P.W. Filby and M.K. Meyer, Passenger and Immigration Index (Gale Research Co., 3 vols, 1981) with annual supplements to 2000, now also on CD (to 1999) from Family Tree Maker’s Family Archives (#354).

      Records of immigration and passenger lists at the American end are mostly at the NARA. Customs passenger lists date from 1820 and will only state the country of origin, but the Immigration Passenger Lists that started in 1883 will state the last place of residence – in many cases the actual place of birth.

      For the Great Famine, see I.A. Glazier and M. Tepper, The Famine Immigrants, Lists of Irish Immigrants arriving at the Port of New York 1846–51 (GPC, 7 vols, 1893–6). Over 600,000 Famine immigrants, named in passenger lists and New York port arrivals, are indexed at www.ancestry.com. The database www.irishgenealogy.ie/famine_ship is a record of ships arriving 1846–51. Many Irish came through New York’s Castle Garden 1830–92 (see www.castlegarden.org) and Ellis Island 1892 and 1924 (www.ellisisland.org: these can also be searched without knowing the migrant’s initials at www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB/ellis.html).

      Army records

      Most pre-20th-century army records concern the Revolutionary War (1773–84) and Civil War (1861–5). Army service and pension records are in state archives (especially for Confederate states) and at the NARA (as described in Meredith S. Colket jr and Frank E. Bridges, Guide to Genealogical Records in the National Archives (National Archives and Records Administration, 2001). A useful guide to Civil War records is www.illinoiscivilwar.org/cwgeneal.html. There are also social societies, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, whose membership is for those who can prove descent from revolutionary soldiers, including many Irishmen, and whose archives are therefore rich sources.

      Sentenced to transportation

      Many Irish criminals, even those who committed what we would now consider rather petty misdemeanors, ended their days on the gallows. For the rest, the usual punishment was transportation to British colonies. Many 17th- and 18th-century settlers in America and the Caribbean, until the American War of Independence, were in fact transportees.

      The main sources for transportation have been collated and indexed in:

       P.W. Coldham, The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage 1614–1775 (GPC, 1990).

       J.C. Hotten, The Original Lists of Persons of Quality, Emigrants, Religious Exiles, Political Rebels, Serving Men sold for a term of years, Apprentices, Children stolen, Maidens pressed and others who went from Great Britain to the American Plantations 1660–1700 from MSS preserved in the State Paper department at the PRO (GPC, 1962).

       W.M. Wingfield, The Monmouth Rebels 1685 (Somerset Record Society, 1985) – for men sentenced to transportation after the Monmouth rebellion in Somerset, England, in 1685.

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