Born on St Patrick's Day: Happy 115th Mary

They say that its good luck to be Irish, and that the luckiest of all are those who are born on St Patrick's Day. No doubt this is what was said the day that my great grandmother was born. However, her life was not necessarily filled with the good luck that the superstition had predicted. As much as she had a hard life, her life was also an "ordinary" one of a young British immigrant to Canada. Despite that, the simple life she led in youth was filled with fun. She embrace the changing times, new found freedoms, and innovations. Its the heirlooms from that chapter of her life that fascinate me the most because they show aside to her that none of my relatives knew - a woman who was happy. So today, I am going to share the side of her that one of those heirlooms tells. I have a small black autograph book that was hers.  At almost 100 years old, the book binding has all but disintegrated yet the leather cover is in near pristine condition and the partially bound pages are al...
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Helpful Tricks for Tracing Your Irish Roots

I have read many times over the years that Irish genealogy is not for the faint of heart, and this statement couldn't be more true. After revisiting the same lineages countless times and performing extensive research, I have identified several helpful tricks for tracing your Irish roots. 

There are several factors that make Irish research so tricky. 

Obstacle #1. After arriving in the new country the exact county or town they come from is rarely given 

Obstacle #2. The names are often quite similar as many families were large and chose to follow the                             traditional naming pattern. 

Obstacle #3. Many Catholics were uneducated as a result of the Penal Laws and poverty


The point at which obstacles #1 and #2 are encountered vary based on the person you are searching for, but for the purpose of this post I will be talking addressing them in the order they are listed above.

In most cases the exact county of birth is not listed on a census record in the same way that it would for someone born within Canada or England (this level of detailed did not become required until after 1901). Someone born domestically was required to list the Province/County (or sometimes town) in which they were born, whereas for an Irish immigrant their birthplace is generally just listed as 'Ireland'. Unless they have an extraordinarily unique name, this vague birthplace is unlikely to be very helpful. Although it is VERY RARE, sometimes the county in Ireland did get recorded on the census by the enumerator. This has only happened to on English census records. Below are a list of other places where the birth county can be found:

  • gravestone
  • newspaper article
  • obituary 
  • BMD record for a child
  • ship manifest 
If the above list has not proven effective, all is not lost. There are indirect methods that can be applied to find the birth county. 
  • look for where the neighbours or other family members were born
  • compare their immigration year to global immigration patterns
  • research the settlement of where they live - were the people predominantly from one part of Ireland?
  • Search for surname history online
After applying all the above one of two things is bound to happen
  1. You get a large volume of results (because of Obstacle #2) 
  2. There are no results (because of Obstacle #3)
In the case of Obstacle #2, further filters need to be applied. Consider the age of the person, names of their family members, when it was mathematically possible for them to immigrate, etc. After doing so, the list should narrow down to a manageable number of results. Odds are that you may have to research each of the remaining results before being able to rule anymore out. 

In the case of Obstacle #3, variations of the name need to be considered along with a widened age range. For example I have found the name 'Stewart" spelled 'Steward', and 'Stewert'. Additionally, consider how the Irish surname would phonetically be spelled in English. Gaelic names are tricky at the best of times, then when the accent is added in, it is not surprising to find the name spelled incorrectly.

If your ready to start searching, here are a few of my favourite links for tracing the Irish immigrants in New Brunswick.

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