perfect pest, often chargeable for short periods, cleared to Cootehill [Co. Cavan]’. In 1875, the widow of Matthew Watson, 30, with children aged 8 and 6, who had been in Ayr for three years, was repatriated having gone ‘voluntarily to visit relatives in County Antrim’.
Wills
Inheritance of land was so strictly governed in Scotland that rather than bother writing wills (which bequeath land) people tended only to make testaments, dealing solely with moveable goods. These were proved by local commissary courts under the Principal Commissariot of Edinburgh, which also dealt with Scots owning goods in Scotland but who died elsewhere. From 1824 testaments were proved in county sheriffs’ courts. All documents 1513–1901 are indexed and viewable at www.scotlandspeople. gov.uk. Those from 1901 are at the NAS.
Other sources
Biographical dictionaries: see p. 27, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Naturalisations: see p. 136 (under Ireland). Shipping lists: see p. 39 (under England). Armed forces: see p 126 (under Ireland).
Poor Law records
This page from the Mitchell Library’s Poor Law records tells us much about people in Scotland and also back in Ireland. The Irish parents of both the widow Catherine Stewart (née Clark) and her late husband Philip Stewart are given, and we learn that both Catherine and Philip were from Co. Cavan, she being from ‘Billturbet’, also called Annagh or Cloverhill, only three parishes away from my great-grandfather Denning’s home parish of Drumgoon. This was found for the family tree of TV presenter Lorraine Kelly, which I traced for British TV show GMTV. Lorraine’s great-great-grandmother Mary is listed further down the page, already married to John Kelly. The reverse of the document, not shown here, states that Catherine made her living as a street hawker, and stubbornly refused to go to hospital despite having been ill.
CHAPTER 5 United States of America
Today, thanks to the mass migration of the 19th century, over 40 million US citizens claim Irish roots, of whom 25 per cent are of pure Irish blood. The main destinations for immigration were California, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, with the cities of Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and New York having substantial Irish populations – the latter, indeed, a third Irish by 1861 was nicknamed ‘the most Irish city in the world’. The Irish rapidly dominated many police and fire departments, and were a major element in the army, railroad building and politics.
Archives
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has an excellent collection of census returns and ships’ passenger lists. The Library of Congress has a vast collection of published family histories, catalogued at www.lcweb.loc.gov. The foremost compendium of printed pedigrees is FA. Virkus, The Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy, First Families of America, a Genealogical Encyclopedia of the United States (7 vols, 1925–42, GPC reprint, 1987). The Mormons’ Family History Library (MFHL), Utah (see p. 19), is par to none for American research and, because of its magnificent microfilm collection, is one of the best places for tracing Irish ancestry too.
Most original records are held locally, such as at county court houses. It’s always important to learn when communities were founded, and whence its founders came, as this can explain lack of early records and suggest where else to look when following the trail back to Ireland.
Societies
America has a plethora of genealogy societies. Of note are the National Genealogical Society, The Irish Genealogical Society International, which publishes Septs, and TIARA (The Irish Ancestral Research Association). The site www.irishabroad.com/yourroots/ has much for Americans with Irish roots.
Colonisation of America
According to The Voyage of Saint Brendan, St Brendan, who was from Munster, sailed west in the 6th century AD and landed in ‘a spacious land with apple trees bearing fruit…they took as many of the apples as they wanted and they drank from springs, and then for forty days they wandered over the land but they could not find an end to it.’ Examining the legend in Land to the West (Collins, 1963), Geoffrey Ashe concluded that, whilst the legend could not be proved definitively, it could well be correct.
After its rediscovery by Columbus in 1492, the English made several failed attempts to colonise North America, until Virginia was established in 1607. Many records of early settlers, including their near-perpetual disputes with London, are in the published State Papers (Colonial) series. The practice of sending ‘rogues, vagabond and sturdy beggars’ to the Americas, initially the West Indies, started in 1597. Cromwell sent many of his opponents there in the 1650s, to work as labourers or, really, slaves. The Transportation Act (1717) regularised the system, and by 1770 some 30,000 people, a third of whom were Irish, had been sent to the Americas. Indeed, one of North America’s grievances, that led to the Revolutionary War of 1773–84, was that they had become a dumping ground for convicts. Many Irish immigrants – from both free and convict backgrounds – were, understandably, on the revolutionary side: 13 of the Declaration of Independence’s signatories, along with the man who printed it, had Irish roots.
By 1790, the USA numbered 3 million people, of whom 44,000 were Irish-born, 150,000 were of Irish parentage, and an unknown number more had earlier Irish roots. The Great Famine caused a huge population movement from Ireland to America. Because they brought disease with them, Irish immigrants weren’t always welcome: New York’s Staten Island quarantine station was attacked and burned down by angry neighbours in 1858.
President Kennedy
Several recent presidents, including Ronald Regan and Richard Nixon, were of Irish origin, but none was more famously Irish than John F. Kennedy (1917–63). His great-grandfather Patrick Kennedy (1823–58), of Dunganstown, Co. Wexford, married Bridget Murphy, probably of Owenduff, Co. Wexford. In fact, all the president’s great-grandparents were Irish. His middle name, Fitzgerald, is from his mother Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald (1890–1995), whose paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother were Fitzgeralds from Bruff, Co. Limerick. Their surname suggests descent from the Cambro-Norman Geraldines (see p. 195).
Civil Registration
Civil registration for births and deaths started in the late 18th century in certain cities, such as New Orleans (1790), and on a state level in the 19th century, beginning with Massachusetts (1840), the latest to start being Georgia (1919). Marriages were performed by clergymen or justices of the peace, with licences issued by county clerks, with civil registration only starting in the late 19th or early 20th century. Each state differs in its start dates, accessibility of its records and the amount of information recorded. The best sources are www.cyndislist.com under the individual state, and A. Eakle and J. Cerny, The Source; a Guidebook of American Genealogy (Ancestry, new edn 1996 by L. Szucs and S. Luebking). At best civil registration records can tell you how long an immigrant had lived in America, whether they were naturalised, and whence they came, though this will usually just be the country, not exact place, of origin.
Some civil registration is becoming available at www.ancestry.com. The US Social Security Death Index (1962–96), available at www.familysearch.org, includes dates
