Claire Santry - The Family Tree Irish Genealogy Guide: How to Trace Your Ancestors in Ireland

CINCINNATI, OHIO

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To my much loved parents, who had the good sense to be Irish.

My mother always insisted she was descended from the High Kings of Tara. It seemed an unlikely pedigree for someone raised in relative poverty in County Carlow, and she certainly had no evidence to support her claim. But there had been a fire, it seemed, and all the paper records were lost. Hmm. Myths, exaggerations, smoke and mirrors: the essential tools of the storyteller. And the fibber. It was easy enough for me to smile and move on from a childhood belief in our noble tradition.

But another myththat a 1922 fire destroyed all Irish recordsproved harder to ignore. The facts were indisputable: An explosion and fire at the Public Record Office in Dublin during the Civil War destroyed scores of Irish records. This seemed to me the first insurmountable brick wall to my research, and it kept me from digging too deeply into my ancestry for several decades.

It wasnt until the end of the 1990s that I realized that the fire, while a catastrophe, hadnt consumed every last scrap of Irelands genealogical heritage. A stone mason, installing a headstone near the grave of my great-grandmother in Wicklow, mentioned that the death records for all of those residing in the cemetery were held in Dublin at the General Register Office. This revelationthat many historical documents had not been in the PROI when the fuse was litfinally launched my family history research journey.

And that was all I needed to get started. I clocked up a good few miles visiting archives and libraries in the capital in the years that followed, but I didnt mind. I was, finally, becoming acquainted with my ancestors. I was to find no Gaelic lords, of course. Instead, my maternal line branched out to seafarers and carpenters in Wicklow, blacksmiths in Wicklow and Wexford, and laborers in Tipperary, while my fathers line stretched back in a long line of laborers, all firmly rooted in southwest Cork.

Unfortunately, the myth of the all-record-consuming fire still circulates. Thanks to the Internet and the best endeavors of the Irish genealogical community, fewer would-be Irish family historians are discouraged by the story, but it still makes the rounds. To some extent, it has been replaced by the more general, widely accepted notion that Irish genealogy is difficult.

Ill accept that Irish genealogy can be challenging. It depends to a large extent on which period of history youre researching, where (geographically) your family lived, and what information you start with or can gather along the way. But it is undoubtedly a whole lot easier than it used to be. Irish-Americans no longer face only the choice between taking expensive research trips to Ireland or commissioning professionals. Millions of Irish family history records, especially those used by beginners, are now onlineand nearly all of them are free.

This book will give you a thorough grounding in genealogical techniques and point you towards the records you need to search, both in the United States and in Ireland. Its full of tips, essential explanations about the collections, and strategic advice.

I hope it will inspire you to start out on your own journey to connect with your Irish ancestors and heritage.

Claire Santry

January 2017

Whether you were brought up immersed in Irish traditions or have only recently discovered your ancestors from the Emerald Isle, youre probably already familiar with some aspects of your Irish heritage. Youd have to be living under a rock to not have encountered St. Patricks Day, Irish dancing, and the little fellathe leprechaun. Youll also know that being Irish has a certain cultural cachet, in part because of Irish-Americans classic underdog backstory of overcoming the odds in the face of prejudice, abuse, and extreme poverty, and partly because of the communitys reputation for being big-hearted and charming.

Beyond the stereotype and hype, however, you may have asked yourself about the people who connect you to this heritage. What motivated them to leave Ireland, an island thats only the size of South Carolina but has such important historical and cultural significance? How did your ancestors get to America, and what were their early experiences as immigrants? What about the family and friends they left behind?

This first chapter is an overview of the Irish-American immigrant experience, providing you with a basic understanding of the cultural, social, and political world in which your ancestors lived. Check it out as you embark on your own journey into your familys history.

Irish-American history dates back to the late sixteenth century with the transportation of petty criminals and, in the mid-1600s, prisoners captured during Oliver Cromwells bloody conquest of Ireland. Many of these early immigrants were used as slave labor on Caribbean tobacco plantations, but significant numbers also journeyed there voluntarily; one of the largest Irish communities emerged in Barbados. The descendants of these first Irish-Americans were among the early settlers of the Carolinas.

This was the first surge of Irish immigration to North America. In numerical terms, it was tinybarely a ripplecompared to the hundreds of thousands that would follow in three distinct waves: the largely Protestant and artisan Irish who arrived between 1720 and 1845; the starving citizens escaping almost certain death in Irelands Great Famine in the late 1840s; and the poor, unskilled, and initially reviled Catholics desperate for opportunity who arrived from the mid-1850s to the start of World War I in 1914. Well explore each of these periods in turn, as they each tell a different story of Ireland, the Irish, and the land that these immigrants would come to call home.

After Cromwells conquest of Ireland, the British authorities introduced a series of restrictive Penal Laws that limited the freedoms and opportunities for Irish Roman Catholics and, to a lesser extent, Protestant Dissenters (those who refused the authority of the Church of Ireland, such as Presbyterians). While they suffered discrimination in Ireland, the Presbyterians were generally more economically independent than their Catholic neighbors. Many were artisans, shopkeepers, and professionals, and they believed they would find tolerance and greater freedom in North America.