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The Lot System of Prince Edward Island – Part 2

In Part 2 of this blog, I will continue a discussion of how to use the Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) Lot system as a means to help identify where your ancestor was from in Ireland.

Research Strategies Using the Lot Number

Using the assumption your ancestors settled in P.E.I. because they had family and friends already there from Ireland, you can narrow this further by grouping potential associates by Lot number. In this case, you would pick a source, such as a census or a published compilation to see who was actually living in that Lot. Then between all the sources, you would see if a pattern emerges with the “neighborhood” being from the same area of Ireland.

Reconstructing a Neighborhood of Immigrants From Ireland

One of my favorite sources for doing this is combining my census work or church register with Peter Gallant’s work From Ireland to Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island: Prince Edward Island Genealogical Society, 1990). In this work, Gallant uses tombstone inscriptions and obituaries from newspapers to reconstruct the Irish community. Many of these records tell the Lot the person was residing, and they often reveal what county or townland the person was born in Ireland. This is an easy way to reconstruct migration patterns out of Ireland. For example, it is know there was an Irish migration from the area of Donagh Parish, County Monaghan to around Lot 35 and Lot 36. This can be substantiated through Gallant’s compilation.

If you think locally in your research, by reconstructing a “neighborhood” where your ancestor lived, then you may be able to solve some difficult research problems. It may be the “neighborhood” all came from the same general area of Ireland. In the case of P.E.I., the Lot number is the key.

If you would like professional help with your Canadian ancestry, call us at: 385-214-0925.

The Lot System of Prince Edward Island – Part 1

23 Oct By Dwight Leave a Comment

We all know Irish immigrant research can be difficult. Before throwing up our hands, we need to step back and think strategically. One way to do this is to group an immigrant community geographically. An excellent example of how to do this can be found on Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.), Canada. However, this serves as only an example, as this strategy can be utilized with any number of political jurisdictions.

The Lot System of P.E.I.

On P.E.I. you would group the immigrant community by the Lot they were living on. The island is divided into three counties; Prince, Queens and Kings; each having a “royalty” or shire town. Within those three counties are 66 Lots roughly around 20,000 English Acres (80 square kilometers). A map of this can be found on the Island Register website under “The Lots of P.E.I.” These date back to an English survey completed in 1766. Within the Lots are various communities. For example, the community of Abney is in Lot 64. This can also be found on the IslandRegister website under “PEI Place Names vs Lot Numbers.” Basically a Lot would be a township in other Canadian provinces. The Lot number can be found in deeds, censuses and scores of other documents. If you only see a county and parish name, then here are the lots within each:

Prince County

North Parish: 1, 2, 3
Egmont Parish: 4, 5, 6, 7
Halifax Parish: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Richmond Parish: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
St. David’s Parish: Prince Royalty, 18, 19, 25, 26, 27, 28

Queens County

Grenville Parish: 20, 21, 22, 23, 67
Hillsboro Parish: 29, 30, 31, 65
Charlotte Parish: Queens Royalty, 24, 32, 33, 34
Bedford Parish: 35, 36, 37, 48, 49
St. John’s Parish: 50, 57, 58, 60, 62

Kings Parish

St. Patrick’s Parish: 38, 39, 40, 41, 42
East Parish: 43, 44, 45, 46, 47
St. George’s Parish: Kings Royalty, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 66
St. Andrew’s Parish: 59, 61, 63, 64

In Part 2 of this blog, I will be discussing strategies you can use to help identify where your ancestor may have come from in Ireland. If you would like professional help with your Canadian ancestry, call us at: 385-214-0925.

British Columbia Death Registrations (1872-1986)

22 Sep By Dwight Leave a Comment

A valuable collection for researching Irish immigrants is the “British Columbia Death Registrations, 1872-1986.” This collection, on FamilySearch, begins in 1872 when registration began. All you have to do is put in the word “Ireland” for the birth place, and leave the name blank, to get an idea as to how many Irish were in the province.

Information on the Death Form

The death forms vary in information provided. Much depends on the time period, and what was required for a particular death. They were submitted by district registrars, and then registered by the registrar or director of Vital Statistics. The death records can include a supporting “Medical Certificate of Death,” which concerns physician or coroner information. However, this medical information was not regularly included until 1896, and not for every death until 1912. Concerning a still birth, be aware, these may have been registered as a birth a death or both.

Typically, a certificate may include all or part of the following information

Name, age and gender
Date and place of death
Date and place of birth
Cause of death
Marital status
Parent’s names
Name of spouse
Name of physician
Registration district name or number
Date and number of registration
Religious affiliation

How Complete are the Records?

As with civil registration anywhere, the early years can prove frustrating for the family historian. The death registers are no different in British Columbia. You often will not find a registered death because people lived great distances from the registry offices and had very little if any communication with cities and towns.

The FamilySearch Database

When using the FamilySearch database, remember there are some interesting ways to manipulate the data. You always have to be aware of spelling variations, so test several spellings such as Byrne, Bierne, Burns and then put an “O” in front. This will help you not miss anything. Another strategy would be to use the “Parent” search or the “Spouse” search. This allows you to sometimes find missing people or entries which have been incorrectly indexed.

This is an excellent database from which you can browse the 1,113,866 images or utilize the index to the 898,889 indexed records (as of 9 May 2014).

If you would like professional help with your Canadian ancestry, call us at: 385-214-0925.

The Irish Documented in Spanish Archives

15 Sep By Dwight Leave a Comment

An interesting and important collection for the Irish who went Spain, and then perhaps elsewhere, is “The Irish in Spanish Archives” hosted by The Irish Genealogical Research Society. This collection was compiled by society member Samuel Fannin who lives in Spain, and researches in the Spanish Archives.

Why the Irish Went to Spain

The Irish went to Spain for several reasons. After the Treaty of Limerick (1691), Irish swordsmen joined the Spanish Army. Others came for Catholic religious schools in Alcala de Henares, Salamanca, Seville and Lisbon. Still others came as merchants or seeking wealth, as Spain was a world power opening up trade with the New World. There was a presence of Irish gentry among the immigrants. The strongest presence of Irish came from Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford.

Genealogical Possibilities

There are few records from which to document the Irish in Ireland itself for the 1600s and 1700s. However, there is much available to document their presence in Spain itself. This means an Irish birth place for an ancestor who settled in Spain or in its colonies may be preserved in a Spanish record. That literally may be the only place you will find it.

Irish in the Spanish Archives Primary Sources

Sanuel Fannin’s compilation, arrangements, and indexing of the Spanish Archives material is nothing short of priceless. The source material is divided into three separate pdf files on the website free of charge:

Spanish Archives of Primary Source Material

Malaga

Cadiz

Cordoba

Granada

Seville

Spanish Archives of Primary Source Material

Bilbao and LaCoruna

Index: Individuals by Irish County

The two main pdf extractions provide the historical background needed to understand the context for the Irish in a particular location. For example, in the 1700s, the Irish merchants were organized and working in the trade of sugar, iron and copper in Malaga. If you are researching an early Irish family with Spanish connections, then Samuel Fannin’s contribution to the world of Irish genealogy is the first place to stop! It is highly recommended.

If you would like help with your Irish in Spain or in the Spanish colonies call 385-214-0925.

The Julian Calendar

2 Sep By Dwight Leave a Comment

I was working on a Quaker family history in the Irish Registry of Deeds. So when I found a deed that read 15^th Day of the 5^th Month (commonly called May) 1810, I had to do a double take. No! Well, maybe, but should not be! The no reaction was because Quakers used the Julian Calendar for most of its history; rather than the Gregorian Calendar, which we use today. The maybe reaction was because Quakers abhorred using the names of the months as found in the Western Calendar. However, in this case, I believe the answer lay with the Julian Calendar explanation.

What Day is the New Year?

The Gregorian Calendar was a correction of the Julian Calendar, which by 1752 was 11 days behind the solar year. So under the Gregorian Calendar, 11 days were omitted to bring the calendar back in line with the solar year. So the day after Wednesday 2 September 1752 became Thursday 14 September 1752. Also, the 1st of January was used as the first of the year; rather than the Julian Calendar, where New Year was counted from the 25^th of March.

Two Calendars in Use at the Same Time

As both the Julian and the Gregorian calendars were used at the same time, this lead to a “double year” between January and March. So 3 February 1770 (Julian), was 3 February 1771 (Gregorian). Prior to 1752 it would have been written 3 February 1770/1.

Clerks do Make Innocent Mistakes

Now what about my Irish deeds? I reasoned the Registry of Deeds was housed in Dublin and transactions from though out Ireland were registered there but not necessarily immediately. The clerk in Dublin didn’t realize the transaction he registered was dated under the Julian Calendar. So the 15^th Day of the 5^th Month 1810 was seen as 15 May 1810; when it should have been 15 July 1810. For Quakers, the 1^st Month was March not January.

These are genealogy quirks which could lead your research astray if not careful. The clerk, who registered the deed, made an assumption. However, if I did not already know this deed was for a Quaker family, then I too may have made the same erroneous assumption.

If you would like to know more about professional genealogy Contact Us.

Documenting Migration Patterns

17 Jul By Dwight Leave a Comment

I find that with so many databases rapidly coming online, that we are now able to conduct in-depth studies like never before. Between RootsIreland.ie, FamilySearch, Ancestry.com and FindMyPast.ie we can do what was unthinkable only a few short years ago. In this blog, I will take an example from a small rural cemetery in West Virginia, and demonstrate how you can literally document an entire community.

Identifying an Irish Immigrant Community

We know in all the immigrant countries, Irish Catholic tombstones often have birth places carved on them. This practice was not universal, but if you hit upon a cemetery which has many such stones, then you can develop a viable area of study concentrated upon that one community. This documentation process can help you make some sense out of settlement patterns within that community. One example would be the small Catholic community at Irish Mountain, West Virginia.

Irish Mountain is located above the New River in Raleigh County, West Virginia, and the Irish community dates back to 1855. The cemetery by the old chapel has an amazing amount of tombstones with Irish place names preserved on them. At just a glance, it becomes obvious; most of the people came from counties Clare and Kerry. There are other counties represented, but these are by far the majority. The assumption would be at least some of these families were interlocking in Ireland. If not in Ireland, then being surrounded by a sea of evangelical Protestant neighbors, they would have intermarried on Irish Mountain.

Documenting the Irish Immigrant Community

For so long the Catholic registers for County Clare and County Kerry were not online. Then indexes to County Kerry registers appeared on Irish Genealogy.ie and indexes to County Clare on RootsIreland.ie. For the first time, this provides us all with a chance to explore communities such as Irish Mountain, West Virginia. To use these amazing indexes, we have to ask appropriate questions:

Who married and had children in Ireland? These may be found in the databases.
Who married in West Virginia but perhaps has other relatives on Irish Mountain from Clare or Kerry? Parents and siblings may be found in the database.
Is there a pattern of parishes in Clare and Kerry these Irish Mountain immigrants came from?
Using Griffith’s Primary Valuation alongside the Catholic registers databases, is there a pattern of townlands these families came from?

The goal would be to see if immigration was random, for whatever reason, or if there was a systematic migration out of a few parishes specifically to Irish Mountain.

Conclusion

Irish Mountain is just one example. Other immigration patterns are already known or suspected around the world. With databases at our fingertips, we can now explore and flesh out targeted communities like never before.

If you would like help documenting the Irish in a particular community Click Here.

Writing Your Story

4 Jul By Dwight Leave a Comment

Whether you are planning on publishing your research in a book or online, it is important to first identify your audience. If you are writing a family history to interest your children and grandchildren, then pictures and stories are items which should be included. If your audience is limited to family members, then it is best to keep the story as engaging and simple as possible. Samples of old documents can help bring the narrative alive.

A Family History for Family Members Only

If your audience is limited to family members, then footnotes may not be the best way to go. Now saying this, a list of sources is always good. However, if your work is too academic, then you risk that nobody in the family will ever read it. If your goal is to interest the family in genealogy, then you must write with that specific goal in mind.

A Family History for a Wide Audience

Therefore, it may be wise to create a second, more academic version of your family history, complete with footnotes and bibliography. This can be done in a book or online. By compiling a second version, you can reach people whom you don’t even know exist. This is especially true with an Internet version. In this setting, you will need to back up your research with footnotes, as other people may not see things the way you do. People searching online are already interested and engaged in the research process. You are not trying to create the interest. This audience will need access to your research, thus the need for footnotes, so they can continue their own efforts.

Privacy Issue in Writing Your Family History

The Internet is also a wonderful way to share family pictures and stories. However, be aware that due to privacy issues, you need to be very careful what you put on the Internet about living people. If you are using a database such as FamilySearch or Ancestry, they already have privacy policies in place. If you are developing a personal website, then you will need to be extra careful.

Privacy issues are less important in printed books as those are limited in their distribution and someone will have to go to a particular library to get the information. Even if your book is digitized, as FamilySearch is now doing, then someone would still have to find that particular book and that particular page to obtain personal information on living people.

I suggest that you develop two versions of your written family history side by side. The first for family eyes only; making it simple and engaging. Then a second more academic footnoted version too share with everybody else.

If you would like help developing a family history for publication Contact Us.

Correlating City Directories with Censuses

26 Jun By Dwight Leave a Comment

In urban Irish immigrant research, it is common too not identify common names in the city directories. All you usually have is a name, occupation, and home address. If you already know this information then that is the key into this valuable source. However, you may have Patrick Sullivan who was a laborer, and you cannot find him in the census indexes? So what do you do?

Steps to Correlate City Directories with Censuses

The way I approach these issues is to try and eliminate individuals by correlating the city directory information with census information. My approach, which works well in large urban jungles such as Boston, Chicago, New York City and San Francisco is as follows:

Step 1: Find an online database of the city directory nearest the census year you want to concentrate upon. This could include one year either way of 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880, for example.

Step 2: Then instead of using that database just for names, use the search feature for the address. If your subject from the directories was on 34 Ambassador Street, then you want to know who else was residing around 34 Ambassador Street when your targeted Patrick Sullivan was living there.

Step 3: Once you have a neighborhood identified, then you take all the names, regardless of who they are, and see if you can find them in the index for that census year.

Step 4: The goal is to find the family of that Patrick Sullivan in that neighborhood. This will help you to know who was at that address in the city directory. This approach works especially well if you cannot find your ancestor in a particular census. I usually assume the surname was not indexed correctly. This happens often when a German census taker is writing down Irish names, and then an indexer tries to make further sense out of the entry.

Successful Research Methods

I have solved many problems by using this simple strategy. This method works for sorting through common names or trying to determine if your ancestor was actually listed in the census enumeration. If you can reconstruct the people living around a particular address, then you have an extra tool in your tool box from which to continue your research.

If you have lost your Irish immigrant ancestors in the urban jungles then Click Here.

Documenting Your Story

20 Jun By Dwight Leave a Comment

We all have stories and they can be amazing teaching tools. However, at another level, these stories need to be documented. Irish culture is well-known for its storytelling as an art form. However, there comes a point where documenting stories develops the narrative itself into a workable framework where in each piece the story can be placed in a historical context. At that point, moral lessons can be preserved, based upon historical facts. This takes the story beyond storytelling, and serves a different purpose. So why do this?

Lies, Truth and Agendas in Stories

When storytelling is not understood as myth, the “facts” presented can often lead to erroneous and harmful conclusions. This is where lies are passed off as truths. While almost everyone accepts that institutions and governments do this on a regular basis; we sometimes forget families also have agendas. Erroneous stories are passed off to justify prejudice, hatred, social status, repression, religious and political agendas, or simply to keep a family member in check. To say erroneous facts can be dangerous is an understatement. Just think of the harm nineteenth century stereotypes about the Irish caused our ancestors.

Family agendas often cover up a wide range of sins. By doing so the status quo is kept intact, reputations preserved and healing never occurs. The paper trail releases the secrecy and allows the flow of what really happened to be unveiled.

Documentation Brings Context to a Story

It is important to take your stories and piece by piece document them. That will not only provide the truth of your family history, but it will also open up new lessons at deeper levels to pass down. For the difference between storytelling and documenting your story, please see my blog “Storytelling as an Art.”

If you would like to document your stories Contact Us.

Storytelling as an Art

12 Jun By Dwight Leave a Comment

When storytelling, we gather thoughts and feelings from the decades of experience in order to channel our audience in a particular direction. This is why storytelling is an art. Storytelling can be used to teach, convey values and entertain. Irish culture has historically been famous for storytelling. In an age of “click that button” on the Internet, we are often fuzzy on the difference between storytelling and documenting the story. They are not the same thing, nor do they necessarily serve the same purpose.

Understanding Your Audience

Where many people misunderstand storytelling is they think too literal. They forget about perception. My perception of this event, in this time, at that place, is this way. Now that perception can change over the years. The wisdom in storytelling is identifying your audience and what message you wish to teach. Your details always vary, based upon your targeted audience. So who is your audience? Storytelling to a five year old is not the same as storytelling to an adult.

The understanding of your audience is also crucial to how you approach storytelling. Abuse, neglect, poverty, violence and death can be turned into powerful teaching tools, if approached correctly. By gauging where your audience is at with emotional issues, this allows you to construct the storytelling accordingly. Then through the storytelling, lessons about compassion, faith, endurance and overcoming can replace anger, resentment and bitterness. At that point, the lesson can override the traumatic events themselves. The events only act as the introduction to the moral lesson.

Storytelling as Myth

The moral lessons are always more powerful than the facts you are presenting in the narrative.

Remember, “unalterable facts” can always be deconstructed by somebody holding a better piece of evidence. Storytelling by its very nature is supposed to be myth. Myth does not always mean untrue or lie. It can be beyond true and false. A good myth holds solid moral lessons which teach, and instruct using storytelling as the matrix to convey deeper meaning. A good myth also stands the test of time. It is not the myth but the message of the myth that fuels the storytelling. This is not hard science and should not be thought of that way.

If you would like to document your stories Contact Us.

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