Ethnic Connections

Genealogy in Black and White

17 Feb By Dwight

In researching a mixed-race nineteenth century family in Barbados, my goal was to trace the Afro-Caribbean and European lines. My difficulty was in determining the race of the people in the Anglican (Church of England) parish registers.

The church registers are indexed and scanned. Using the online indexes exclusively actually confused my understanding of the records. After reviewing the Anglican parish registers page-by-page and doing some historical research, I developed a context of the society and its records.

The Historical Context

The slaves were freed in Barbados in 1834. The Anglican registers did not list race. A transitional apprenticeship program for a few years was introduced at that time. In 1838 it became illegal to discriminate against people of color.

The Complexities of the Records

From 1834, many adults, who had been slaves, were baptized into this particular parish. No parents were listed. Prior to 1834 there were special Slave Registers of parish members. My assumption would be the main register was reserved for all free persons, white or black.

From 1834 former slaves were having children baptized. Surnames of these children, if there were any, were not mentioned. Afro-Caribbeans families had to be traced by first name only. These were recorded on the same pages as people with first and last names. My assumption was if there was no last name then they were former slaves. If surnames were given, then the family could be white or black. I further narrowed this by assuming those who signed with an “X” were either poor illiterate blacks or whites. That helped separate families further by economics. If they signed, then I assumed they were more educated whites.

After emancipation, the number of mothers having children christened with no fathers listed was staggering. Were these illegitimate births without surnames? My conclusion was not necessarily. I noticed that around 1842, most families listed last names and the name of the father was recorded. Perhaps the Anglican priest did not consider the father’s name or surname important. Perhaps he simply didn’t care. Possibly by around 1842 the priest was conforming to the new anti-discrimination law (1838).

Lessons Learned

The lesson learned was, had I relied only on the index to the parish registers I would have missed a great deal of important information. I would have confused the white, poor white, free person of color, emancipated slave and those without surnames from at least 1834 to about 1842. My conclusion was that there was a several year process that merged the Afro-Caribbean membership and the white membership into one parish. The process was so complex, that an accurate online index could not do the subject justice.

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Lessons From a Mixed-Up Parish

22 Jan By Dwight

St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Chatham, Northumberland County, New Brunswick, may be the most ethnically and religiously mixed-up parish I have ever researched for an Irish family. Known as “Chatham Parish,” its records (1838-1899) are indexed and digitized as part of the “Acadia, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1670-1946,” on Ancestry.com. The lessons I learned from a page-by-page search for my targeted Irish family both amazed and confused me.

Chatham drew varied ethnic groups, with the Irish and French Canadians being among the largest. It was tough to rely on the index as the originals were complex. There were smaller pieces of paper inserted in the binding to reflect dispensations to marry, notices signed by non-Catholic spouses concerning their children’s religious upbringing, and of people requesting proof of their baptism so they could be married elsewhere.

Then there were the records of people converting to Catholicism; the assumption being in preparation for marriage. In most cases, they were absolved from heresy and conditionally rebaptized. The exception seemed to be the Lutherans from Scandinavian countries. They were absolved from heresy and received on a profession of faith.

So what did I learn? Religion was not necessarily clear-cut in these areas of diverse immigration. Sometimes who was the Catholic party was not always clear-cut. The fluid nature of church membership was not confined to the Catholic parish. It also occurred in the Protestant denominations.

For example, my targeted husband and wife were listed as Catholic on their marriage. They were married by a Baptist minister, with the witnesses being Presbyterian. Depending on the censuses, the wife was listed as Catholic or Presbyterian. I finally proved she and her husband were at least from Catholic families, and they had one child christened by the Chatham Parish priest. The rest was up for grabs. Her second marriage was to an Anglican in the Anglican Parish. For the wife, the censuses revealed her father was born in England and her mother in Ireland. Perhaps another mixed-marriage!

My most important lesson was to be very careful with church records and always look at original registers rather than relying on an index. If I had only relied on the index, then I would have missed the entire context of what the Chatham Parish was all about.

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Irish Immigrants in a Multi-Ethnic Parish

4 Feb By Dwight Leave a Comment

In many countries where the Irish settled, they did not necessarily attend an “Irish Parish” or even an “English speaking parish” as we term these in genealogy. I was recently working in a small frontier Catholic parish in Southern Illinois where many Irish and Germans settled. What I was looking at didn’t make much sense until I looked at who the priest was writing the information down. When the German priest was baptizing and transcribing names in the registers, it was a nightmare. He obviously did well with the German names.

A German Priest Writes Irish Names

What made this case fascinating was the German priest seemed to have confused O’Connell and O’Donnell. This also brought into question his usage of McDonell, McDonald also for O’Donnell. My search family was O’Donnell.

What I noticed through closely examining a ten year period of these records from 1864-1874 was when the Irish priest took over the writing, he obviously got the names correct. It was through his transcriptions I was able to understand McDonnell and McDonald were the same and were not O’Donnell. However, he also seemed to have gone back into the registers and wrote over the mess created by the German priest in an attempt to correct errors in Irish names. While admirable, it created a secondary mess where I could not tell if it was really O’Donnell or O’Connell.

Irish Priest Begins Writing Irish Names

My solution was to continue in the registers where the German priest was no longer writing and see what the Irish priest did with the same families a few years later. If I had only stopped after a few years in the registers, I would have missed so much. It literally took me about 10 years of sorting through every family and the godparent’s names to unravel the mess created between the Irish and German priests. However, in the end, it was well worth my time!

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The Dawes Rolls in Mixed-Blood Research

23 Dec By Dwight Leave a Comment

Were your Scots-Irish ancestors part Native American? This can be difficult to determine for mixed-blood families who were not removed to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). These families merged into the white, black or tri-racial communities where memory of the native line may have become sketchy. However, if you look at the mixed-blood families who were removed you might find some clues.

An ancestor’s surname may be found among the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) or Seminole tribes as documented by the Dawes Commission (1894-1914). These are applications compiled to determine who qualified for tribal membership.

The Purpose of the Dawes Commission

The Dawes Commission began the U.S. Government process of breaking up tribal nations and allotting the lands to individuals. Its purpose was to change how the tribes owned land and abolish tribal governments. It was expanded by 1896 to authorize an official membership roll for the tribes. Even today, membership in the Oklahoma tribes, are based upon documenting descent from an ancestor enrolled through the Dawes Commission. An excellent guide to the history and use of the records is Kent Carter’s The Dawes Commission: And the Allotment of the Five Civilized Tribes, 1893-1914 (1999).

This source is important in mixed-blood research because it provides access to the surnames documented within the tribes. A Scots-Irish connection into the tribes was usually prior to the final 1838 Removal. The Dawes Commission records can help identify who stayed with the tribe or if the surname crossed into another tribe.

Indexes to the Dawes Commission Records

Enrollments in 1896 were considered invalid and the process began again in 1898. The majority of people enrolled 1898-1907; with a few added in 1914. The final rolls consist of 101,000 names. Only one-third of those who applied were accepted. The records also list the black Freedmen who were adopted into the tribes being descendants of their slaves (many were mixed-blood themselves).

An index to the Dawes Commission records can be found on Ancestry and the National Archives with microfilm of the applications themselves widely available.

Click Here if you would like to learn more about your Native American ancestry and their Scots-Irish connections.

India Office Family History Search

15 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

The British Library’s India Office Family History Search is a must for genealogists. The India Office Records is a collection of several archives: East India Company (1600-1858), Board of Control (1784-1858), India Office (1858-1947) and the Burma Office (1937-1948). It covered a vital part of the British Empire from 1600-1947 in what is today India, Pakistan, Burma and Bangladesh. Other areas connected to British India, such as Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa are also represented. In total representation is over 300 collections and over 3000 smaller deposits of Private Papers relating to British India.

British Subjects Documented in the Records

Within these collections is a wealth of genealogical information concerning the European and Eurasian population of British India. Biographical information can be found for officials and non-official residents. Since the East India Company and India Office had staff also based in Great Britain, these records also document them. Employees included civil servants, military, mariners, medical, chaplains, railway workers and law officers. Non-officials included merchants, planters, free mariners and missionaries.

Types of Records in the India Office Database

The “India Office Family History Search” is free of charge. It includes 300,000 births, baptisms, marriages, deaths, burials and biographical notes taken from a variety of sources. The database has scores of Irish born officials and non-officials. The website provides a “Dictionary and Glossary” of terms and abbreviations found in the records.

Even if only one relative of your family who immigrated to North America or elsewhere was in British India, then those records may preserve where that one person was born. If you cannot find where your branch of the family came from using North American records, for example, then switch to the sibling or cousin who went to British India. With a collection of this size with a searchable online database, the chances of finding a long lost relative is very good.

British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia

23 Aug By Dwight Leave a Comment

The British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) seeks to preserve graves from the Red Sea to the China Coast. Their website: www.bacsa.org.uk provides a wealth of information. It may be from the cemeteries and tombstones they are documenting you find that long Irish relative or that illusive birth place in Ireland carved on a tombstone.

Not only does the BACSA document the “British” cemeteries, but those from other European colonies. The East India Company had competition from Denmark, France, and The Netherlands. The BACSA estimates on the Indian Subcontinent alone there are more than 2 million graves of European merchants, military, civil servants, Anglo-Indians and their families.

The Society documents the locations of the cemeteries, transcribes the inscriptions and photographs the tombs and tombstones. They publish their findings. To date, they have sponsored over 100 projects utilizing the support of the locals to restore and conserve these graveyards.

The BACSA Archive is housed at the British Library in London: www.bl.uk/. It contains folders on the majority of cemeteries in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan with some from Afghanistan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Middle East. Some of the graveyards documented no longer exist making the BACSA collections invaluable.

The “BACSA Search” feature allows you to search their published books under one unified index. You can narrow your search by country or graveyard or simply conduct a broader search. A list of their publications can also be found on the Society website.

This is a worthy organization which is often the only advocate for these historic sites. They not only encourage new members, but also they have a form online to inform travelers the correct information to seek if they find a graveyard or are visiting one in South Asia. You can help in the preservation process!

Using Databases to Discover Lost Irish

30 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

Sometimes we get so accustomed to using online databases that we forget the time when they didn’t exist. With these databases comes the opportunity to make discoveries and develop new research strategies.

In the area of Irish immigration, in the old days, discoveries were made microfilm by microfilm, often without indexes. Researchers asked questions such as: Was there an Irish migration? Is there a pattern of immigration from a particular county in Ireland? Was it a Catholic, Protestant or mixed migration into the area in question?

Researchers still ask the same questions, but there is now a wider net to cast online. Where before a study was limited to a particular community, now there’s nationwide coverage through databases on FamilySearch: www.familysearch.org and Ancestry: www.ancestry.com.

When I learn about a new database, I start plugging in Irish names. If in a hurry, I do the most common ones such as Sullivan, Kelly, Lynch from memory. If I want to do a detailed survey, I will get a list of the most common Irish surnames and start down the list.

While this strategy works very well, there are some quirks associated with it. For example, Does Sullivan, Kelly and Lynch look like that in an Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Spanish or Swedish database? Definitely be careful. This strategy is less definitive when the common name is actually English or Scots-Irish in origin. You can’t determine, without more information, if the names you are seeing are actually from Ireland. In reverse, if you assume that communities, such as the Scots-Irish followed the Scots everywhere, then that will solve part of that quirk.

With current technology, we all have the chance to create something new and exciting in the field of Irish immigrant research. If you make a discovery of “lost Irish” then I recommend you write an article or create your own database to share your discovery. You don’t know how many times I say “What in the heck were they doing there?” So I write a blog!

Guion Miller Rolls

13 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

The Guion Miller Roll accepted applications to determine membership in the Eastern Cherokee Nation. This source documents families not removed to Indian Territory in 1838. It is an excellent resource for mixed-blood families. As with all my blogs about the Cherokee, this by default usually also means Scots-Irish ancestry.

Between 1906 and 1909, some 45,940 applications were submitted from throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. The Guion Miller Rolls lists an estimated 90,000 individual applicants each of whom had to trace lineage to someone in the 1835 Henderson Roll, prior to the removal. Most applications were rejected based on a lack of evidence. Unless clearly fraudulent, the rejected applications still preserve the genealogy back to the 1835 time period. They also provide insight into mixed-blood families long separated from the tribe.

Indexes to the Guion Miller Rolls can be found on the National Archives website: www.archives.gov/research/arc/native-americans-guion-miller.html ; “Access Genealogy”: www.accessgenealogy.com/native/guion.php ; and on “Fold3”: http://www.fold3.com/title_81/guion_miller_roll/ The applications are widely available on microfilm.

The Guion Miller Rolls is as a guide posts as to who may have considered themselves Cherokee. Remember, even if the government didn’t consider a claim valid, DNA may prove otherwise! Then again, there were fraudulent claims of people who were only seeking government money.

Two mistakes people make when using these rolls is: 1.) They are only for Cherokee families. This is incorrect as many mixed-bloods applied, who were not Cherokee. Other, then unorganized native groups applied because there was no place else for them to apply; 2.) If an ancestor was part of a denied claim that there is no native heritage. This is also incorrect as the denied claims not only include fraudulent claims, but also ones which could not be sufficiently documented. That was the reason for rejection, not fraud.

Concerning those who were fraudulent, an excellent blog on “Thoughts from Polly’s Granddaughter” provide some thought provoking insights on the Guion Miller Roll: www.pollysgranddaughter.com/2011/06/fortune-hunters-guion-miller-roll-and.html I would also like to direct you to my two part blogs “What Does Cherokee Mean?” which appeared on 27-28 August 2012.

Kidnapped to Quebec

12 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

Often in tracing Colonial New England Scots-Irish families, you find the unexpected. What you find is these Presbyterians living in Quebec as Roman Catholics, married to Indians, and having both an Indian and French name. What the heck?

It turns out that with a little historical research into the “French and Indian Wars,” it all makes sense. Many Scots-Irish families were kidnapped by Indians and traded in what is now Quebec. The obvious implication is that who you thought were French Catholics or even mixed-bloods from the First Nations were originally Scots-Irish Presbyterians from New England and Ulster with a totally different name!

They are documented in two works: Emma Lewis Coleman’s New England Captives Carried to Canada Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars (1925); and C. Alice Baker’s True Stories of New England Captives Carried to Canada During the Old French and Indian Wars (1897). These can be found online, and don’t forget to look for online indexes.

Now for the historical background. These series of wars can be divided up and named. In the United States the war was named after the ruling English Monarch at the time. In Canada, either the larger European conflict or the term “Intercontential War” is used.

1688-1697: King William’s War (1^st Intercolonial War (Quebec))

1702-1713: Queen Ann’s War (2^nd Intercolonial War)

1744-1748: King George’s War and War of Jenkins’ Ear (3^rd Intercolonial War)

1754-1763: The French and Indian War (4^th Intercolonial War and 6^th Indian War)

These wars were tied to the larger European conflicts as they played out in North America. These wars pitted England/UK, its colonies and Indian allies against France, its colonies and Indian allies. The causes of the wars were the desire of both nations to control the interior of North America, and the region around the Hudson Bay. The winner would dominant the fur trade. The French were effective in mobilizing the Indians, who raided the English colonies, and brought captives back to Quebec. New Hampshire, and its Scots-Irish population, were particularily ravaged during the last two wars.

In tomorrow’s blog, I want to continue the other side of this native theme by exploring people who willingly were trying to claim Native American heritage, whether they were or not.

Identifying Irish Origins Through Intermarriage

9 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

The Irish intermarried with various ethnic groups. Sometimes to find Irish origins, you have to explore the other group.

For example, in the American Southeast, the Scots-Irish intermarried heavily with the Catawba, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and the Muscogee (Creek). If the geography and time period was right for intermarriage, then research tribal records. Remember, tribal membership is determined through a documented lineage. Within that lineage, often in a compiled family history, the Ulster branch may be documented.

The same principle applies to the Maori of New Zealand. They are very mixed-blood with both Catholic and Protestant Irish. Another plus for Maori research is large numbers have converted to Mormonism which almost guarantees additional genealogies.

Even stranger, the Scots-Irish were kidnapped during tribal raids in New England in the mid-1700s, and taken to Quebec. There are entire books written about the kidnapped, their conversion to Catholicism, adoption into the tribes, their native names, and those who eventually returned to New England. Upon returning, they spoke French and a First Nations language (some broken English), finding New England Protestant culture very alien to them.

Sometimes, intermarriage is as simple as an Irish Catholic marrying a German Catholic. In some parts of North America there was hostility between the two groups (example: Cincinnati, Ohio). In other areas, the intermarriage was common place. It may be within a German Catholic record birthplaces in Ireland are preserved.

You will find Scots-Irish Presbyterians marrying German Baptist Brethren (now Church of the Brethren). They settled among each other in the Mid-West and on the frontier in Virginia and Maryland in the mid-1700s. Once you realize your Anabaptist ancestors were really Scots-Irish, with a Germanized surname, this directs your research into Brethren record for an Irish birthplace.

As odd as any of these strategies sound, they do work. This is thinking outside the box.

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