Indexes

The Irish Documented in Spanish Archives

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.

Australian Convict Databases

16 Sep By Dwight Leave a Comment

When considering the Australian branch of the family; the first question to ask is free settler or transported convict. This blog will concern the various online databases to document convicts.

Convict transportation is important in Irish research is because births places are usually documented. Thus, if you cannot find Irish origins using records where your ancestor immigrated; then look for the relative who was transported.

The main database is “Ireland-Australia Transportation Index (1791-1853)” on the National Archives of Ireland: www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/transportation/search01.html However, be aware many of the transportation records pre-1836 have not survived.

From the Australian side, are sources from which to document the convict after arrival. It has been estimated 40,000 Irish convicts were transported between 1791 and 1853.

The Tasmanian Archives has a “Names Index” comprising several databases: www.linc.tas.gov.au/tasmaniasheritage/search/name-indexes/nameindexes The “Index to Tasmanian Convicts” is a comprehensive index of all convicts transported to Tasmania and those convicted in the colony from 1804-1853 when transportation ceased.

The State Archives collection of New South Wales has a wealth of varied databases on their website under “Indexes Online”: www.records.nsw.gov.au/state-archives/indexes-online/indexes-online This includes “Convict Index” which contains about 120,000 entries combining eight indexes covering 1810-1879. Other databases include “Sentenced Beyond the Seas” which covers Australia’s early convict records (1788-1801) and includes 12,000 names. “Applications to Marry, 1821-51” provides details for parties asking permission to marry. “Convict Exiles, 1849-50” which covers when transportation ceased to NSW in 1842, exiles who had served part of their time in a British penitentiary were granted pardon or ticket of leave on arrival in the Colony from 1846-50. “Convict Pardons, 1791-1873” documents convicts who received life sentences although usually pardoned.

The Internet holds a wealth of information on convicts. Again, it may be among this segment of the population that a birth place in Ireland is preserved.

Working Two Indexes at Once

20 Aug By Dwight Leave a Comment

I was tracing an Irish family who settled in Quebec having children in the 1830s and 1840s. I automatically utilized “Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection) 1621-1967” provided by Ancestry.com Using the Parent Search, only one Roman Catholic christening was found.

I pulled the microfilm here at the Family History Library for that parish and found a clear, hand-written index, organized by year. There I found three additional children. What was wrong with the indexing in the “Drouin Collection?”

Turns out the handwriting in the parish registers was so bad, no modern index could be accurate. I worked the two indexes from two directions. The first was I ignored the index on Ancestry. That worked well until I got to my last baptism dated 1843. I couldn’t find it on the microfilm. The manuscript index showed a page number, but there were no page numbers.

I went back to the “Drouin Collection” index on Ancestry.com and plugged in the name and year. The index caught it and I was able to look at the entry online. How did I miss it? I got the baptismal entry number from the online scan and then went back to the microfilm. It took some hunting but I found it. My conclusion was the registers were so bad I couldn’t catch the name in the margins off to the left side of the page.

The first lesson learned was to never assume any index is correct. The second was the online index helped me identify a parish. The third lesson was I still had to correlate information from the manuscript index on microfilm with the Ancestry index for the “Drouin Collection.”

I was satisfied that I had all the children. My advice is to always go that extra step to assure accuracy.

Valuation Records (1864-1933) a PRONI Database

18 Aug By Dwight Leave a Comment

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast recently placed online “Valuation Revision Books”: www.proni.gov.uk/ This is a major source for documenting the taxation process for a particular parcel of ground within a townland. In other words, the search feature is geographical rather than name based. The scanned collection includes a fully searchable place name index to the approximately 3,900 volumes covering 1864-1933.

If you know the locality, especially the townland where your ancestors lived, then you can utilize that to narrow your search for a particular range of years. I use these revision books when I need to know what happened to a family residing on a certain piece of property. With the PRONI database, you can also search the land backward, say from your findings in the 1901 or 1911 censuses.

The scanned document images are in color making this very useful as the different changes are coded by the ink color of the pen corresponding to various years. This collection covers counties the Northern Ireland counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry/Derry and Tyrone.

This collection has until this compiled database, has only been available in manuscript books at the PRONI. This alone makes this a major addition to the world of Irish history and genealogy. As you document changes in the tenure of a piece of property, you can extrapolate perhaps when someone died, immigrated, became too old to be responsible for the tax, or maybe was evicted. This clues you into other records. It also helps you to determine changes in the landlords so you can look for rents and leases from the estate papers.

I highly recommend this free database. It may open up new research avenues for you and provide valuable social history of a townland along the way.

When Was Griffith’s Primary Valuation Published?

11 Dec By Dwight Leave a Comment

One difficulty with the online indexes to Griffith’s Primary Valuation (GPV) (1847-64) is there’s not a clear date for the individual record being examined. This is very important in your research because of family deaths and immigrations. In this case, we are talking about the date it was published verses the date the manuscript was generated. These differences can range from one to four years.

Now saying this, once you know the year GPV for a county was published, then you can subtract one to four years and make a decision as to how it affects your research. Was your ancestor even in the records!

GPV was taken by Poor Law Union, and the funds went for the support of the workhouses within the unions. These unions did not always respect county or parish boundaries. Because there are several unions covering each county, the years for GPV will vary. The chart below shows when GPV was published for unions covering a county.

If you know what civil parish your ancestor lived; then you can use a book such as Brian Mitchell’s A New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland (2002) to determine the Poor Law Unions which covered an area. If you only know a Catholic parish, then you can also use the maps to determine which unions covered the geographical area. The years for which GPV was published for each county are as follows:

Antrim (1861-2), Armagh (1864), Belfast City (1861), Carlow (1852), Cavan (1856-7), Clare (1855), Cork (1850-3), Donegal (1857-8), Down (1863-4), Dublin (1848-51), Dublin City (1849-50), Fermanagh (1862), Galway (1853-56), Kerry (1851-2), Kildare (1851), Kilkenny (1849-50), Leitrim (1856), Leix/Queens (1849-51), Limerick (1850-2),

Londonderry/Derry (1858-9), Longford (1854), Louth (1854, 1864), Mayo (1855-7), Meath (1854), Monaghan (1858-61), Offaly/Kings (1853-4), Roscommon (1855-8), Sligo (1858), Tipperary (1848-52), Tyrone (1858-60), Waterford (1848-51), Westmeath (1854), Wexford (1853), Wicklow (1852-54).

The main point is even if your ancestors had immigrated or died the year GPV was published, they may still be listed if you consider it was taken one to four years earlier. For more information on GPV I recommend the online article by the late James R. Reilly “Is There More in Griffith’s Valuation Than Just Names?”: www.leitrim-roscommon.com/GRIFFITH/Griffiths.PDF

Irish Passengers to Argentina

9 Dec By Dwight Leave a Comment

As it has already been well documented, most of the Irish who went to Argentina were from concentrated areas in Ireland, making their origin documentable. Some 60% came from counties Westmeath, Longford and North Offaly, 15% from County Wexford, 3% from County Cork, 3% from County Clare and 15% from the rest of the country. It is now easier than ever to document their arrival in Argentina, and for some periods of time, their leaving Ireland.

The passenger lists arriving in Buenos Aires (1821-1870) are on microfilm at the Family History Library: www.familysearch.org The records list the name, age, place of birth (usually country) and relationships between persons traveling together. Sometimes passport information is provided (FHL Microfilm #1840670-84).

The compilation “Irish Passengers to Argentina (1822-1929) includes 7,159 passengers. It is actually a published version of a database compiled from several sources including Eduardo A. Coglan’s El Aporte de los Irlandeses a la Formación de la Nación Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1982). It is online at the website for the Society for Irish Latin American Studies: www.irishargentine.org/passenger.htm This is a free database. When studying the database, remember in Argentina, the Irish were often listed as English. Part of this compilation comes from these passenger arrival records.

Now concerning leaving Irish ports, these are part of the British Board of Trade records (BT 27) and include ships leaving the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (Northern Ireland after 1922) beginning in 1890. This large archive of records is indexed with digitized images on the FindMyPast website: www.findmypast.co.ukas “Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960.” This is a subscription or “Pay as You Go” website.

From the UK ports, ships in this database were bound to the Argentine ports of Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires, Campana, Gallegos, Ibicuy, La Plata, Puerto Madrya, River Plate, Rosario, Tierra Del Fuego, Villa Constitucion and Zarate.

Documenting your family or the branch of your family arriving in Argentina has never been easier.

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!

Do Not Just Grab a Name!

25 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

Be careful when connecting into an online databases. I’ve blogged about this before, and I will continue to do so. Irish and Scots-Irish names can be very common. You cannot assume you found your ancestor because the name appears in a database!

For example, if your ancestors settled in Ontario, then don’t necessary pick someone with the same name arriving at the port of New York City. Does the migration pattern fit? What was the typical migration pattern into Ontario? Often the follow up questions are never asked.

The same could be said if your ancestors settled in Vermont, but you find the same name in the online Alabama censuses. Is this your ancestor? Does the migration pattern from Vermont to Alabama fit? Typically the answer is overwhelmingly NO. Again, a secondary set of research questions is needed.

If your ancestors were from Ulster, then don’t look for them in a database which indexes County Cork church records. Why? We are talking about opposite ends of the island. This is not a natural migration pattern from Ulster to Cork.

As a professional genealogist, I see these issues all the time, and the advent of technology has only made the problem worse. Good and reputable databases such as Ancestry.com: www.ancestry.com and Findmypast.ie: www.findmypast.ie among many others, do try and educate researchers as to what a particular database is about. However, perhaps where all fall a tad short is using research strategies as part of their educating process.

Yet, we all realize the compilers of website database cannot predict the needs of the individual researcher. Nor can they predict what questions are going to be asked based upon those needs. This is why you will need to arm yourself with a good how-to research book. It’s worth the investment and can save you lots of heart ache down the road.

We are so fortunate to have online databases. However, you must still utilize your deductive reasoning and logic to read between the lines of these databases. Always, understand the record, its uses and its limitations. Don’t assume anything.

Tasmania’s Heritage: Name Index

19 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

The Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office is indexing various record collections and making them available in searchable databases in the “Name Index”:

Some of the record collections have digitized images to go with the index search. However, for those not digitized, with the reference from the index, a copy can be ordered from the archive. The collections are naturally packed full of Irish who arrived as convicts or as free settlers. The databases include the following:

Arrivals: This includes passengers and ships arriving mainly in Hobart in the nineteenth century. The source for this is a card index. Currently, surnames A-K are part of the Arrivals index.

Census Index: Most of the censuses were not retained by the government. However, what has survived for 1837, 1838, 1842, 1843, 1848, 1851, 1857 has been digitized. A listing of the districts and parishes enumerated are part of this database.

Colonial Tasmanian Family Links Database: Containing 500,000 entries, this database was created from mainly birth, marriage, and death records, held in the Archives Office. The linkage was developed by family historians from the former National Heritage Foundation in the late 1990s. The information is not necessarily verified.

Convict Applications for Permission to Marry: An index and digitized images of records for convicts who applied to marry free people or other convicts from 1829 to 1857.

Convicts (Tasmanian): This is an index to all convicts transported to Tasmania or who were convicted locally in the colony. The collection covers 1804 through 1853 when transportation stopped. The locally convicted convicts extends the database information to 1893. There are about 76,000 entries.

Departures: This collection includes indexes and digitized images to what records are available for departures from Tasmanian ports from 1817 through 1867.

Divorces: An index to the divorces heard before the Tasmanian Supreme Court from 1861 to 1920.

General Index: The sources for this database come from a variety of records. The references are mainly to people’s names, but subjects are also included. Some of the records have been digitized.

Inquests: This is an index and digitized images concerning inquests into people’s deaths from about 1828 through about 1930. Inquests into fires are under the General Index database.

Naturalizations: This is an index and digitized images covering 1835 through 1905.

Wills: This database includes an index and digitized images of Wills and Letters of Administration from 1824 through 1989.

Archives of Manitoba

16 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

An excellent place to begin your search for Manitoba ancestors is the Archives of Manitoba: www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives Manitoba was an important part of Canadian history, not only in the early fur trade, but also in the westward migration of the population.

The archive holds many primary records such as homestead files, public school attendance records, wills and estate files, Hudson’s Bay Company servants’ contracts, Hudson’s Bay Company engagement registers, Hudson’s Bay Company personnel files, Red River Settlement census records and private records of early Manitoba families. Although the holdings of the Archives of Manitoba are vast, they do not hold vital records or land titles. The archive website has some research guides to help you understand and access vast collections such as the probates and the Hudson’s Bay Company Archive.

The Hudson’s Bay Company Archive has its own division within the Archives of Manitoba, and is considered one of Canada’s national treasures. It was founded in 1670 and is the oldest charted trading company in the world.

The Archives of Manitoba holds the probates for the province, and these are being indexed on the website. Current online Judicial Districts include; Winnipeg (187—1984), Brandon (1884-1984), Dauphin (1918-1984) and Morden (1902-1965).

Archive staff will conduct limited research for those who aren’t able to visit in person. They also have an extensive microfilm collection which can be obtained through inter-library loan. Online catalogs, such as their “Keystone Archives Descriptive Database” can help you identify sources. Their microfilm collections through 1904 are also available at the Library and Archives Canada: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca in Ottawa and at The National Archives, Kew, England: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk Also, do not neglect any Mantitoba collections at the Family History Library: www.familysearch.org

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