I love what the Local Studies Team at the Limerick City Library is doing on Twittter. Using the library’s extensive historical reference collection, they are tweeting as @Limerick1912, providing their followers with daily glimpses into Limerick City life one hundred years ago.
From the content of @Limerick1912‘s tweets, I gathered that the Limerick City Library had quite a collection, so I decided it was time to take a look at what the library was all about.
If you trace your Irish roots to Limerick, you really must visit this website. I have no family connections to Limerick, yet I managed to spend a good chunk of time perusing the collection, especially the Obituaries & Death Notices section. Here you will find notices from the Limerick Chronicle for the years 1850-1909, and they are indexed by year, as well as alphabetically – very researcher-friendly! Oh, and they also include maps for the years 1856-1893, showing where each death occurred – simply click on the pin and the information pops up with a link to the actual notice.
The map feature is very useful for people like me who are interested in the Irish in America. Simply click on a year, look at the map, and see if any US deaths were reported to folks back in Limerick.
For example, when I clicked on 1883 in the Obituaries & Death Notices section, a page containing a map and an alphabetical list of notices from the Limerick Chronicle for 1883 comes up. The map shows 5 listings from North America, 122 from Europe, and one from Dalhousie, India. If I click on North America I can see the specific locations of the reported deaths. There are several clustered on the East Coast, but I choose the pin in the middle of the United States.
A balloon pops up with the following information: “Mary Ann Goggin, Kansas City USA, Date: 28/04/1883, Notes: wife of Robert Goggin native of Limerick, death notice”. Click on her name and a PDF image of the newspaper page containing the notice opens.
Goggin – March 20, 1883 Mary Ann, wife of Robert Y. Goggin (a native of this city), of congestion of the brain, at her late residence 1110 East Eleventh Street, Kansas City, Mo.
This would be a fun “find” for someone doing genealogy on the Goggin family, or perhaps someone interested in the Irish in Kansas City.
What I find so interesting is all the other information we can learn from a portion of a newspaper page. Along with notice of Mary Ann Goggin’s passing, we learn the price of butter at the Cork Butter Market and the May schedule for fairs throughout Munster.
AN HEIR TO THE RUSSIAN THRONE.
TZARITZA GIVES BIRTH TO A SON.
In a report from St. Petersburg, Russia: “The Tzaritza was to-day delivered of a son…at 12 noon…the Tzarevitch has been given the name of Alexis.” The report goes on to say that St. Petersburg would be decked out with flags to celebrate. Take a look at the page from the August 13, 1904 edition of the Limerick Chronicle – click here.
And what about Douglas? Sadly, he apparently fell into the river on his way back to the ship after a visit to town.
Take a look at the Limerick City Library website and let me know what you discover! And if you are on Twitter, you should definitely follow @Limerick1912 – just click here, sit back, and enjoy a trip back in time!
Coming soon…we will take at what the Limerick City Archives has to offer!
Categories: Archives | Tags: @Limerick1912, Cork Butter Market, Goggin, Kansas City, Limerick City Library, Missouri, Munster, obituaries, research, Twitter | Permalink.
John from Ireland wrote to me with a few suggestions for using the Irish Census data available on-line. He began by pointing out www.census.ie which provides information on how the Irish census is used today as well as its role in history and as a valuable research tool. Click here to go directly to the history portion of the site. This page contains interesting information on the census and will also link you to the National Archives, the home of the 1901 and 1911 Irish census.
I suspect many of you researching your Irish roots are familiar with the Irish census data from 1901 and 1911 on the National Archives of Ireland website. You have a couple of options for looking at the census: you can browse or you can search.
If you know the county, parish, and townland of origin for your subject, why not take leisurely browse through the actual records. This method can be a bit more time-consuming, but you may get a bit more of a feel for your subject’s life.
Of course, a search will get you to your goal a bit faster, and you can always browse the records from that point. Either way, these records are fascinating and can provide valuable information for your family tree.
John pointed out a list of several links at the bottom of the main census page on the National Archives site that I had completely missed. These photographs and articles provide some context to the 1901 and 1911 census data. See a tram timetable from 1911 or a photograph of the 1903 All-Ireland champs from Kerry. The eviction scene from County Galway (below) is one of the items listed.
Speaking of browsing, I was completely sucked in by another collection John recommended, the digitized photograph collections at the National Library of Ireland . The photographs are organized in several smaller collections, according to time period, region, and subject matter. If one of the collections fits your area of research, click on the name and you will be able to further filter your search. Or you can just browse through the photo collections. The photographs can be downloaded, free of charge.
Many thanks to John for providing a fresh perspective on researching Irish roots!
Categories: Archives | Tags: census, family, Ireland, National Archives, National Library, photographs | Permalink.
The New Brunswick Archive in Canada has a great collection of letters to and from Irish emigrants to the area. You can read the actual hand-written letters, or if you prefer not to struggle with nineteenth century script, transcriptions are available for download. The collection contains items from the nineteenth century, as well as some from the early twentieth century. Also included are a diary, family histories, and other documents. Take a look around the site…fascinating stuff!
The Laurence Hughes collection (MC2618 :: Laurence Hughes fonds) contains several letters written to Laurence Hughes of Fredricton, New Brunswick from relatives in Ireland and elsewhere in North America. I think these letters are particularly interesting for they demonstrate the networks of Irish emigration and how that support facilitated further migration from Ireland and within North America. The letters span seventeen years (1837-1854) and see several relatives in Ireland considering emigration and dealing with the decision to stay.
colony of settlers from Carlow in loway State sent out by Rev. James Heigher and they have fine schools there now for boys and girls. I think dear Lawrence if we would go there it would be a fine chance for our children but I am afraid it is not healthy there.
Read Edward’s full letter here. I wonder if Edward ever made his way to Iowa? Establishing Catholic colonies in the midwestern United States was popular during this time (until the mid-1880s.) The goal of such projects was two-fold: provide opportunities for Irish immigrants to escape congested Eastern conditions and own land, farm, and raise families in a Catholic community, and to strengthen the American Catholic Church by populating the West with Catholic settlers.
There is a great deal of railroads making here but the most degrading characters work on them now. Some of this is a disgrace to the land that gave them birth.
This comment is important because it reminds us that all Irish immigrants were not treated equally in America, even by their fellow countrymen. Clearly Edward was educated to some degree, and from his letter it is apparent he was a religious man who did not approve of drink. Irish in America like him would have had little time for the poor, uneducated, Famine-era emigrants. Edward and his brothers made the decision to come to North America before the worst years of the Famine hit Ireland while for many of the million who came during the Famine, the alternative was starvation. This is not to say that conditions in Ireland were favorable at the time of the Hughes brothers emigration, but judging from the letters, it was not a case of emigrate or starve.
Edward mentions a “Catholic Almanac” in his letter to Lawrence. Has anyone ever heard of that before? I would love to know where I could find 19th century copies!
Categories: Archives, Letters, Where they went | Tags: America, Boston, Canada, Catholic Church, family, Hughes, Ireland, New Brunswick, Pennsylvania | Permalink.