Not On the Boat

While I still have a little over two weeks before we take off on our research trip to Ireland, in one way I feel as if I’ve buttoned down all the details that possibly could be attended to before we go. In a strange way, that leaves me with that “milling about” sense of lack of direction for upcoming blog posts. I do still have research details that need attention—just not the type that would make for an interesting post. So my mind is already wandering, grasping for that next step—that next writing goal.

At the same time, I’ve been thinking on the same wavelength as some of you, and your comments are particularly resonating with me right now. That’s how yesterday’s post on books came about—triggered by a comment from reader Colleen Brown Pasquale, and a conversation that’s likely still ongoing.

Like a winding chain, there was another comment—this time, on yesterday’s post, by reader Wendy—that just called out for me to turn into a post what would have otherwise ended up as a long comment.

Here’s the start of Wendy’s comment:

I envy that you have traced your ancestors to Ireland and that you have them IN Ireland. I can't get mine out of New York and back on the boat.

I have to say, you got me there, Wendy! I really feel for you. But here’s the secret reason why: I can’t find any trace of passenger records revealing the arrival of any of my husband’s four separate Irish families in the New World, with the one notable exception of the renegade Stephen Molloy—but only thanks to his letter home, just before he left Ireland in 1849. The closest thing I came to transportation records for the rest of the bunch was the mention of a date of arrival and supposed port—New Orleans—for our original Stevens arrival. And that was per the applicant’s own report, not verified by any record or witness.

If it weren’t for the pack rat tendencies of some of our ancestors—who apparently never threw anything away—I wouldn’t have had the details I did to lead me to these families’ homelands in Ireland.

But it wasn’t all thanks to those hoarders of ephemera. There were some other resources, which I’d like to review now.

The primary discovery I made was thanks to an old obituary. Those old hometown papers in small, rural areas where gossip was news could become grand revealers of family origins. I’ve been amazed to see what private details were divulged in public eulogies. That’s how I came across the first clue that our Fort Wayne Kelly family was from County Kerry. The “Lakes of Killarney” mention in the newspaper may have been a little more picturesque and poetic than pinpoint accurate, but it did lead me to a maiden name (Falvey) and some birth records that I consider a real possibility.

Of course, there are other newspaper sources as well. I have a friend at our local genealogical society who could not find her ancestor’s immigration records, though she personally checked at the appropriate courthouse office and knew the correct time frame. However, cranking her way through the local newspaper on microfilm for that specific year, she found a tiny announcement in the newspaper listing his name among the legal proceedings for the week, verifying that he filed his immigration papers. (Apparently, the courthouse lost them. Or mis-filed them. I’ll opt for the benefit of the doubt.)

While my own odyssey through the multi-volume set of The Search for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements Placed in the Boston Pilot was a tedious but unsuccessful journey, it may not be for others. You can start with the online search engine, but I’d also recommend checking the actual books, themselves, if you can get your hands on them. Of course, there are other such books as well.

Another source that may divulge family secrets—at least, for those whose ancestors were among the faithful at church attendance—is sacramental records. I was fortunate in that Catholic baptisms and marriages for Fort Wayne are available on microfilm through the Family History Library. I obtained the specific film for my family via interlibrary loan through my local Family History Center. While most records were duly completed in the most routine manner, occasionally there would be a stray comment in a margin that revealed a bit more information.

An example in which this might be helpful would be a marriage between a known member of the local parish to someone from a distant congregation. After leaving Ireland, did any of those Sheehan sisters marry in America? In such cases, often the priest or pastor would request confirmation from the other party’s clergy to verify that everything was properly in order. That’s where details may be gleaned on where the other party originated—such goodies as the name and location of the parish. Those details likely would be inscribed in the margin of the church records, as they were in the case of our Will Stevens moving from Fort Wayne to Chicago, then proposing to a Chicago gal. I suspect the letters confirming baptismal dates that we found for our Tully ancestors were likely obtained for a similar purpose.

When Wendy mentioned searching for her Irish immigrant ancestors, the Sheehan sisters, I thought of this church verification scenario. If it doesn’t work for one sister, perhaps it would for another. Sometimes, we need to search collateral lines for a couple generations before we see any clues to help us untangle our own lines, but it is worth the effort.

Wendy also referred to a situation with her Sheehan sisters that I’ve called serial immigration—one sibling heading for America, then sending notice back to family that, yes, c’mon over! A place to stay, maybe the security of a job, and one sibling helps the next make the journey. Our Fort Wayne Kelly family seemed to have done that, with a younger Timothy Kelly—whose relationship to our John Kelly I still can’t fathom—being the anchor family for the more recent John Kelly arrivals.

Of course, that makes finding the family in passenger lists more challenging, because we don’t have the luxury of matching a cluster of names. And we all know how frustrating Irish names can be. One Mary Kelly traveling alone could be—well, anyone. It would be almost impossible to say which one among so many with the same name was the one.

On the other hand, depending on time frame of immigration, it may be possible to test that hypothesis of the Sheehan family being “from Cork” by checking for any cluster of siblings’ names being in one family. There are some baptismal or birth records available on websites like FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com, as well as the Irish online resources to help with a quick test.

I totally agree with Wendy that family oral traditions can be suspect—especially a report that the sisters were “from Cork.” As Wendy mentioned, it could just mean that was the point from which they sailed, not their hometown. Besides, even if they lived in “Cork,” was it the city Cork, or County Cork? But if there is a good list of several Sheehan siblings, and a general guess as to their years of birth, there may be a way to locate possible families from that wider geographic area. Of course, it would only be a guess—but a better one than what’s available so far.

I have to admit, I jumped the gun when I tried out my hypotheses on my Tully and Flannery families, seeking any records in online resources. I certainly had no firm passenger records to point the way homeward. But it was still possible to isolate a few viable possibilities from the rest of the pack which helped move us closer to some answers. It wasn’t a single, step-by-step process, of course, as corollary material surfaced to help confirm what I was tentatively fingering.

I guess the only way I can compare this process is to blindly moving ahead in the dark, wildly waving our arms out in front of us to keep us from stumbling. Somehow, as we make that oh-so-slow progress, we snag a few clues that amplify certain possibilities and turn us, microscopically, in a course-correcting direction. And so we ever proceed.

 Above: "Kou-Kou," 1895 oil on canvas, Georgios Jakobides; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.