How to Find Your Irish Ancestors
Episode 18 Video and Show Notes
Live show air date: July 23, 2020
Join me for Elevenses with Lisa, the online video series where we take a break, visit and learn about genealogy and family history.
Book your 45-minute consultation with a professional genealogist like I did here.
Click here to learn more about 45-minute genealogy consultations.
An Irish Genealogy Brick Wall
This week I’m taking you on a bit of my own genealogical journey. It’s that one line of my family that crosses the pond to Ireland with my 2X great grandparents. I first learned about Michael Lynch and Margaret Scully as a child from my maternal grandmother. They were her husband’s (my grandfather’s) grandparents. She didn’t know much about them.
Margaret Scully born in Limerick Ireland 1840
Michael Lynch born in Ireland in 1818
In 2000 I got an opportunity to sit down with my grandfather’s sister – the historian of that generation of the family – and ask her about them. She was nearly 90 years old at the time, and she told me the family lore that Margaret was supposedly from a more well-to-do family, and Michael was not.
Aunt Bea in 1937
“He was a groom. And they eloped. I don’t know where they came in. I don’t know which port, but I think it was Canada.”
A few years later after Aunt Bea’s passing I got in touch with some distant Lynch cousins through a bit of online genealogical research. They were descended from Ellen’s siblings who had stayed in the area where the Lynch family had lived (Western Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota).
These distant cousins supplied with a few more pieces of the puzzle.
- They mentioned Kildysart, though my notes are unclear whether that was the possible location for Michael or Margaret.
- There had some sketchy parents’ names through family lore and Margaret’s death certificate.
- Margaret’s parents were supposedly James Lynch and Bridget Madigan.
- Michael’s were possibly Michael Lynch and Johanna Healy but no evidence was provided.
I searched extensively several years ago but was unable to find a passenger list record. I did find the family in East Farmington, Wisconsin. where Michael purchased land and ran a dairy farm.
East Farmington Wisconsin postcard
My research questions were:
Who were the parents of Margaret Scully born in Limerick Ireland on approximately July 9, 1840? Where in Ireland was she born?
My Aunt Bea said Margaret was from county Cork. This was based on her conversations with her mother Ellen. However, Ellen left Wisconsin as a young woman and lived her adult live in California, far from her family.
The Wisconsin cousins were sure Margaret was from Limerick. They believed Michael was from Cork. Considering that their parents had known Margaret well, I put more stock in their information.
Then the cousins produced Margaret’s obituary from Fargo ND where she died a widow living with her son John in 1929. I clearly stated she was born in Limerick. I became even more confident that Limerick was the place to focus.
A secondary question which would be a bonus was ‘where were Michael and Margaret married?’ Was it true that they had eloped in Ireland and came to America via Canada as my aunt had said? And did any of her brothers and sisters come to America as well?
I’m not an expert in Irish genealogy. I have interviewed a few experts over the years, so you might think I would have jumped right into this Irish research. Instead, I found it a bit daunting.
So, earlier this month, I sat down for a 45 minute consultation with Kate Eakman. She’s a professional genealogist with Legacy Tree Genealogists specializing in Irish research among other areas.
My consultant: Professional Genealogists Kate Eakman
These 45-minute consultations are designed to evaluate what you have, and kick start or restart your research.
As a seasoned genealogist, I want to do the research myself. This short focused consultation was perfect for helping me move forward with confidence.
Before we discuss the path we followed in the consultation, let’s talk a moment about how to prepare for a genealogical consultation.
Preparing for a Consultation with a Professional Genealogist
There are three things you can do ahead of time to help a professional genealogist help you.
1. Be clear what you want to accomplish.
It’s only 45 minutes, so one clearly defined research question is best. Avoid “I just want to find whatever is available”. It needs to be a specific question.
I wanted to specifically find out who Margaret’s parents were which I expected would also tell me where she was born.
2. Gather what you already have in advance.
I didn’t have much, but I made every effort to distill the known facts down in a list. I then added all source information I had for those items.
To get the most from a consultation it is important to not only share what you have but the strength of the source. Many of my sources were family lore. These rank low on reliability. The death certificate my cousin sent me ranked higher.
Remember time is limited and costs money, so don’t bog the genealogist down with EVERYTHING you have. Focus on the items that a relevant to the question.
3. Briefly jot down what you’ve done so far.
You may have tried research avenues that were fruitless in the past. You definitely don’t want to spend precious time in the consultation going back over those. Making a list of what you did, and the outcome clears the way for your consultation time to be spent on new strategies.
A Consultation with a Professional Genealogist
My consultation in this episode of Elevenses with Lisa is focused on Irish research. You will see us using many of the most valuable online resources available.
But if you don’t have Irish ancestors, I encourage you to listen carefully to the process. The questions she asks, and her approach to finding answers. You may be pleasantly surprised to hear some things that can translate to your research process.
Irish Genealogy Websites
Searching at RootsIreland.ie ($)
https://www.rootsireland.ie
They have:
- Baptisms
- Marriage
- Burial / Death
- Census
- Gravestone Inscriptions
- Griffith’s Valuation
- Irish Ship Passenger Lists
- Census Substitutes
Strategies:
- Search by name and birth year (+/- 5 years)
- Narrow by county
- The records will list the parents.
Online Research Tip: Right-click on each results to open in a new tab.
More Strategies:
- If no results, revise your search to go broader.
- Look at sponsor names as well.
- Use maps to see where places are located and their relationship to each other.
Griffith’s Valuation at Ask About Ireland
http://www.askaboutireland.ie
(Free)
Click Griffith’s Valuation or go directly to http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/
From the website: “The Primary Valuation was the first full-scale valuation of property in Ireland. It was overseen by Richard Griffith and published between 1847 and 1864. It is one of the most important surviving 19th century genealogical sources.”
The value of family stories
“These family stories always have some kernel of truth to them, even if they seem outlandish. There’s something that’s true. Her parents were wealthy, or he was a groom, even if it wasn’t this falling in love with a groom and running away and getting married.” – Kate Eakman
More Strategies
- Spend some time looking for children of the suspected parents (James Scully and Bridget Madigan)
- Children may have been baptized as “girl” or “infant.” Look for these while searching.
National Library of Ireland (NLI) Parish Registers
https://registers.nli.ie
(Free)
After finding the parents James Scully and Bridget Madigan, the next step was to look for parish registers at the National Library of Ireland. Search parish registers by clicking on Family History Research > Visit Catholic Parish Records. They are not indexed by name. You have to know who you’re looking for and where. But if you have an idea of the parish, you can enter that. Choose Baptism and the year and month in known.
If you are not sure about the name of the location, search for it at the NLI to see if their system recognizes it or suggests a slightly different spelling.
We then headed back to RootsIreland.ie to look for marriage records.
IrishGenealogy.ie
https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/
(Free)
Click Civil Records
From the website: “All civil marriage records from 1845 to 1944 are now available online to members of the public, along with the release online of birth register records for 1919 and death register records for 1969. Over 15.5 million register records are now available to the public to view and research online on the www.irishgenealogy.ie website. The records now available online include: Birth register records – 1864 to 1919; Marriage register records – 1845 to 1944 & Death register records – 1878 to 1969.”
- Kate likes to sort results by date.
- First and last name won’t always be together in the results.
Searching for Records in North America
Kate and I dug for and discussed U.S. records that might lend more information that could help with the search in Ireland such as:
- Marriage Records
- Passenger Lists
- Military Records
- Documents relating to his work as a civil servant
Researching forward (known as Reverse Genealogy) could lead to collaboration with more cousins and the discover of letters or other helpful items.
Canadian Passenger Lists at the Library and Archives Canada
Action Items for My Irish Genealogy Research
My consultation with a professional genealogist specializing in Irish research left me newly found records and the confidence to continue exploring Irish records. I also had in hand a list of steps I could take to move forward:
- Compile a list of all of James and Bridget Scully’s children.
- Find birth, marriages and deaths for the children.
- Look for siblings in America (start with Farmington, Wisconsin area)
- Research the sponsors of the baptisms
- Conduct a browsing search of the Parish Records for a baptism that lines up with Margaret Scully’s known birth.
More Irish Genealogy Websites
Irish Ancestors by John Grenham
https://www.johngrenham.com
(Free)
Check this web site to confirm what’s available before you start searching more in Ireland. I searched for Kildysart and found it here!
Our Finds During this Genealogy Consultation
I was very satisfied with the progress we made in just 45 minutes!
- A good candidate for James Scully in Griffith’s Valuation
- James and Bridget Scully’s marriage record at Roots Ireland
- James and Bridget Scully’s original marriage record at the National Library of Ireland
- Baptisms for seven of the couple’s children.
- A large gap where Margaret’s birth would have been.
- We found Kildysart in county Clare. (I’m still not sure where that fits in by I now suspect the place is associated with Michael Lynch and not Margaret Scully.)
Postscript to My Consultation with a Professional Genealogist
I was so encouraged by our research session, that I combed back through the papers I had collected over decades in my Lynch binder. There I found a death date for Michael Lynch given to me by one of the distant cousins. The place of death was Stillwater, Minnesota.
A quick look at a map revealed that Stillwater, Minnesota was just 21 miles down and west across the Saint Croix River from East Farmington, Wisconsin.
On a hunch I did some digging and I discovered that Michael and Margaret were married at St Michael’s church in Stillwater, MN!
Marriage Question Solved!
Book a 45-Minute Consultation with a Professional Genealogist
Thank you to Kate Eakman of Legacy Tree Genealogists for sharing her expertise and helping me make significant progress on my genealogical brick wall!
Click here to learn more about 45-minute genealogy consultations.
A 45-minute consultation with a professional genealogist is just $100. If you decide to book please go to www.LegacyTreeGenealogists.com/GenealogyGems
By using our link you are helping to support this free show at no additional cost to you. Thank you!
Exclusive Gems Offer: Save $100 on larger full-service genealogy research projects with code GGP100
Resources
Live Chat PDF– Click here to download the live Chat from episode. Includes answers to your questions about using the Adobe Spark Video app to make a video.
Show Notes PDF – Genealogy Gems Premium Members can click here to download the show notes PDF for this episode. (Log in required.) Become a Premium Member here.
We Dig These Gems! New Genealogy Records Online
Here’s our weekly list of new genealogy records online. Do any collections below relate to your family history? Please share with your genealogy buddies or with societies that might be interested! New this week are records for free people of color in Louisiana, Alabamans in the Civil War, British POWs from WWII (and allies), and deaths in Pennsylvania.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN LOUISIANA. Louisiana State University recently launched a free “comprehensive digital collection,” Free People of Color in Louisiana, about “people of African descent who…were born free or escaped the bonds of slavery before it was abolished in 1865.” Included are a “four-volume ‘Register of free persons of color entitled to remain in the state’ (1840-1864), four different collections of emancipation records, which often include testimony regarding why the enslaved person was deserving of freedom and provide other information about the enslaved person and slave owner, and an extensive collection of indenture records (1809-1843) in which at least one participant…was a free person of color.”
ALABAMA CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS. This new index at Ancestry comes from a card file kept for many years by the Alabama Department of Archives and History regarding every person they found who served in (or was exempted from) the military during the Civil War. According to the collection description, “You might find birth, death, and military information (which sometimes includes portions of letters written during or after the war, information on which battles the soldier was engaged in, wounds, imprisonment, and other items). There are some women (laundresses and other occupations) in this database as well.”
BRITISH-DUTCH-AMERICAN-AUSTRALIAN WWII PRISONERS OF WAR. Findmypast subscribers now have access to a million “records of some of the most infamous POW camps of World War II….The records cover the period 1939-1945 and contain the names, ranks and locations of Prisoners of War, along with the length of time spent in camps, the number of survivors, details of escapees and the nationalities of prisoners. Britons represent the largest number in the collection, followed by Dutch, Americans and Australians. In addition to this type of data, the collection comprises 360,000 images, including pages from personal diaries and photographs.” These can be searched amongst the larger collection of Findmypast POW records.
PENNSYLVANIA DEATHS. Ancestry’s collection of Pennsylvania death certificates has recently been updated with additional indexed images. It now spans 1906-1963. Interestingly, “Records of stillbirths were required to be filed as both a birth and death record, so you may find records of stillborn children in this collection.”
It’s nice to share! Thank you for sharing this post with others. Help us spread the news about new genealogy records online!
The Faces of U.S. Military Veterans through the Centuries
When I’m not at the podcast microphone, you can usually find me on a plane. And on one of those recent flights I had the privilege travelling along side a few of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen of WWII.
![Toni Frissell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATuskegee_Airmen_332nd_Fighter_Group_pilots_ppmsca13245u.jpg)
The History of the Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen was the common name given to a group of African-American military pilots who fought in World War II. Before the 1940’s, African-Americans had not been admitted to the U.S. Army Air Corps flight training program. In 1940, this changed with the formation of a segregated unit to train black pilots and ground crews at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
The 996 pilots and more than 15,000 ground crew of the Tuskegee Airmen are credited with over 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses for their service. The Tuskegee Airmen continued flying and fighting until the end of the war in 1945.
Meeting A Tuskegee Airman
After the flight, I collected my luggage and found a spot on the curb outside to wait for my husband to pick me up. It was then I noticed I was standing next to one of the Tuskegee group who was sitting quietly alone waiting for his ride. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to shake his hand and thank him for his service. A warm, friendly grin greeted me from under the Tuskegee baseball cap and we easily fell into conversation.
He explained that a handful of retired Airmen were returning home from a national conference held each year. I also learned, to my great surprise after looking at the patch on his suit coat, that I was speaking with Brigadier General James T. Boddie! Tim (as he likes to be called) is a retired deputy director for operations J-3 of the National Military Command Center and Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C.
Boddie was born in Baltimore in 1931 and graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1949, just behind the Tuskegee Airmen of WWII. Later in his career (starting in 1961,) Tim served as the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program commandant of cadets at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama. He also taught military aspects of world political geography and international relations to senior cadets.
When I asked him what some of his most cherished memories were, he didn’t hesitate. Although he has a long and decorated history of service, he fondly reminisced about the young men he has met and assisted along the way. “Our country needs good men now more than ever,” he stated emphatically. He said that he has made it his mission since retiring in 1983 to mentor servicemen in their military careers. He pulled out his smartphone and happily whisked through a series of photographs he had taken with young up-and-coming cadets.
Great! He likes pictures, I thought. There was no flinching when I asked the 85-year-old to take a selfie with me. “Absolutely!” he said enthusiastically as he set down his own smartphone.
Boddie’s face radiated with pride and patriotism, wisdom and strength. This brought my thoughts to the United States heroes who bravely faced peril and sacrificed their lives for our country. Wouldn’t it be stunning to be able to see the faces of our ancestors who fought in the American Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, and the wars that followed? Well, it’s not as unlikely as you might think.
The American Revolutionary War
I didn’t think it was possible to find pictures of the faces of American Revolutionary War heroes, but it is! The pictures are exceptionally rare because few of them lived long enough to have their faces captured on film.
A Utah journalist named Joe Bauman spent three years collecting images of the faces of these veterans. To view his collection of these great men, click here.
The last known Patriots of the American Revolutionary War were John Gray, who died in 1868 and Daniel Frederick Bakeman, who died in 1869. [1]
See more riveting faces of Revolutionary War veterans in Maureen Taylor’s books The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation
The War of 1812
Sometimes considered the “second war for independence,” the War of 1812 was in part due to the desire for Americans to expand west.
The fighting that originally started between the U.S. and Britain, soon included the American Native tribes. The defeat of the British at the Battle of Tippacanoe convinced many Indians in the Northwest Territory (including the celebrated Shawnee chief Tecumseh) that they needed British support to prevent American settlers from pushing them further out of their lands.
The valiant faces of the this war can be more readily found, perhaps even in your own family history. Many wonderful images can be found by simply Googling War of 1812 Veteran, and then clicking the Images results tab.
Hiram Cronk was the last surviving veteran of the War of 1812 at the time of his death in 1905. He died at the age of 105.[2]
The American Civil War
Did you know that children of American Civil War veterans still live among us? Two such “children” share their fathers’ stories in an article titled “Children of the Civil War Veterans Still Walk Among Us, 150 Years After the War.”
Not only will you find inspiration in the children’s stories, but the stories of many Civil War Veterans who lived to tell their remarkable tales. You can see faces of Civil War veterans in many places online, but the collection of Portraits of Named Civil War Enlisted Men at the Library of Congress is especially moving.
The last known surviving Union Army soldier was Albert Henry Woolson. He died in August 1956. [3]
Spanish American War
The Spanish American War of 1898 led to the U.S. control of Cuba (who later became an independent nation), Guam, the Philippine Islands, and Puerto Rico. The war only lasted a short 10 weeks.
Whether your ancestors were fighting for the Spanish side or the American side, there are lots of fantastic pictures of our fighting heroes. Check out the 917 pictures of the Spanish American War at GettyImages.com.
World War I
Frank Buckles, August 1917.
The handsome Frank Buckles born in Bethany, Missouri was the last surviving veteran of WWI, dying at 110 years of age. You can see his name among a list of last surviving WWI veterans by country here.
WWI, also known as the Great War, ravaged the European continent for nearly three years before the United States joined their allies to fight in the war. Many of our young men and women lost their lives to serve and protect in the first of two World Wars.
You can enjoy hours of viewing images at the Library of Congress’ digital collection titled World War I in Pictures: An Overview of Prints & Photographs Division Collection.
Remembering Faces of U.S. Military Veterans
I hope my story of meeting Brigadier General James T. Boddie has inspired you to look for the faces of your family’s military veterans. Even if you never find a photograph of your veteran hero, it is important to learn their stories of bravery and sacrifice, both on and off the battlefield.
Do you have a special veteran hero in your family history? We would love to hear about them in the comments below. While you are at it, if you have a picture of your veteran, please post it to our Genealogy Gems Facebook page. We love to hear from you. Thanks for reading, friends!
More Gems on Finding Your Military Veterans
Be a Hero! 4 Ways to Rescue Military Memories and Artifacts