Press Release for Waterbury Irish!
28 Tuesday Jul 2015
28 Tuesday Jul 2015
14 Sunday Jun 2015
Tags
Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish in Connecticut, New Haven County Connecticut, Waterbury Irish
Waterbury Irish: From the Emerald Isle to the Brass City is scheduled to be published by the History Press in the first week of September! More details will appear, as well as a link to a Facebook page, in upcoming weeks. For those who are within driving distance to New Haven, Connecticut, please come to my talk-with-images on Tuesday night, June 16 for the Irish History Round Table at 7:30 p.m., Knights of Saint Patrick Hall, 1533 State Street, New Haven.
©2015 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair
All Rights Reserved
26 Wednesday Nov 2014
Tags
Early Irish History, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, Irish in Connecticut, Janet Maher, John Wiehn, Waterbury Irish
It’s hard to believe that I have not written here since June of this year, and for that I apologize. I do still intend to complete the series of essays about my magical pilgrimage to Ireland, however, the rest of my life intervened and I had to shift gears. For now, those who wish to continue to read my posts, please check out a new blog that I have just begun. It’s called “Trusting the Process: Getting There From Here,” and I hope it will be a means through which I can address more topics. Ireland is still at the top of my list and, especially so as I try to complete a new book by the end of the year. This one, to be titled, Waterbury Irish: From the Emerald Isle to the Brass City,” is in collaboration with a friend I made years back while researching “From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley.” John Wiehn is the current president of Connecticut’s Ancient Order of Hibernians and is the director of the Prospect Library. With Mark Heiss, he produced the postcard series book, Waterbury, 1890-1930. He has been very helpful in finding some great old photographs and in gathering info on some of the topics that will be contained in Waterbury Irish, which should be published next May by the History Press. This book will not only condense and complete the work of “From the Old Sod,” but it will resurrect a history of Waterbury, Connecticut that has long been eclipsed and relatively few people recall or perhaps even know about. In my recent art exhibition I included the above image which is the last of a series from my earlier Naugatuck focus. This one evolved into what I felt to be a love letter to the ending of a project and an emotional nod to my hometown and my past.
Happy Thanksgiving to all, and thank you for all the attention you have paid this blog since it began in 2011!
©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair
All Rights Reserved
30 Friday May 2014
Posted Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, Mahers, Meaghers
inI don’t know how the film “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” would have affected me if I had not seen it upon my return flight from Ireland. It seemed, however, to be somehow perfectly symbolic in that context. I did not cry this time as the plane rose into the air toward home, but I did at the end of the film, and smiled broadly at many points along the way. Thank you for the movie, U.S. Airlines. With it you redeemed yourselves from my three-day ordeal that was the trip over, filled with delayed and cancelled flights, and an entire day and a half in the Charlotte, NC, airport, only completed by my arrival in Ireland with my bag still in New York. (But that’s another story.)
A pilgrimage is associated with a long journey that the dictionary clarifies as “especially one undertaken as a quest or for a votive purpose, as to pay homage” or one “made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion.” For untold millions of people who have lineage in Ireland it is possible, even at the most basic tourist level, to make a pilgrimage there. Ireland, indeed, is a sacred place. Ireland is about majestic beauty and ancient history, but it is equally about the people themselves who welcome us back, understanding our craving to psychically anchor ourselves from within our ancestors’ homeland.
This pilgrimage, my third journey there, was the culmination of eight years of serious, passionate, intentional research as I sought to learn about Ireland’s history and my own family lines. Traveling alone, this time was an even stronger and more focussed act of devotion in honor of my ancestors. My O’Sullivan, O’Mahony, O’Donovan, and Halloran (Ó Súileabháin, Ó Mathghamhna, Ó Donndubháin, Ó hAllmhuráin) relatives had pointed me to the general areas of Counties Kerry, Cork and Limerick. My Murphys, Ryans and Walshes (Ó Murchadha, Ó Riain/Mulryan, Middle English walsche “foreigner,” also Welch) might have been from almost anywhere in the areas in which I have traveled, so many were the instances in which those surnames appeared. But history itself and enough other clues made it possible for me to get very close to the home bases of my Meagher/Maher, Butler and Phalen/Whalen (O’ Faoláin) ancestors. It was especially for them that I drove my (ridiculously expensive) rental car 1,756 kilometers “keeping between ditches all the way,” with two additional trips, including to Dublin, in my friend Jane Lyon’s car—those times with her behind the wheel.
Over these couple of weeks I visited again with friends I had met three years previously, and met “in real time” new friends with whom I look forward to remaining in contact. The power of the Internet to forge these connections and make these meetings possible has never ceased to amaze me. I have felt even more strongly, however, that my ancestors themselves have been gradually parting the Red Seas for me over all these many years. That Jane and I are now as if in parallel universes across the Atlantic Ocean, that we are joined at the hip in this quest to bridge my Connecticut research with her Irish research for particular families, and that we are in the present together (whether physically, virtually or on the telephone) is nothing short of a miracle!
Irish Hospitality ruled the days of my journey. I often felt as if I was moving through a fairy tale in the place where fairies originated. Locations I had researched and sought to find were revealed to me clue after clue, person by person, each in a different way, with one detail often literally pointing to the next. As happened upon many occasions in Connecticut, I would sometimes be emotionally overcome and moved to tears right on the spot due to some revelation. It may indeed be that with this trip my great great Maher grandfather has been found! More research will be necessary, but my new friend, Oliver, seems to have pulled aside a curtain that had been drawn for decades.
I will attempt in a series of posts to share the highlights of this trip. Come back again to read them. Also, please have a look at my book’s Facebook page, and consider purchasing my book, which is still available on Amazon.com or from me via Paypal or by check (P.O. Box 40211, Baltimore, MD, 21212).
Remember, not all who wander are lost. The roads do rise up to meet us, the wind will be at our backs, the rains will fall softly upon our gardens, and God does—and our Ancestors do—hold us in the hollows of their hands.
©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair
All Rights Reserved
12 Monday May 2014
Tags
Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish in Connecticut, New Haven County Connecticut, Patrick Maher
When I speak with my friend, Jane Lyons, owner of the amazing web site, From Ireland, she reminds me what an unbelievable work of fate and luck our meeting is. That I have been studying a particular subset of Irish immigrants into New Haven County, Connecticut, and have found several of the specific places from which they arrived, and that Jane has been studying the same from her end is one phenomenon. That we have become friends, that she flew all the way from Ireland to attend my first book signing, and that I could bring her to the primary cemeteries in Waterbury and Naugatuck and point to the specific graves that link back to her neck of the woods is another. That I will be spending the last part of my huge Irish research trip with her and that we will be scouring together the area that I have honed in on is a true miracle! What were the odds back in 2006 when I was just learning how to do Irish research that I would be, essentially, collaborating across the ocean with the person who set me on my path and showed me the way? Although I am no longer on her massive listserv, Y-IRL, she has been at my home in America, we talk on the phone, and I will be at her home in another week! (Although I thanked them in my book, I thank again the members of Y-IRL who gave me so much welcome advice all those years ago.)
On this trip I am thrilled that I will also be meeting people I feel to be friends that I met “in real time” when my husband and I were in Ireland three years ago. I will also be lucky enough to meet some new friends that I have only conversed with through email. This is truly a dream! While it is a bit unnerving to anticipate driving on the left side and managing my way to and through so many places alone (until I get to Jane’s), I am grateful for my husband’s support in this “obsession” which is clearly not yet over. He’ll hold down the fort—and water my garden—while I proceed upon this once-in-a-lifetime experience. I am eternally lucky on so many fronts!
Last week several of us attended a visit to Waterbury Connecticut’s third Catholic Church — from 1880, St. Patrick’s. I’m including here a photo of a portion of one of its majestic windows, the bottoms of which include The Lorica of St. Patrick all the way around in Gaelic. This image illustrates Patrick’s dream in which an angel showed him a scroll upon which was written “The voice of the Irish call you.”
As the voice of the Irish is calling me loud and clear, I wish you all well in the big spirit of it all!
©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair
All Rights Reserved
01 Thursday May 2014
Tags
Connecticut, Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish in Connecticut, Irish in Waterbury
I am very happy to announce that I am writing a new book about the Irish of Waterbury! My partner will be John Wiehn, the director of the Prospect Library in Connecticut. Our work will be published by The History Press in their American Heritage series, with a proposed release date of Saint Patrick’s Day, next year. John and I will be doing a scanning session this coming Monday, May 6, at the Ancient Order of Hibernians Hall in Waterbury from 3 to 7 pm. Come to 91 Golden Hill Street between those hours if you are interested in being part of our project. We are seeking your great images and stories about your Irish and Irish-American ancestors who found their way to the former Brass Capital of the World and made their mark upon it!
©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair
All Rights Reserved
12 Wednesday Mar 2014
©2011 Janet Maher, Saint Patrick, Maynooth, Ireland
A most happy upcoming Saint Patrick’s Day to all! May your days be full of warmth, wisdom, and good cheer! I’m excited to be able to say that I’ve booked my trip to Ireland in May and am beginning to plan the adventure/pilgrimage. If possible, I may post along the way and share photos here. We’ll see if that develops. If not, I’ll be sure to share my thrills upon return.
Heads up to folks in Connecticut! Robert Larkin, member of the Connecticut Irish-American Historical Society and Cheshire Historical Society, and scholar of the Connecticut Irishmen’s involvement in the American Civil War, with particular emphasis on the Connecticut Ninth Regiment Volunteers, will be giving two excellent talks this Monday and Tuesday.
On Saint Patrick’s Day, Monday, March 17, he’ll speak about the Connecticut Ninth at the Mary Taylor United Methodist Church on the Milford Green, 168 North Broad Street, at 7p.m. This talk will be sponsored jointly by the Milford Historical Society and the Orange Historical Society. Captain Lawrence O’Brien’s artifacts (uniform, sword, writing desk, etc.) will be on display along with other items.
On Tuesday night, March 18, at 7:30 he will be speaking for the Irish History Round Table at the Knights of Saint Patrick Hall, 1153 State Street, New Haven. He “will describe where the population who claim Irish heritage is the largest (USA, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Argentina and Mexico). The talk will feature statistics as well as selected stories about interesting and famous personalities, including military men, politicians, and entertainers.” Both events are free and open to the public.
He tells me that at the Knights of Columbus Museum, 1 State Street in New Haven, an exhibit about the Civil War is currently in the planning stage. Although it will not open for another year, initial discussions have focused on possible three dimensional items to include. “As Sgt. James Mullen of the Ninth CT was the first Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, and Lt. Col. John G. Healy of the Ninth CT was the first Grand Knight of Council No. 20,” he is hopeful that information and artifacts from this regiment will be included in the exhibition. He welcomes anyone’s suggestions for other “three dimensional” items to include.
Gach mian leis go maith a thabhairt duit! All good wishes to you!
©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair
All Rights Reserved
16 Sunday Feb 2014
Tags
21 Tuesday Jan 2014
In 2006 I put up my first Irish-oriented web site, which included transcriptions from several old Irish cemeteries in New Haven County, Connecticut. Complete transcriptions for Saint Francis Cemetery, Naugatuck, is included, along with many photographs, in my 2012 publication, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley: Early Irish Catholics in New Haven County, Connecticut. My original intent for this book had been to simply focus upon Saint Francis Cemetery and explore relationships between people in it, perhaps following that with similar publications. But the project grew into a much more vast endeavor.
A group from the Connecticut Irish American Historical Society recently produced an excellent publication—Early New Haven Irish and their Final Resting Places: The Old Catholic and Saint Bernard Cemeteries. This was one inspiration for me to go ahead and publish my photos and transcriptions for Old Saint Joseph Cemetery, in Waterbury, Connecticut. I had taken the images and transcribed many of the stones between 2006 and 2011 while simultaneously working on my large book. My focus was upon finding the Irish surnames and the oldest graves, particularly ones that cited an original location in “the old sod”. I copied all sides of the stones, as possible, noting the line breaks. In this publication they will be alphabetical, however, not mapped and organized by section, as I did in From the Old Sod.
In Old Saint Joseph Cemetery, Waterbury, Connecticut, an abundance of Irish immigrants came from Queen’s County (Laois), in addition to several other towns and counties. I will include a couple of short essays about this cemetery’s link to Ireland and about the early Irish settlers in Waterbury (some of which I also discussed in From the Old Sod).
Old Saint Joseph Cemetery is to Waterbury what Saint Francis Cemetery is to Naugatuck, what Saint Mary’s Cemetery is to Ansonia and Derby, and what Saint Bernard Cemetery is to New Haven. These very special places contain the remains of many of the earliest Irish Catholic immigrants who settled in the Naugatuck Valley, New Haven County—and they contain beautiful monuments. For each cemetery there is a second one that extended family connections into subsequent generations. For Naugatuck the second cemetery is Saint James, which can be seen when traveling past on Route 8. For Ansonia/Derby this is Mount Saint Peter’s, and for Saint Bernard’s it is Saint Lawrence Cemetery. For Waterbury, this is New Saint Joseph Cemetery, just a short way up the street from Old Saint Joseph, and Calvary, in another section of town.
Like so many other natives of Waterbury who have early Irish (or Italian, or other nationality) roots, Old Saint Joseph Cemetery has long been near and dear to my heart. Memories of grave visiting in this cemetery during adolescence and young adulthood are layered upon annual Christmas visits as a child to Holy Land (see links below). When I moved away, visits back home always included solitary pilgrimages there, and I introduced the ghost town of Holy Land to a great many people who had never heard of it. Somehow going back up that mountain to witness its devastation (this time as an “impartial” artist) was as important to me as the excitement I had once felt as a child going down into its replica catacombs.
After the death of my father, when I was 19, I became especially drawn to the peaceful stillness that could be found in cemeteries. Little did I know that several decades later I would become so deeply involved with researching and preserving history that extends in myriad directions from these sacred places of my past.
Tragically, in the beginning of October, 2011, a small group of individuals severely vandalized the historic New and Old Saint Joseph Cemeteries. Two hundred and fifty-five headstones were knocked over or broken in Old Saint Joe’s alone. On my next trip into town I anxiously drove through all the familiar sections trying to assess the damage and loss as if I was visiting an old garden of my own. By then most of the damage had been removed, but the clean-up was not complete. Upon another trip I saw, thankfully, that one particular stone which had been gone had returned. Still, there is another layer of memory now of an abuse that may never go away for many of us who still visit this cemetery.
One man’s extraordinary visionary artwork, simultaneously an act of devotion, was mindlessly destroyed over time, a sadness for those of us who remembered nearby Holy Land’s celebrated days. But outrageously vandalizing a cemetery on a large scale—several cemeteries, in fact—was particularly shocking to many of us. (Religion, or lack thereof, doesn’t even enter the equation.) I think this event is the main reason I decided to publish what I’ve already gathered together. Life is short. I’m on sabbatical. Who knows when I’ll ever be able to slip this extra project in later?
So here I am again, planning to come back up for another research trip, watching the weather. I’ll proofread my transcriptions, which will give me a better sense about the ones that may no longer be there, and allow me to find any that I may have missed. I’ll also go back into the archives for a few more things, but vow not to let this endeavor take me over again. This will be a simple book, but one that I think will have been worth producing.
While looking into some Irish Waterbury history information online I have come upon some sites that I’d like to share here. I would also like to “plug” the great article that Neil Hogan wrote about Irish women who worked as servants after their emigration into Connecticut – Connecticut’s Irish Domestics. This will be a new project to be published as a future CTIAHS book. Neil will be speaking this Thursday, January 24, at 5:30 p.m. at New Haven Museum on Whitney Avenue. I wish I could go! If you are anywhere near, try not to miss it!
Some Irish in Waterbury, Connecticut Links:
• Irish Immigration in Waterbury, CT
• Waterbury Life (the Abrigador section)
• The History of the Waterbury Irish
• Bob O’Rourke Touted As Irish Mayor For the Day
• Holy Land U.S. A. – which now has a new cross! (1., 2., 3.)
©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair
All Rights Reserved
29 Tuesday Oct 2013
Tags
Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish Genealogy, Irish in Connecticut, Janet Maher, Naugatuck Connecticut, Naugatuck Valley Genealogy Club, New Haven County Connecticut
Recently I presented a talk for the Naugatuck Valley Genealogy Club that I’d like to post (in part and expanded) here. I hope it may be helpful for researchers at any stage of experience.
Many years ago I worked at a public library. This was where I first encountered people actively looking up information in city directories. It seemed to me like such an odd thing to do, as if they were stalkers! I remembered this ironically when poring over the archives of Naugatuck Historical Society city directories myself. Preserved moments in this format initially helped me locate primary people throughout decades of time as I began to envision a larger picture. Now I feel much more poetic about this and other kinds of research we do in the world of genealogy, which is ultimately about honoring our ancestors while learning about who we, ourselves, really are. One thing is certain. Our stories are not simply lying in wait for us—neither physically nor virtually, details all neatly in place somewhere—unless we or one of our relatives already did actual research and published it. The pieces of our stories, however, may be lying in wait everywhere.
Genealogical research is often referred to as a puzzle, but, as an artist by primary profession, I’ve come to think that the process is actually more like making art. Those who do puzzles usually have a reference image already printed on a box cover to which they can compare their progress. In doing genealogical research, by contrast, we have no idea what might be revealed until we finish collecting all the unknown elements and eventually become able to put them together in some logical, beautiful way. That is a creative process. In many ways, I feel as if what I have accomplished in this area has been the most difficult and most rewarding work I have done in my life to date. It has, however, required all my skills acquired over a lifetime as an artist, and those of a hitherto-unrealized professional scholar to uncover what I have. These experiences and struggles joined in opening a new world to me. I feel that this work has been entirely worth doing, and is important for posterity—not typically the feeling I have after mounting an art exhibition! The work would probably never have been done if I had not decided to commit to a challenge that seemed to have fallen intentionally into my lap, then simply roll up my sleeves and begin.
Simultaneous to creating a beautiful product, family historians and genealogists search for TRUTH. This is where genealogy takes a turn from the act of art-making. In this type of endeavor we need to be careful about accuracy, which leads us into the scientific method. Even as novices we need to approach our project as if we would actually become experts about our particular area of research. (Thank you to the person who once told me—received, albeit, in utter disbelief—that I would become an “expert” on the Mahers!) This means that not only must we gather information from far and wide, but that we must spend the extra time trying to be as thorough and accurate as possible. It is important to find some way to keep our notes in order, to look for multiple sources of the same information, and to document EVERYTHING. Anyone should be able to find the information we present by retracing our foot- and endnotes to our sources, so they can decide for themselves if we were correct in our findings and hypotheses. (This is decidedly NOT like art-making, where we create as we will and call it complete as we feel.)
We develop our research methods along the way. One friend introduced me to her system of keeping three-ring binder notebooks for every family or person, including clear slip sheets that protected documents and were able to contain varied sized pieces of paper. This seemingly small tip was extremely helpful, affording me not only practical advice but also hinting at how vast an undertaking this project might end up becoming. (Forewarned is forearmed!) We all eventually end up with many different kinds of computer files, physical boxes of stuffed folders, overflowing shelves, data in family tree software, as well as, publicly and/or privately, trees on Ancestry.com. In addition to good storage systems, I highly recommend investing in a good magnifying glass. It will become the handiest of tools!
©2012 Janet Maher, portrait of the author’s great grandfather Maher, born in America to Irish immigrants
We typically start with very little information beyond the knowledge of our immediate family. Like artists, we dare to face a blank beginning and trust that something good will result, worth the time we’re willing to invest into a long and complicated process. As we sense how some information relates to other information, more and larger questions emerge. We may find that we need to pause and go off on what could seem to be a wide range of tangents. We might, for example, need to study more about an aspect of history in order to better understand the context for a small but important fact that we found. We will likely read a mountain of books about topics we never dreamed would some day become fascinating to us.
We often work on different parts of the amorphous overarching story at different times, allowing some parts to rest until other aspects come into the mix that will allow earlier topics to develop further. This multi-faceted activity requires an all-consuming focus (generally unavailable) that will allow for a larger view to develop over myriad tiny details. It is an organic, intuitive process that requires open-ended time and a fair amount of wandering in wonder. As in art, in the world of genealogy we know that our wanderings are simply part of the path toward other discoveries and that the work is also part of the satisfaction.
We try to picture our ancestors alive in order to holistically grasp who they were or might have been. We imagine ourselves as flies on their walls. What would they reveal if the veils between us suddenly dissolved? We try to speak with whomever is alive, available and willing to share stories about the time and place that our ancestors inhabited. This, if it is possible, is the most important gift. The concrete memories that another person has, the little details that would rarely be found in an archive, best illuminate the humanity of the people with whom we are hoping to connect through our research.
It is only recently that someone told me that into the twentieth century the last of my family’s first generation Irish-American ancestors pronounced our surname in Naugatuck in the Irish way, with two syllables, not in the way I was taught to do, with one! That is one of many treasures living people have made possible for me along this journey.
We look for everything that pertains to individuals in our various tree branches—vital records, baptism and marriage data, voting registrations, bits about them in newspapers, yearbooks, military and land records—anything that might provide more clarity. I am interested in also finding every person’s tombstone. What is inscribed on it? What does it look like and what might that say about the person? Who is buried nearby?
Importantly, for Irish-Catholic immigrants and their descendants, the witnesses at weddings and baptisms may be invaluable for helping to establish connections between people. While many Connecticut church baptism and marriage registries were microfilmed and can be viewed at the Archdiocese of Hartford, some were not filmed and several early books have long been lost. Whether or not one would be allowed to look at records in a rectory is a gamble. The Immaculate Conception Basilica in Waterbury, for example, will not allow this. To see early Immaculate Conception records one must make an appointment at the Archdiocese (and bring your magnifying glass along!).
Data helps to inform photographs, and so can images help to inform data. There are many articles about estimating dates of old photographs through the fashions of the time and types of photography produced. One book I recommend is Joan Severa’s Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900, which provides a broad study of cultural, photographic and clothing history. Since childhood I’ve had an artist’s sense that if I stared at certain photographs long enough and puzzled over them, eventually they would start to reveal themselves to me. Similarly, as I learned in adulthood more about my family’s history, certain characters from the past who peered out from old photos seemed to will me to find them and give them a chance to live again through my researching and chronicling of their life stories.
In order to try to identify unmarked photographs we may need to learn more about an entire community. Who else might have ended up in photographs that were saved over the decades? Who made up the extended families? What groups were individuals involved with? Where did everyone live? Who were their neighbors? The earliest Irish settlers of Naugatuck, Connecticut, were a very tight and interconnected community. Studying their neighborhoods and intermarriages became illuminating, combined with an in-depth focus upon the first Catholic cemetery, where so many of them ended up buried together.
Tools for Irish and Other Research in Connecticut
In Connecticut it is necessary to become a member of a genealogical organization recognized by the various departments of Vital Records (such as the Connecticut Society of Genealogists) in order to be able to do independent research. The Connecticut State Library website clearly explains what is allowed to be accessed. Do not assume that finding an immigrant’s death record will neatly provide the person’s parentage or his or her townland in Ireland. If one is lucky, however, a county might be listed and a mother’s maiden name. The early records usually do not include parents’ full names, and the birth place listed is usually, simply, Ireland (hence the title for Irish genealogist Jane Lyon’s premier web site — From Ireland).
Early in my years of researching in Connecticut I would plan to stay over in hotels or with very generous friends and family members. I was primed for (mostly) standing up throughout the days taking notes in various vital records offices, always prepared with cash to purchase certain ones (at $20 a pop!). I eventually learned that it is possible to rent microfilm from Utah that can be read at one’s nearby Latter Day Saints Family History Center. Thankfully, I happen to have one about 45 minutes away from where I live, and after renewing a film three times it remains on semi-permanent loan there. This allowed me to look at some Connecticut and Irish data when I cleared time to go out there, without the pressure of having the reels sent back within a few weeks.
Like places in Connecticut include: New Milford Public Library, and Family History Centers in Goshen, Newtown, Southington and New Haven. In these offices one can sit and study to heart’s content or until the places close, then come back again another day. In some, digital copies of the records can be saved to a thumb/flash drive and taken home.
Newspapers and microfilm can also be accessed at the Connecticut State Library, some of which can be checked out three reels at a time via interlibrary loan. See their web site for a list of what is available in their collection (in addition to clicking on other links I’ve provided here). You can also purchase a card to easily use their copy machine and not need a pocketful of change. By researching in these ways to find index information, it is then possible to go to a Town Hall and purchase copies of the necessary documents—a much more convenient way to go about things.
All town libraries have some kind of local history collection, and the main Silas Bronson Library branch in Waterbury is a good size. This library also has nineteenth century newspapers on reel that can be researched. With a library card you can access Heritage Quest from home via most libraries, and, likewise in some libraries, Ancestry.com. (At some point you will likely bite the bullet and pay for your own subscription.)
In Middletown the Godfrey Memorial Library is a treasure-trove of a collection, and they offer an online subscription membership, as does the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston. I have also found the publications of the Irish Genealogical Society International, based in Minnesota, to be quite good. Their Sept back issues that focused upon Irish counties were very helpful when I started out.
I had a subscription for a few years for Newspaper Archive, which has three Connecticut papers in its database, one of which is the Naugatuck Daily News. (Some of these may also be available on Ancestry.com.) The early papers were full of excellent tidbits about people visiting each other between cities and states and other human interest events that may help tie people together in one’s research.
Boston College hosts a database of October 1831 – October 1921 Missing Friends postings in the Boston Pilot Newspaper by Irish nationals and immigrants trying to find one another. This can prove to be of help in one’s research, as can finding evidence of ancestors in the Emigrant Savings Bank.
Research about Irish immigrants is especially difficult if critical documents do not exist. Given all of the above, one might still not find important missing pieces. While learning how and what to research in America, it is necessary to simultaneously attempt to comprehend the history of Ireland, particularly in the era that a known family member had lived there. Historical clues might suggest possible reasons for a family or individual’s emigration and even, perhaps, why they might have kept “a low profile” once they arrived in their newly adopted homeland. Maybe there was a good reason that one’s ancestors cannot be definitively found in a passenger-list database.
It is important to know that the earliest decades of Anglo settlement in America were vehemently anti-Catholic (the majority religion of the Irish people), and to recall that religion was the primary weapon used by the English monarchy against the Irish over the centuries. Those who sought their own freedom claimed territory that was already inhabited by Native Americans, a variation on Ireland’s own colonization. Colonial America was predominantly Puritan, as was Oliver Cromwell, who succeeded in devastating Ireland in the seventeenth century. Some members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans came into early Connecticut, which was predominantly Congregationalist, where a few other Protestant sects were also allowed in. Religion ruled the day for our earliest ancestors, whatever their persuasion.
The eventual overt entry of Irish Catholics into a very settled Connecticut society pre-Irish Famine and throughout the 1850s was no small thing. How this played out in all the different towns varied, particularly during the pre-Civil War era of the Know-Nothings. The earliest Irish Catholics, while bound and determined to establish and feel free to practice their religion in America, also likely tried to assimilate as quickly as possible and not make waves among the established ruling class. They sought to be considered Yankees, first and foremost. They often would seek to marry an American, which might help ensure future economic stability, as such alliances with Protestants, other non-native or Anglo-Irish residents had done in Ireland. That so many early Irish-Americans nonetheless died unmarried might have been partly attributed to their difficulty in finding an established or otherwise suitable spouse who was also Catholic or who was not still prejudiced against either the Irish or Catholicism.
Catholic laborers in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries had significantly less means in both Ireland and America than those with aforementioned ties, unless they had finally been able to become educated, enter the merchant, health care or teaching professions, or become part of the wave of Catholic middlemen—i.e. sub-leasing rent collectors. Those who were once noble had been stripped of their ancestral lands. Some sought, or were forced into military service in other countries. Some were able to rise into some level of public service, although information about such individuals is not as difficult to find. There are no bounds to the kinds of details that factored into the quality of life that Irish were able to lead both in their homeland and once they emigrated, particularly in their ability to acquire and retain property.
Many emigrated as outlaws, slaves, or indentured servants and began their American chapter in relative obscurity. Many who worked in the coal mines, quarries, laying railroad tracks, building roads and bridges, or other grueling physical jobs likely experienced life in conditions far worse than those which they had left in Ireland. Working extremely hard, earning very little money, many died quite young, some from the infectious illnesses that spread quickly through communities. (Tuberculosis appeared amid many of the families I have studied.) There may have been few or no records at all generated about many of the early Irish in America, especially if they lived and died here between the census years.
I’ve spent some time studying databases that contain indexes about Irish men and women who were considered convicts—even for such actions as stealing food during times of starvation. It could well be that someone’s elder siblings and/or parents were convicted of crimes, killed or deported, lost in such ways to the genealogical winds.
Whether we find what we need or not, in this collaborative endeavor, I, for one, am grateful for the wonderful people I’ve become involved with over the last seven years. Some have helped me learn to do this kind of research and others have been willing to share their families’ stories with me. All have helped to build a picture of early Irish New Haven County through our various perspectives and lenses, and I am bound now, in turn, to offer guidance to others. There will always be more to learn and to do in our time available, even as life pulls us in so many other directions. I have returned 180 degrees back to my studio practice, although I suspect that I will never entirely leave this research. It may simmer quietly on the back burner, so to speak, forever. I, however, am somehow altered due to what I have learned about my own lineage. For that grounding I will be forever grateful.
I have honed in on a particular area of Ireland and am interested in scouring that location in the way that I have New Haven County and the Naugatuck Valley. I am even more interested in revisiting my new-found Irish friends and meeting in person potential future ones. I have untangled some of the origins of Kilkenny-based Meagher families who have Connecticut connections, and even found Maher links to the original Sisters of Mercy in America and New Zealand. However, I can’t help but still hope to learn more about my TEN southern Irish immigrant direct ancestors with two intermarried other lines—not only all there is to learn about the illusive Meaghers!
May those who read this have much success in finding all you still seek and true Irish luck in also finding happiness and friendship along the way!
©2013 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair
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