Arlene Eakle’s New York Blog

New York genealogy research is among the most challenging tasks a professional genealogist has.  Finding vital records–births, marriages, deaths, divorces, adoptions–is especially difficult. 

1. Cemetery inscriptions, and on occcasion sexton’s entries, are indexed on 4×5 cards available on microfilm through Family History Centers of the LDS Church. 
2. Church registers, kept by even very early congregations, are episodic.  Some years are well covered, some denominations are more consistent than others.  
3. Newspaper announcements, where the English tradition of publishing intent to marry as well as descriptions of the actual marriage itself, often are the most accessible. 
4. Family bibles, best discovered in the typed volumes of the New York Daughters of the American Revolution, can be researched at the New York State Archives.  The grandfather papers, typed into volumes and indexed on 3×5 cards at the New York State Archives, are often overlooked.  And since they are not included in the main Grandfather Papers of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (on microfilm through your nearest Family History Center of the LDS Church), they are easily missed.
5. Even the census records are difficult–some cities are omitted from the microfilmed schedules.  And although original county schedules exist for parts of the 1850 census in local county archives, the version available on microfilm in most libraries is a copy made for the National Government–which may or may not include all the entries in the originals.  To see the originals you have to visit the local archives or send an agent in your behalf.  The 1855 New York State census gives county of birth if your ancestor was born in the state of New York.  Every once and a while, the clerk includes counties of birth for persons not born in New York!  So not all is dark.
6. Ancestry.com has captured many births, marriages, and deaths for New York City among their databases–one of the first places to search if you have City ancestors. 
7. And then, some public-minded individuals record deaths of persons around their own area of residence.  These entries can be found in genealogy collections deposited in public and private libraries all across the state.  Best place to find these is in the “classic” version of the Family History Library catalog online or at the Family History Center nearest you.  And recorded in lists published in county and town histories or in genealogical and historical society periodicals.  Their quarterlies and sometimes their newspetters include vital records–some in each volume.

Most of these New York sources are printed, with printed letter; few are in cursive characters.

In 2012, a new threat to genealogy access–

Elementary and junior high schools are phasing out teaching cursive writing to students.  My 7-year-old grandson cannot read cursive; his school district has quit teaching cursive writing and reading.  New technologies are taking over in the classroom–some schools now issue IPAD’s and other digital devices to students as they begin classes.  These tablets are to replace textbooks published with printed letters–cheaper year-by-year and costs are driving education in the same way they seem to be driving medicine.  The need for cursive learning is being questioned by state departments of education.

Brigham Young University-Idaho still requires elementary education students–future teachers–to take handwriting as a special class.  It is required for graduation.  How long can they sustain support for such skills?

What does cursive writing have to do with your genealogy?

Just when we convince libraries and archives, as well as commercial companies who cater to genealogists to supply images of the original documents in which our ancestors are recorded..

Just when we can finely document an ancestor’s life from original records…

Some 43 states have adopted the national standard to begin in the 2013-14 school year, that eliminates cursive writing as a required skill.   Keyboard prowess will be instituted as the national standard.

The generations who follow us will not be able to read these images!

Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Remember when we complained about pedigrees built only on printed sources? A genealogy dilemma

Arlene’s webmaster Kathryn posting today. If you have recently emailed Arlene and not received an answer, she’s not ignoring you. The computer she used for email has recently been giving her more and more problems, to the point she can’t download email. Her grandson is going to update the computer soon, hopefully by the end of the month, and then she will start catching up. So please be patient.

Today, at the Family History Expo, Arlene was speaking on documenting your common ancestors in Congressional Records. She talked about Peter Force’s “American Archives”, a Documentary History of the early days of the United States. The set is comprised of 6 volumes in the Fourth Series, and 3 volumes in the Fifth Series for a total of 9 volumes. She has access to one of the volumes in physical format and said that because of the computer problem, she hadn’t yet Googled to see if they had been digitized. So I did that while she was talking and found that all 9 volumes are available at http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22Peter%20Force%22 for free, and can be read online or downloaded in a variety of formats (PDF, text, Kindle, etc).

With the computer problem, she won’t be blogging either. I’ll keep you posted if it looks like it will take longer than the end of the month.

Kathryn Bassett, webmaster for our favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle

When you depend on search engines to find the genealogy stuff you need to prove your ancestry, your success depends on your knowledge of how to use a search engines to good advantage.

Even when you know there has to be an entry in the record.  Or even when you have clicked on a link to a record category.  And if you check a whole list of spelling variants in the search bar without success–it is the search engine that finds your data.

So I went looking for online help.  And BINGO!

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~clifflamere/Computer/SearchEngines.htm Cliff Lamere of Albany NY has prepared an online Tutorial on website search engines for genealogists.

This 6 page guide is easy to understand and follow and apply to your research.  When the website has a search box–you now can get better results.  I recommend that you study  and apply it too.  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Many thanks, Cliff Lamere.

Genealogy is Ancestors, not Sources.  Sources are just the means to the pedigree you seek.  When you build your research plan around your ancestors and their relationships, you ensure you follow the right pedigree line!

First, determine what you know:  Use Personal Records (Documents of Personal Identity), Family Records (Documents of Family Identity:  father, mother, and all the kids), Compiled Records (Documents of Extended Family Identity: grandparents, aunts, uncles, and their family units).  This step used to be called The Survey because you examined what had already been collected, and in some cases printed, about your family and those ancestors already traced.  These searches focus your attention on where your pedigree becomes slim and where you can begin, without unnecessarily duplicating the work of the past.

Chart your family data as you go–let proven family relationships guide your research.

Map your family movements as you research–plot your family lore on the ground.

Create an Ancestor Profile–a chronology summarizing what you know about these first ancestors.  You will add to this profile as you continue through the records–providing a running list of facts always at your fingertips.  Share this profile with everyone–librarians, archivists, friends and family on your social media networks, correspondents by email and postal mail.  Print copies and scatter them like confetti.  The more you share, the more your will learn.

The second step is to Identify the Gaps in your Genealogy–missing names both surnames and given names, dates, places, relationships, and migrations.  These are your beginning points on each lineage.  You can begin with what you know.  You can search first where you know your ancestors resided.  And you can place your ancestors in the context of whole family units that are tied together by real facts. 

Third, search each place your ancestors resided starting with the date you know they lived there.  Build a complete structure as you go through the records for that place. 

At all levels of jurisdiction.  Examine  each person with the same “m.o.” as your ancestor–the same surname, same given name, or combinations of names you find in your own families; same place of birth or death and  same residence; same river, same ship, same occupation, same church, same military unit, same whatever–shared by your ancestor. 

Like looking for shapes and colors and designs or forms on the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, you can watch for similar aspects of life shared by your ancestors and the people  surrounding your family members.  Those who share the same “m.o.” exactly are all potential relatives to be added into your lineage.

If you only look at the ancestors you already know, you will miss the majority of relatives who live nearby!  Few people live and move alone–”they take their father, their mother, their sister, and their brother–oh, you never see your ancestor alone.”

Repeat the research cycle.  With each new ancestor that you add to your pedigree and in each new place you discover your ancestors resided, you repeat the process. 

The Jurisdictional Approach (R) is more that just searching one jurisdiction after another. You study your ancestors and use what you know about them to direct your searches. 

You place your own family in their jurisdictions and their time period:  Their religions, their occupations, their accomplishments, their military service.–in short, the life they lived. 

Chart the relationships they have with others and create a mini-census, a list of names and residences directly connected to your own family.  Include spouses, witnesses, bondsmen, neighbors.   Who did they know? 

What did they do?  Where did they travel?  Who traveled with them?  Map these moves, residences, and origins.  The research you do in the records and sources created by jurisdictions exercising control over your ancestor’s life, liberty of movement, and property holdings–the sources of power and wealth– will disclose the facts you need to build a proven and complete lineage. 

Chart, Map, Record, Copy as you go  through the records.  Add the new information to your Ancestor Profiles.  And share the up-dated versions as widely as you can.  Avoid waiting until you collect all you want or need.

This approach guides you in a focused way to facts about your own family you don’t yet have.  And ensures against inaccurate, incomplete, and often nonexistent pedigrees!  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  And if you need my help solving a really tough research problem–and New York research is about as tough as it gets–you can provide copies of your charts and maps and copies of documents and Ancestor Profiles so I can benefit from the research you have already completed.  I won’t have to duplicate your searches because your mini-census list is missing.

I have wowed audiences from the platform with my local knowledge for many years (did I just write “wowed”–how unlike me!)–knowledge essential to tracing a pedigree accurately.

And almost every Family History Expo or genealogy seminar where I speak, someone asks me how I know so much about local areas which I tell about in my presentations and use finding family connections.  So I decided to give you a blow-by-blow description of just how I gather local knowledge–the kind that solves difficult pedigree problems.

You see, solving difficult problems is often a matter of jurisdiction.  Or, discovering an unusual migration pattern.  Or, finding a hidden record tucked away in a place you would never think to look.

Disclaimer–I did not begin my genealogy research career using the internet as a tool.  I learned to do research up close and personal–in libraries and on the ground talking to people who had lived in that place for a long time.  Someone who was born there is best.  Although someone with a keen interest in the history and development of the place is also a good informant.

Among the first  sources I check are local newspapers that publish nostalgic or retrospective issues built around anniversaries and historical happenings.  You know the kind, newsprint size filled with local ads often slanted toward the theme of the piece.

Let me share with you one that I discovered on the oversize bookshelf at the Family History Library on Tuesday–

Arsenal of the Revolution:  The First History of the 14th Colony, edited by Edward Fales, Jr., a local artist, with local historians of the 17 Iron Country Towns .  This 100-page gem was published by the Lakeville Journal and The News.  The 17 Iron Towns of the Berkshire-Taconic area are:  Amenia, Ancram, Canaan, Copake, Cornwall, Dover, Egremont, Falls Village, Hillsdale, Kent, Mount Washington, Norfolk, Northeast, Pine Plains, Salisbury, Sharon, and Sheffield–located where Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York come together.  The manors of Livingston and Van Rensselear are also included.

Stories and lore, maps, photographs, and drawings galore.  Town historians wrote short histories of each town or dramatic event that occurred during the early days of settlement and the months leading up to the War.  Featured events in this publication were focused on or near the American Revolution.  And the editor narrated additional facts about the people and places mentioned.

Several times in the past few years, I have driven through these settlements in Eastern New York.  And reading Arsenal of the Revolution answered questions I had about the jurisdictions, the people, and the settlements themselves.  I also had taken the road that General Knox created to carry the cannon to the battlefront–almost straight up over the Berkshire mountains and down the other side.  Fales and his group of historians described this trek and mapped the reason Knox selected the route in the first place.

And I am currently researching five rather tough genealogy cases through these valleys east of the Hudson River, along the New York boundary:  Foster, Finch, Forbes, Woodward, and Wilcox.  All five families are referenced among these towns.  So this information gained by reading Arsenal of the Revolution is especially helpful:

1. Who settled there? Dutch from west of the Hudson River; English and Scots-Irish from New England; English and Scots from Connecticut and Long Island–crossing to the mainland referred to as “The Continent”; Scots directly from Scotland; Huguenots from Netherlands and Germany; Quakers settling in the “Oblong Patent”; Palatines from Germany who settled in East Camp and West Camp along the Hudson;  French down the river valleys from Canada.  And peaceable Indians.
2. Most of the towns wrote their own statements of Liberty and Property–which local residents  signed as the Revolutionary War seemed imminent:  The Canaan Resolves, the Amenian Pledge, Sheffield’s 14 Declarations, and the  Stockbridge Resolutions.
3. Roads of today may follow the paths of ancient use.  Some were parts of swamps.  And bridges constructed early on had to be expanded to handle later traffic.  Hand-drawn maps show where the roads were and how they changed over time.
4. The settlers brought with them three mighty weapons:  a love of freedom, willingness to work, and a firm belief that God was their ally.
5. Under British rule, the Americans were prohibited from developing ironworks to render the metal into useful products.  With their declarations of  independence, they could forge the rich ore into cannon and balls to defend forts, arm ships, and keep the British away from shoreline and river.
6. Tenants on the manors of Livingston and Van Rensselear forgot, for a time, their dislike of paying rent and serving for nothing more than the right to live on the land long enough to shoulder muskets in a greater cause.
7. Hessian mercenaries kept diaries, when as prisoners of war, as they marched through the towns ogling the comely American girls–whose faces showed few pock-marks since inoculation against small pox was common.  Up to half these German soldier elected to  stay behind as husbands for these girls of the “pretty lips and laughing eyes.”

This is the story of the other Cradle of Freedom–the one the history books forgot.  Wherever history is still taught, children learn that America was forged at Trenton and Ticonderoga, Boston and Brooklyn, Valley Forge and Yorktown–and of course, on Mr Freemans’ farm at Saratoga.  But few have ever been told about the furious “steel works” or the ox-teamsters who smuggled steady trains of cannon from these hills to the troops, hiding them by day in the notches and often traveling only by night.

Few know about the great herds of cattle that were driven south to feed the army–south through Sheffield, Amenia and Dover or the cattle that stumbled west straining Mr. Bull’s shiny new bridge at Kent.  On dry days, the cattle often disappeared wrapped in their own clouds of dust.

Few were told that George Washington moved back and forth in the shelter of these hills negotiating for arms to fight the British with and paying for them with money raised by his own officers; or that the hills hid the bookseller Knox on his incredible “cannon march” through Egremont–a march that may have saved the new nation…

The grain to be processed at the gristmill in Sharon was in such demand that farmers  hauled their  grain from as far as Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck traveling by night and hiding their oxen and carts by day.

What clearly emerges is a tremendously vital land, almost in its strength a fourteenth Original Colony. The Dutch and the English were vastly different.  The German Palatine refugees who came in were unlike either.  But what they created was a natural American Gibraltar, a small inner Kingdom that stabilized the whole war effort.  Without the iron courage of the farmers and the stubborn determination of the steelmakers resident in this multi-national Iron Country, the American Revolution might never have been won at all.  Edward Fales, Jr.

History, laced with patriotism and fact, makes believers of us all.  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS Stay tuned for the next steps I take to learn about the local areas.

Hi ya’all, after several months, I am back–and live in New York!  Hadn’t meant to leave you hanging for so long.  Just got so busy going to Family History Expos.  Writing new handouts, and preparing checklists,  and up-dating previously written white papers.  And getting ready to turn my overhead presentations into power points.

I have resisted going to power point presentations for a number of reasons:

1. Sheer number of  hours it takes to change from one media to another.  The power point I did with the help of Barry Ewell took over 35 hours.  And although it was a special program, the time investment was immense.  And I have more than 50 presentations!
2. Overhead presentations seem to be more flexible; I can shift from one example to another easily without getting lost or  racing through a series of slides to get t0 another place in the sequence of slides.  I always worry that I will lose my place–I do not write out my presentations–they come from my head and from my heart.
3. My computer skills still seem to be more limited than I need to make the conversions.  Even with the practice I am getting from continued computer input.

However…

Technology is on the move–replacement overhead projectors are hard to find and repairs f0r the ones we have non-existent.  So if I want my audiences to see examples of actual genealogy documents, learn to read them correctly, and evaluate their evidence  fully–convert my presentations I must.

“Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks,” 2011 theme for Family History Expos events across the United States.  Come see your favorite New York  genealogist, Arlene Eakle make the jump into reality–it may be more entertaining than your actual genealogy research–watching this old d0g do new tricks.

PS  I still talk about New York sources and research strategies that make New York genealogy successful–when other genealogists are ready to give up, my research suggestions are just getting started.  Please keep tuned to this blog for special research help in New York.

PPS  This blog is coming to you from Lockport, New York.  After stops in Connecticut, Vermont, and various places across New York State!

You may think I have skipped New York?  At least my New York Blog.  Never!  This episode is an edited version of an entry that appeared on my Genealogy Evidence Blog sometime ago.   It is a very important post, so I decided to edit it and share it with you here. 

New York births, marriges, and deaths–hard to find and essential to your genealogy.  Reason:  the state, early on, expected the churches to keep these important vital records.  As was the system in Massachusetts and Connecticut where many of the early New Yorkers originate.  The government structure in New York, however, was different.  Local churches, unless they recorded vital events as a matter of policy, omitted this task.  And since there was no legal provision for other jurisdictions to record vitals, they were often unrecorded–much to the dismay of genealogists seeking ancestors.

Let me quote:

This book contains copies of such of the old records of Baptism & Marriages of the Methodist Episcopal Church of N.Y. City as have been found. For many years there was but one set of books for all the Churches in the City. These were in the care of the Preacher in charge and the other preachers made their entries from time to time at their convenience. This will account for many of the irregularities in dates.

The numbering of the books is peculiar. This is due to two causes. 1. that they were originally numbered for another purpose. & 2. that some of them came into my hands after the first list had been made. The originals will probably be found at the Methodist Book Room, 150 Fifth Avenue or their whereabouts ascertained there. [See below for locations].

The copy is as close as possible–evident errors and all. The pages of the originals are marked in red ink at the top of the page out in the margin. In some cases, errors known to me to be such are corrected in red ink. All that is in black may be depended upon as in the original. 

The first book, marked 1.A. is indoubtedly the oldest record of the M.E. Church in N.Y. City. Up to the Christmas Conference in 1784, Methodist preachers were not ordained & could not baptize nor marry. This book began early in 1785.  S.S. Seaman

This is the introduction to the handwritten transcripts of the oldest M.E. Baptisms and Marriages. Rev. Samuel S. Seaman completed these transcripts in 1894–consolidating scattered entries from more than 34 Methodist Episcopal congregations in New York City and the records of two important pastors into one massive, meticulous record.

Methodism grew from humble beginnings of 178 white members and 25 blacks attending John Street Church until the 1865 New York State Census showed that this community-oriented denomination had more members than any other at the end of the War Between the States.

The more than 41,000 marriages (over 82,000 names) have been printed in New York City Methodist Marriages, 1795-1893, 2 vols. edited and compiled by William Scott Fisher. Camden ME: Picton Press, 1994. Copies available from the press, P.O. Box 1111, Camden ME 04843-1111. See also, Harry Macy, Jr., “Methodist Records of New York City in the NYG&BS Library,” NYG&BS Newsletter (Winter, 1993).

Creating the transcripts, Pastor Seaman did the hard work for us–

1. Went from church to church carefully copying the records. Since he was a local minister, he was familiar with the names of church members already and could give us a more accurate reading.
2. Read the local ministers’ returns, deciphering the handwriting of various clerks and pastors.
3. Preserved additional details recorded by each scribe, like place of birth or residence, age, officiating minister, birthdate as well as date of baptism.
4. Meticulously described what he found–irregularities in format, identifying handwritings where the name of the pastor was not included in the returns, and missing pages.

Many difficult New York City genealogy problems can be solved by a careful search in these important records. I read reel #0017782 entry by entry, baptisms and marriages and 1 page of burials–more than 600 pages–the records of John Street Church and Allen Street congregation. I then compared the marriages I copied with the entries in the printed volumes. And I gained a new appreciation for the gigantic task Rev. Seaman completed in our behalf, with some amazing new insights about the ancestral families I am researching.

There is a new guide to Manhattan’s houses of worship which describes each church and congregation with maps showing locations: David W. Dunlap, From Abyssinian to Zion (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Very useful reference. Churches tend to be territorial. Your ancestors were expected to attend the congregation where they resided, and most of the time they did. Special events might be celebrated in a special church, but regular worship services and sacraments were usually performed in the local church.

Note that Pastor Seaman points out to us that Methodist clergy were not able to perform baptisms and marriages until after the Christmas Conference in 1784. This is important information. Such events took place under Anglican auspices before 1784 and by itinerant ministers who had been ordained to that authority.

Registers of Call Numbers for Births, Deaths, Marriages

New York City is a morass of jurisdictions with frequent name changes and designations–a cataloger’s nightmare. Other researchers before me have tackled the problem of determining just which records are available on microfilm. Remember, in areas where the population is highly concentrated, one record book is insufficient. So dates overlap because multiple clerks keep more than one record. Be prepared to search each record that covers your dates and localities.

The Family History Library has now compiled three volumes listing the call numbers for each record category–births, marriages, deaths. Bringing an orderly access for the first time (Dec 2005). These Registers of Births, Marriages, and Deaths can be found in the public reference area on the second floor at the Library. Or you can request a microfiche copy for use at your local branch Family History Center. Names, addresses, and websites of city archives and record offices are also included for those records you want to order, when indexes have been filmed but the records themselves have not.

Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle     http://arleneeakle.com

PS  I have a special New York handout, with details that I have not published elsewhere.  I promised to make copies for the Mesa AZ Family History EXPO attendees in Jan 2010.  If you sendme an email with your postal address, I will ship you a FREE copy of this handout!  It is not available by email and it contains some stuff that I did not write myself.  And maps.  So I will send it by postal mail.  Let me know if you want it.

http://SteveMorse.org
Known as One-Step, this genealogy portal gives you better, and more controlled, access to over 100 different websites and databases. And the site is one of the most user-friendly utilities I have used. Names that were impossible to find in the U.S. census records and among the immigrants who came through Ellis Island now magically appear–for me. So I know that the problem was in the site or its indexes, not in my limited computer skills.

(I always knew it was a mistake to take the advanced course before I enrolled for the basics. Yet, when I finally enrolled in the basics class, the instructor treated me like an advanced student, assuming I knew how to open a file and create a folder. Not so and still not so!)

Ancestry.com and Google.com also respond masterfully to One-Step. Indexing errors or 1 million+ entries needn’t stop you from finding your ancestor. And the map access is a time-saver. So I invite you to check out this portal site and use the utility programs these computer-tech genealogists–most of whom are volunteers–have designed to aid us.

Special research help with New York City censuses and broad coverage of East European and Jewish names is a utility that I really appreciate. Searching the concentration of names in a small area is a real challenge–especially when indexes have been poorly read.

And if you are developing a genealogy database, you might invite their in-put so your site works faster, and we can find the right ancestor.

Add to your March-April 2010 reading list:

Crume, Rick. “Stepping Up,” Family Tree Magazine (Feb 2007) 58-61. Describes and compares the different search formats for One-Step–how and when to use them. Very helpful.

Morse, Stephen. “Morse’s Code: A One-Step Portal for Online Genealogy,” Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly (September 2006 and December 2006), two-part article. Or, read the online version at stevemorse.org. Well illustrated with computer screens and special search tips from the master himself.

Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  I understand Spring in New York City is a special place.  And with all the rain they have had–it should be awesomely beautiful.  Many of the records accessed through Morse’s utility can be seen in their original form in the archives and libraries of the greater New York area.

Our “nation of immigrants” was launched into and from New York–over 82% of all immigrants entered America  through New York and its immediate environs.  Immigrants who entered through Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Rhode Island, New Haven, Connecticut, Canada  especially along the border with New York, Northern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and even Delaware flowed across New York from very early times.

And this blog will address this vital aspect of New York ancestry in the coming weeks.  If your ancestors were born in New York, the chances are very good that they were born to immigrant parents and descend from immigrant grandparents.  We’ll look at all the immigrant origins and their sources.

17 Mar 1762 is the official date for St Patrick’s Day celebrations in New York City, although there are evidences that 17 Mar was celebrated as early as 1737.  Speculations exist that Thomas Dongan, Governor of New York 1683-1688,  and a titled Irishman, might have celebrated the day with his cronies.

     “The anniversary Feast of St Patrick is to be celebrated on Wednesday the 17th instant, at the house of Mr. John Marshall, at Mount Pleasant, near the College; Gentlemen that please to attend will meet with the best Usage.”  New York Mercury, 15 Mar 1762.

From 1762 on, the newspapers announce or report on these annual celebrations of the Irish–first in New York City and later across the state.  See Hon. John D. Crimmins, Early Celebrations of St Patrick’s Day in New York and Other Places, 1737-1845.  New York:  1902.

New York City has been “heavily Irish” since at least 1798-99, following the arrival of Protestant exiles from the Revolt of 1798.  By 1816, more than 25,000 Irish were residents of the city boroughs–1/4 of the total population of the City.  After that date, thousands of Catholic Irish arrived every year until 1851, when almost one million Irish crowded through the Port of New York and spread across the state spilling over into the United States at large.  Seeking jobs.  Looking for a place to establish themselves.

These waves of immigrants from Ireland can be identified:

1. Merchant Irish.  Grocers who peddled their wares on corners and from the backs of peddler wagons.  They moved into store-fronts in Irish neighborhoods.  They were married and brought their families with them.  These grocers were also bailbondsmen. By 1810, 1/3 of the sureties for Irishmen were grocers.
2. Canal Irish.  The original overseer of the Erie Canal and its canal networks was an Irishman who imported his Irish diggers from England where they had been employed building canals in the northern British Isles.  Paid in cash and 1 quart of whiskey per day, these Irish were largely single men who later went home to marry.  Or brought their prospective brides here. Immigrant agents and shipping companies offered tickets to Ireland at reduced prices for round trips or the purchase of multiple tickets for other family members.
3. Garment Irish.  Employed in the burgeoning garment and clothing industry, including ready-made clothes of fine silks and treated cottons–an industry New York City and its immediate environs is still noted for.
4. Famine Irish.  Hoards of families fled from Ireland–the English and Irish governments even sponsored immigration to relieve the strain on their depleted resources.  From 1844 through 1853, more than 1.8 million people came from Ireland to America through the port of New York City alone!
5. Railroad Irish.  Railroads were built across New York state (and many other states as well) drawing their workforce from unemployed Irish.  Railroad owners bragged that they could build ”transportation routes to hell and back” given enough Irish and whiskey.
6. Settlement Irish.  Families who sought to better their lives with lands and opportunities offered in New York.  Families came on their own or with groups sponsored by Irish immigrant associations.  Settlements in or near cities ensured job opportunities for laborers not yet used to farming.

Study Bibliography

Bayor, Ronald H., and Timothy J. Meagher, eds.  The New York Irish.  Baltimore MD:  Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.  Massive and thorough examination of the Irish impact.  includes maps of each borough of New York City and the location of the Irish churches.

Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.  Online index to more than 500,000 persons buried there.  http://www.green_wood.com  You can search first name, surname.  Index gives name, date of interment, lot and section #s.  See also article in New York Researcher by Leslie Corn (Fall 2002/Winter 2003):  61-69 for very detailed instructions on how to find someone.

Goodrich, Victor B.  “Sending Money Home:  The Accounts of an Immigrant Financial Agent in Deposit, New York, 1851-1860,”  Tree Talks 32 (Dec 1992): 1-55.  Separate issue, #4.  Original ledger in the Deposit Historical Society archives.

Haberstroh, Diane Fitzpatrick, and Laura Murphy DeGrazia.  Voices of the Irish Immigrant:  Information Wanted Ads in Truth Teller, New York City, 1825-1844.  New York:  New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 2005.  See also their article in the New York Researcher (formerly the New York Genealogical and Biographical Newsletter) (Summer 2005): 59 ff.

Kincaid, Roberta.  “Payments to People Involved in Building the Erie Canal, 1820-1821,”  Tree Talks 35 (Dec 2008).  Separate issue #4.  includes map showing completion dates of each section of the canal.  As each section was finished, it was opened to traffic.

Rich, Kevin J.  Irish Immigrants of the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, 1850-1853, Volume I.  1-2500 Accounts.  Volume II.  2501-7500 Accounts.  For the author: PO Box 158, Massapequa NY 11758-9998.  Entries transcribed from the original registers at the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society in spreadsheets.  These accounts are also available on microfilm through the Family History Library.

Silinonte, Joseph M.  Street Index to the 1892 New York State Census:  City of Brooklyn.  For the author:  7901-4 Avenue, #D, Brooklyn NY 11209.  Includes the 6th Ward, which was mostly Irish.

Stay tuned for a checklist of sources and how to use them in tracing an Irish pedigree in New York coming in the next episode of this blog.  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  If you have registered for any Family History Expos during 2010–I will be speaking at all of them so check my speaking schedule–send an email to Holly@fhexpos.com.  The original website, and its backup, crashed and has not been restored by the server company–yet.  Holly needs your registration information to ensure that you get in.  Very important to do this!

Get ready for the launch of my new, carefully researched, dynamite NEW YORK BLOG–

“Skip New York?  NO!”

I attended a genealogy conference where the foremost New York genealogist was to speak.  I had my paper and pencil at the ready. Whatever she said, I planned to record.

At her first words I almost fell off my chair: ” If you have a New York lineage, I advise you to choose another line.  Skip New York altogether and save yourself a real headache.”

I waited for a chuckle.

None came.  She was serious.

And I decided then and there, that I would become an expert on New York genealogy sources.

So I have prepared myself with an arsenal of genealogy research sources and records for New York. And I am ready to share this knowledge with you.

Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com