New genealogy blog - Townland of Origin

Coolnabacky1873

Just wanted to put up a short note in relation to a new blog I've started, Townland of Origin.

The blog is about Irish genealogy in North America. There will be all sorts of articles with the overall aim of getting researchers a little bit closer to finding the place of origin of their ancestors.

Hopefully it can fill a gap that I think is there.

Comments and suggestions welcome!

P. Breathnach

Good start. May the project prosper.

Do they need to be told about Ellis Island records and how to access them?

pinkypinky

Best of luck with this and the book. I'll make sure to get a copy.

Coolnabacky1873

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Good start. May the project prosper.

Do they need to be told about Ellis Island records and how to access them?

Thanks P, keeping that one for the leabhar!

VicWynne

Best of luck with it.

montgo

Best of luck with your blog and book.
Loved the story about Mrs. McKessy, wonderful photo.

Jellybaby1

Wishing you the very best of luck with your blog Cool! 'Tis wonderful! That's a great story of the McKessy family. They could have started a whole town on their own, and several football teams! The story doesn't tell us much about Mr Thomas McKessy, do you know anything about him?

Coolnabacky1873

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Wishing you the very best of luck with your blog Cool! 'Tis wonderful! That's a great story of the McKessy family. They could have started a whole town on their own, and several football teams! The story doesn't tell us much about Mr Thomas McKessy, do you know anything about him?

I don't, unfortunately. Only had time for a superficial search about the family.

I did come across a facebook post from a granchild who said that, surprisingly, they did not have a huge amount of cousins.

pedroeibar1

First of all congratulations on the endeavour and best of luck for its success. Loved the NINA piece. It appears there also was positive discrimination, e.g. I’ve heard around Beara (Eyeries & Allihies) that in some mining towns ‘Men Wanted’ notices were published only in Irish to exclude other applicants. In the late 1800’s there was a mass exodus of over a thousand miners from those villages for Butte Montana when the copper mines closed in Allihies.

Impressions - Overall very positive, I like the format, type, layout, content, etc, but what first stuck me was the incongruity between the blog name ’Townland of Origin’, the header graphic (MW & Atlantic states map), and its purpose (Irish genealogy in North America). I know it is early days and only a few entries so far, but I would consider as useful a small piece on the choice of Blog name & a passing reference to the importance of the townland in Irish genealogy. Also your links on the IARC site need to be updated/rectified.
Best of luck with it, I’ll be a follower!

pedroeibar1

I was looking at your blog piece on the movement of the descendents of the Irish in NY. While the population graphic does state it is a ‘picture’ of the NY Irish in 1990, it really is only that and to be meaningful needs to be plotted over a timeline. The ‘nice’ area was progressively pushed northward by the city’s expansion so the real demographic was driven by social mobility and/or social stasis, as the ‘poor’ Irish were pushed northward or outward. For example, the extension of the ‘socially acceptable’ boundary of the Upper East Side from 79th to 96th St. – and today now far north of that in realtor-speak. While Yorkville once was ‘Germantown’ it had, before that been predominantly Irish (interesting historical film clip [URL="[url]http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675028560_sign-boards_man-walking_girl-placing-newspaper_store-fronts[/url]"]here[/URL]). I love the green dot on Riker’s Island

Hermy

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

here

Think there was a bracket too many in the link.

Coolnabacky1873

Great clip, thanks for that.

Yes, you're correct, all censuses are a snapshot in time, in fact of just the single day they were taken.

I think your analysis of the Manhattan area is spot on. Funnily enough I lived in Stuyvesant Town and Yorkville (two of the orange dot concentrations on the map) in the last few years, and except for some of the Stuy Town old timers, there are very few traces of the Irish.

The Irish in the Rockaways, though, always struck me as a curious area to live in, especially the private cooperative community that is Breezy Point. Strong links to police and firemen and you can pretty much only get a house out there if you are related. Sad, of course, that Sandy did so much damage.

Do you mind if I put the clip on the blog, with a nice big juicy credit for pedroeibar1?

pedroeibar1

@Hermy - Thanks for the link correction.
@Cool - No problem with using my comments but the clip site has nothing to do with me. Stuytown - lucky you, I never was lucky enough to get a toe in there and had to pay full whack in 10021.
Rockaways – I've heard that the Irish connection goes right back to the early 1800’s, to a military fort there and that some of the Irish-origin soldiers liked the place, remained and opened pubs. The ‘seaside resort’ aspect grew in the following decades and this fostered more pubs/inns – a good Irish occupation - which continued up to and was aided hugely by Prohibition. As you commented (elsewhere) on house residents/boarders, it often was the case that they were friends from home/relatives. Thus an Irish contingent attracted more, a sort of ghetto-ization. Hence the growth of the Irish community in what was an affordable place.

Waitsian

Somebody got a shout out on a very popular Irish blog - kudos.