A comprehensive listing of Clare emigrants - new project?

[Paddy Casey]

This is a follow-on to a discussion which started in a recent thread in this forum entitled Timekeeping in Rural Clare and drifted off-topic (my fault).

In that thread reference was made to an exemplary database of emigrants from Baden-Württemburg (Germany) which had been put together by two pensioners. It occurred to me, and Sharon seconded the idea, that it would be great to have such an index of Clare emigrants.

Tom McDowell has been publishing a series of datasets on East Clare emigrants on the Clare Library forum at http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/whatsnew.htm As far as I can see he has been trawling a range of Ancestry.com databases (e.g. passport applications, arrivals at Ellis Island and other ports, border crossings from Canada to the US) and extracting the East Clare emigrants. It must have involved a lot of work but the result is very impressive and could serve as a template for the other Clare parishes.

To stitch up the whole of the County it would simply need 80 diesels like Tom McDowell, one for each parish, to trawl/sift a standard set of databases and send them to the Library for publication.

Hmmm.

Paddy

P.S. I don't know if Tom is on this forum but if he is he might like to pop up and comment.

[Tom]

Hi Paddy,
Thanks for the glowing reference! I started off using the Ellis island site and as both my parents came from Feakle parish, (BRETT and McDOWELL), my research online has been centred in East Clare. If others would like to chip in and access and put the data online on this exemplary website it would be superb. I wonder how it could be coordinated to avoid 2 people dupicating the work. I must acknowlege Maureen Comber who has been a star at accepting, adapting and uploading the data. You need to be aware of the vagaries of spelling however, particularly of place names. Having looked for Feakle online, I then found entries for Heakle, Teakle, etc. These listings are therefore added to fairly frequently. Currently I'm hacking through probate listings in England for people who list county Clare as a residence. I'm up to surnames beginning with M so I should be finished soonish! if you come across any BRETT/BRITT or McDOWELLs in your research please let me know.
Tom McDowell

[smcarberry]

First, my thanks again to Tom McDowell for his dogged pursuit of data and the time taken to transcribe it. I have already sent him Brett items found to date in the U.S., along with the observation that I find it very odd that my Carberry family developed such a liking for Bret as a boy's name once the family arrived in Philadelphia. I discovered my Pennsylvania cousins back in 1993 only because a relative unrelated to the Carberrys finally remembered that my grandfather had a older half-brother named Bret. Although that one was deceased by then, the phone book yielded contact info for the next generation's Bret, who put me in contact with a relative who knew that our family had first settled in Montreal, where Patrick Carberry's parish death entry named his Clare parish. All else has flowed from that.

As to Paddy's plan, let me add that another massive amount of data on Clare emigrants resides in the biographical articles published on prominent men, pioneers, and early settlers of a particular locality, in addition to obituaries and military records like the WWI and WWII records, sometimes even the Civil War records. There are easily-accessed databases where individuals are linked to a birthplace in Clare provided by a reliable source, either the immigrant himself or his immediate family. I have many dozens of obituaries, beyond what I have posted on this Forum. I run across so many of these that I have stopped collecting them unless I can see a reason to save it for the research I do for myself and some others. My reason for stopping is not just the time to cull the item off the Internet but also the lack of a software program that can search my computer files where I save the items. It takes a lot of time to visually scan all those saved items.

While Cathy Joynt Labath has donated her collected biographies and obituaries of the same sort to the Library, a descendant starting research by running a search of Library website information is not going to see such an item right off in a huge batch of search results that include historical references. Consider how many search results someone would have to wade through in order to get to a biographical item if the involved surname is McMahon, McNamara, Ryan or even Arthur and Butler. Sorting by parish would certainly get the data in the hands of descendants faster and more surely. Having all this type of article searchable by a separate search engine would help reach the many articles listing the county only but otherwise providing useful clues for family history research.

There is a world of data out there that could be organized to better aid descendants' research. Canadian, English, and Australian records likewise contain exact Clare locality references. Someone has to champion an undertaking of sufficient size and permanence to make worthwhile the collection of such articles and records, both in terms of bandwidth to make them available online and also labor to determine multiple donations of the same item as well as do the online placement.
I could then go back into ferret mode and send what I find when I find it.

Sharon C.

[Paddy Casey]

Thanks for all these ideas, Sharon. Things are looking interesting.

All we need now are the 79 volunteers to work on the remaining parishes.

My reason for stopping is not just the time to cull the item off the Internet but also the lack of a software program that can search my computer files where I save the items. It takes a lot of time to visually scan all those saved items.

If you are using Windows just install Copernic Desktop Search. I've used it for years and there is nothing to beat it for finding stuff on your computer. Unlike, for example, Google Desktop it doesn't phone home all the time to report on the contents of your computer.

Paddy

[smcarberry]

Glad to contribute to the discussion, particularly when the next big thing might result. Just as with the Junior Genealogists,
providing the 80 volunteers tending to such matters with a title recognizing their role, e.g. "parish file coordinator," could well be all that is needed to provide satisfaction to offset the time commitment involved.

You have been telling me about Copernic since about 2002 and I have been duly installing it on a succession of computers. I have found that it searches my saved emails just fine, and formerly I did save a lot of culled items in emails sent to myself. Now I have switched to saving almost everything in files formatted in Open Office, and Copernic will not search those, either the ones saved on my hard drive or in flash drives. It may be able to tell me if a file exists with a specific file name, but it doesn't search the contents. The file itself via the Open Office formatting permits searches only in order to find and replace a word.

Backtracking to a general collection of Clare data or data sorted by parish, there is another manner of retrieving data other than with a search engine using keywords. I know you likely know far more about this, since I don't organize anything, even photos, with this method: tags attached to a file, not limited to words in the data itself. An item can be tagged with a word for the parish name, for easy retrieval although the article itself has no such parish name in it.

Sharon C.

[Tom]

Interesting suggestion about records grouped by parishes. Similar system in place for some counties in England. An example is my home county of Dorset, on the sunny south coast.
Try looking at http://www.opcdorset.org
It's nowhere near as comprehensive as the Clare site though.

[Paddy Casey]

Now I have switched to saving almost everything in files formatted in Open Office, and Copernic will not search those, either the ones saved on my hard drive or in flash drives. It may be able to tell me if a file exists with a specific file name, but it doesn't search the contents. The file itself via the Open Office formatting permits searches only in order to find and replace a word.

Hi Sharon,

Copernic certainly does index the contents of Open Office files (e.g. .odt files). I've been using Open Office and Copernic for ages and constantly find Open Office files by searching for keywords in their content. If Copernic didn't index Open Office files it wouldn't survive for 2 seconds as a commercial product. It also indexes photos using the tags in the metadata section of the image files.

I think I know why your Copernic isn't indexing your OO files but I won't bore the rest of the forum with this non-Clare topic. Suffice it to say that your contributions are very substantial already without your being able to use Copernic but they'll be on steroids once you can use it.

I'll contact you off-forum.

Paddy

[ploughman]

I'm in! Please let me know what I can do to help with this project.
Pam Loughman

[Paddy Casey]

I'm in! Please let me know what I can do to help with this project.
Pam Loughman

That's great, Pam. That's three of us (Tom McDowell is already way ahead of, and leading, the pack by several leagues). Now all we need is 77 more volunteers, one for each parish (I'll take Tubber/Kilkeedy; which one will you take ?) and a template from Tom to tell us which datasets to trawl.

Paddy

[dundeemayer]

Add me to the list. I could take Kilmaley Parish. As long as someone gives me a guideline or template to follow, the rest is history, or in this case, ancestry!

John

[ploughman]

Paddy:

I'd prefer Feakle parish, if possible, since that is where my ancestor was born, but I'm flexible. Thanks for asking about my preference.

Pam

[miriam scahill]

Hello Paddy - I would like to help - but would need advise on what to do. I am familiar with Kilrush Parish. Thanks.

[Paddy Casey]

Sorry to be slow getting back here, folks.

Most gratifying to see the interest. This seems to be developing into the embryo of a project.

I'd be happy to keep track of who is documenting which parish and "assign" parishes and do "my" parish (Tubber) but I think it would need Tom McDowell to pop up with a kind of template or list of databases to trawl so that we all work to a quality similar to his.

Tom ?

Paddy

[Tom]

Hi Paddy,
Sorry to be late in replying. Minus 6 degrees and 6 inches of snow at present. I live on the sunny south coast of England.
Wow, what have we triggered off!
Most of the data I've trawled through comes via Ancestry.com.
I'll make a list of the various databases I've gone through and get back to you all.

Brrrr!
Tom McDowell

[Tom]

Firstly because my family history interests centre in and around Feakle, I’ve already searched for and submitted emigration information on:
Bodyke, Broadford, Clonrush, Feakle (includes Faha, Flagmount and Killanena), Mountshannon, O’Callaghans Mills, Ogonnelloe, Scariff, Sixmilebridge, Tuamgraney, Tulla and Whitegate.
Apologies to Pam Loughman, who I note was interested in Feakle. Mind you there is no guarantee I’ve got everyone in any of the above areas. I send an update to Maureen Comber every so often when more turn up.
I have some data on Kilmurray and Killaloe but not complete and I have not submitted it yet. (Any volunteers)?
A good start for anyone is the Ellis Island website, but access it through http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB/ellisgold.htm
It will then lead you to the Ellis Island website and ask you to register. (It’s free).
Using the Jewishgen website you can search the Ellis database by place name alone, although you need to be aware of a few things to search accurately.
Make a list of all the townlands in the parish you are researching, via Clare Library Website, then search for emigrants naming these as town name, as well as the Parish name.
e.g. Search for Feakle but also Ayle.
The forms were completed by clerks at Ellis Island. Spellings can be weird.
I thought I’d completed Tulla but then found Lulla, Clare and Yulla, Clare. Expect the same with surnames.
Be aware there is more than one Tulla in Ireland, so look for the county name somewhere on the ship’s manifest to make sure. The early manifests, (up to about 1907), had just 1 page but later ones have 2. You need to see both. Even later manifests are typed.
I accessed all the ship manifests and entered the information for the name that came up but also checked out the rest of that page as often people from the same town travelled together.
I made a spreadsheet on Excel using the headings on the Manifest.
If anyone is taking this on I can send a blank copy, if I can have an email address.
I’m an ancestry.com subscriber so accessed lots of emigration records via their site. (Subscription needed). On the search page just put in the Town / Townland you are interested in in the Birth space and search.
Hope this helps,
Tom McDowell ttommcdowell@aol.com