Irish Passport Archives

[lenc]

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not strictly Clare related, but I wondered had anyone gone down the route of searching for deceased relatives passports and what successes you had?

[Jim McNamara]

Hi,

I have been helping an Irish friend (a priest in Dublin) with his USA family. I chased the family down fairly well and had big issues with not being able to find them in the 1920 US Census. (During the 1920 census this couple went to Ireland.) Eventually, I found the wife's passport online at Ancestry.com. She had incredibly traveled to Ireland without a passport and only with her marriage license in hand. She was granted a passport through the US Embassy in London, but I don't think she went to London. In the passport application was recorded the details of her marriage and crossing to Boston and her address. It also recorded her husband's passport number. With this information I was able to get the husband's passport and found even more details.

Although the husband listed the purpose of his visit "to take care of his dying mother," it was apparently his wife's dying mother.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that I learned the place of birth of the wife along with many other details.

Now the only problem is that most of the Irish came to Boston and New York and if they were not well off (most) then they did not ever return to Ireland and hence did not ever apply for a US Passport.

I have photographed my cousin's father's passport in his possession. He came to Boston, worked here a while, joined the Army, Naturalized at boot camp graduation, went to France as a ambulance driver, and retired in Ireland to have/raise a family of 9 children and work the family farm.

I have one more Cleary that I know traveled back and forth to Ireland, but as of now have only found the boat and plane passenger manifest, as recently as 1950, but have yet to find her passport. I am fairly certain I would learn a great deal more if I could find her passport.

Hope that helps.