On this St. Patrick's Day I just found out that my 3x Great Grandfather lived 11.7 miles away from

[chowder66]

Joe Biden's family in County Mayo, Ireland.

I'm chuffed!

[Irish_Dem]

1. Same here.

Just down the road from my Irish grandparents' birth location in County Mayo.

This is western Ireland, more remote and less populated than other parts of Ireland.

[chowder66]

5. My ancestor was from Crossmolina but I haven't yet found any records there.

My guess is that they are not online. Luckily there are U.S. records where he states this.

[Irish_Dem]

22. Have you looked at the Irish census data?

That is online.

You can do a search by surname and location.

If you need help, PM me and I will look show you how to do it or look it up for you.

ETA Yes you are very lucky to have US documents where he states his birth location.
Most Irish Americans don't know what part of Ireland their people came from.

[chowder66]

26. He came over in 1838. Looks like he was a miner and left from Liverpool.

The census records don't go back that far. I've looked at everything I can get my grubby little hands on (for free mostly).
Considering how rough it was in Mayo at the time he may have left or the family may have left. It only shows his place of origin as Crossmolina.

I've been researching for decades and will only spend so much on accessing records online. I really just need to save that money and take a trip one of these days.

[Irish_Dem]

36. There are Irish census records back to 1821.

But going back that far, they are much more sparse.

Western Ireland was more remote and the record keeping not as good as the
more populated areas?

I have known second cousins in Ireland, one of these days I will go meet
them in person.

[chowder66]

38. I'm sorry, yes. I mixed up my families.

For whatever reason I have not been able to find him which makes me think they left the area after he was born, went by another name or the records are not online, lost or destroyed.

It could also mean that they were passing through on their way to another destination when his mother gave birth to him. Too hard to say.

[Irish_Dem]

39. Have you looked on Ancestry.com?

They have the biggest data base of records and most family trees.
If you have done a DNA test there, perhaps some of your matches will have your ancestor in their trees.

[chowder66]

43. Yes and Yes.

I've also done deep dives in FamilySearch. I haven't broken down and tried RootsIreland or some of the others because it costs to get more information. I've done free trials and search for free but I've not seen enough to make me bite just yet.
Not all records are online and it may be that they left the area. I'm going to take a stab to see if I can find anything about the Irish miners around the 1830's. I've done extensive research into my Cornish miners so that may come in handy.

[Irish_Dem]

47. Sounds like you have hit all the right sites.

And you have found DNA matches with this ancestor's surname?

[chowder66]

48. Not directly.

I have matches with descendants of the children of the immigrant. However, they have less information than I do and have used my research to get back to him and his wife. I went back to my notes and the 1821, 1831 censuses only have a smattering of records online. I double checked again and it's just not much.
There are no living males in my line with this family. Only one Aunt and she won't get a test done. It's going to have to either be through more records coming online, spending some $$$ to see if anything else pops up on some of the other sites, spending $$$ on a researcher in Ireland or spending $$$$ traveling there myself.

I appreciated your advice nonetheless.

[LisaM]

2. The morning after the 2020 election

One of the most stirring things I saw were the American flags being flown in front of houses in Ireland. They are proud of him.

[chowder66]

6. Indeed they are!

[bucolic_frolic]

3. You could be related

Prior to about 1500, populations didn't move very much. It's just like the French. If your ancestor is in a family tree that traces to eastern France in about 1200, you're probably related to Charlemagne because the smaller populations back then stayed in the same area and over hundreds of years had children with distant cousins. Soon everyone was related.

[mopinko]

4. i'm a dwyer from tipparary.

i assume my line goes back to the founders of tipparay, and hence to king heramon. some day i’ll trace that back.
maybe there’s title layin around that cd b mine.

[chowder66]

11. I've been looking into Wulfric who was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman.

My Manchester line was the "last family to come out of the Forest". I "think" they were referred to as "Keepers of the Forest".
My understanding is that they would have been under the rule of Wulfric after he invaded.

Wulfric (died circa 1004), called Wulfric Spot or Spott, was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman. His will is an important document from the reign of King Æthelred the Unready.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wulfric_Spot

[chowder66]

8. I can only go back to about that time in Manchester, England on another line on my Mom's side.

Luckily it's a very researched line. But I don't think there are documents that prove the relationships to the earliest ancestors prior to 1400. The fact that the population was small enough though is reason to think that we are related to the first recorded surnames.

[MLAA]

7. Cool!

A few years ago I found out that President Obama and I share the same 12th or 13th great grandfather who was a British Naval Officer on our Mothers’ side. I too, was delighted.

[chowder66]

9. That's very cool!!!

I have loads of ancestors that seemingly so far have no connections to anyone famous but I find some of them to be the most fascinating.
One line was basically the basis of Poldark. I have Cornish miners on one side and when watching the series I was spazzing out because there were several names that I recognized that we married into or did business with.... so the show was using real names from the area.

[CincyDem]

10. You're doing better than me. My dad grew up about 5-6 miles from TFG's mom in The Outer Hebrides.

[chowder66]

12. That gave me a heartfelt chuckle with a heavy dose of sympathy.

I have loads of Scottish lines but a ton of them are brick walls. So far the ones we can trace came from Glasgow then moved to Belfast, then the States and a couple of others were from around County Ross & Cromarty and Fordell, Fife, Scotland. Sadly, a lot of their DNA did not get passed onto me but a healthy portion shows up in my mom.

[CincyDem]

13. Haha...my mom was Irish and the Scot line was so strong, I was 14 before I knew it.

A childhood of Highland Games, pipers, meat pies, and the occasional haggis. It wasn’t until sometime around my 14th birthday, as we were talking about something to do with the British monarchy, I recall making what today would be clearly heard as a derogatory comment about the Irish.

At that, my mother slammed her utensils down and announced “I am Irish” and then, looking at my brother and me, “You are Irish”.

You could hear a pin drop but I’ll tell ya, it was the last year we hit the Highland Games. Lolol.

[homegirl]

16. Many Scots

moved between Northern Ireland and Scotland. for work. My father's family did and it is interesting that the Northern Ireland census clearly states their religion as Presbyterian. What church did you attend?

[CincyDem]

21. He grew up Anglican and converted to Catholic to marry my mom...so we grew up Catholic.

[chowder66]

27. That's too funny!

[Evolve Dammit]

33. great story! I just found out (thru DNA) that I'm 14% Irish and no Scottish which family thought we were.

Family lore can be manipulated over the years...... or genetic testing can't differentiate British Isle ancestry??

[chowder66]

40. Keep in mind that those numbers can change and that Scottish may show up.

As they get more data those percentages can shift. At first I had 1% Jewish dna but that eventually went away. I also had an Indian cousin, who is no longer listed.

[Evolve Dammit]

41. interesting. I'm going to do a competitor's product and see what the correlation is.

[chowder66]

42. You will need to give it time as well.

Each place uses slightly different methodologies and/or has a different pool to compare to.

Ancestry for example updates the DNA profile maybe once or twice a year.

[Evolve Dammit]

44. Makes sense. It is a data base that increased input changes results.

[chowder66]

46. I only wish my dad had done a DNA test.

I couldn't convince him and I'm stumped on the one line I would really like to know about which is his surname. The problem is that his great grandfather was probably an orphan. I'm at about 97% confidence on this.
I only know where he was born and what year but the courthouse burned down and there are scant records. It may be I will never know and it SUCKS!! I doubt I will ever keep poking around though.

I hope your dna results get more interesting as they develop!

[Evolve Dammit]

62. Thanks. It's hard when Dad's won't do simple things that would be soo meaningful for their children. I can relate

[homegirl]

15. Just curious

being from a similar DNA back ground -what DNA do you regret not inheriting?

[chowder66]

28. The loads of Scottish lines.

[Evolve Dammit]

14. A short horseback (or buggy) ride!

[chowder66]

29. Yep!

[ananda]

17. That is so cool. Mine were from Drumcollagher, Limerick.

Happy St. Pat's!

[chowder66]

30. Happy St. Pat's to you!

[cate94]

18. No kidding?

That is where my great grandfather was from.

[chowder66]

31. Crossmolina?

[cate94]

49. No, he was from Mayo

Outside of Castlebar.

[chowder66]

56. Close enough ancestral neighbor!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. Two of my 3xG's came from up north in county Cavan.

I only hope I'm not related to a certain beer-loving Extreme Court justice.

[chowder66]

32. Lol. There was a family tree online that had one of my Scots Irish lines listed as Cavan P****

And all of his children had first names that were counties. Someone really screwed that up. I now cringe when I see Cavan and that's not the fault of Cavan but the very bad researcher. I sent an email but they never took it down.

[Fritz Walter]

20. Still trying to find out where my Irish ancestors came from

They were potato famine immigrants who boarded ships with just the clothes on their backs. Visiting the Emerald Isle in 1996, I asked around and was told that I have to know which county they came from. Vital records were kept by the churches, not the British occupation.

No ideas! Their surnames were very common, so they could have come from almost anywhere.

Hoping to return to Ireland soon…

[Warpy]

24. Most of the "potato Irish" were from the western part of the country

where the poor soil was ideally suited to growing potatoes, where it hadn't been suited to growing much else. The importation of the potato was a godsend at first, you can get all of your nutrients from potatoes except vitmain A. An occasional carrot would suffice without breaking the family bank. Potatoes kept people healthy and fed on very little land. They thrived and the population exploded to 8 million at its peak.

The typical pattern of the Irish Diaspora was mostly to England, especially Liverpool and Manchester. Industry provided jobs and if it didn't, there was bare bones passage to the Americas.

I've found a lot of Irish from that period have no idea where their families were from or how they got here, the famine had been so horrific that all mention of what they had been through was suppressed, even the fact they were Irish. They did their best to forget everything that happened to them before they got off the boat.

Irish who arrived here before and after the famine remembered where they were from. Irish who arrived because of the famine have little memory, collectively, or where they were from or what happened to them.

Good luck in your search. Your family is listed somewhere, most churches kept records.

[homegirl]

25. Sorry,

if you knew the ship you could glean a massive amount of information. Or, if any of their children registered for Social Security in the late 1930's there might be a wealth of information on the application. Available from S.S. for $7.00 when I accessed information on my in laws.

[chowder66]

34. It isn't easy for sure. I got lucky with finding a ships passenger list on Ancestry.com.

I also found a death certificate of one of his kids that listed his place of origin but that isn't always 100% reliable. It can be a huge clue or accurate but you have stay flexible just in case they are wrong. Census records usually help if they consistently say they were born in the place that is listed on another document.

I'm now trying to figure out if my Crossmolina ancestor left and went to England for work or maybe moved away from Crossmolina. I either need to go there or hire someone to investigate for me.

[Fritz Walter]

54. Good info! Thanks!

Rumor has it that Ancestry used to allow the Mormon church total access to their records, which they would use to "baptize" other people's ancestors into their religion. Supposedly, that practice ended, but still... I'm very reticent about posting family information there due to privacy concerns.

Any thoughts?

[ShazzieB]

23. My Irish ancestors emigrated to England before coming to the U.S.

My grandfather was born in Blackpool (where my father and his older siblings were also born), and my grandmother was from Rochdale, near Manchester. They came to America in 1911, but I don't know anything about what part(s) of Ireland my ancestors were originally from or when they left Ireland for England. It would be nice to find out.

[chowder66]

37. Have you ever been able to find the death certificate for your Grandparents?

It may show where his parents were born but it may be vague which is a pain in the you know what.
It's good to look at the death certificates of any siblings to your grandparents or of any other children they had.

If you know their religion that is important to make note of. Probate records, wills, occupations, newspapers can be helpful as well.
Traveling from Ireland to England was easy so they weren't always traced (if ever). Are there any stories in your family about your grandfather's family, his parents? Is there anyone in your family you may know more? These are some of the things to start with.

Familysearch.org is free and you can see if the state your grandparents died in have death certificates online or you may have to order them if you don't have them.

[ShazzieB]

50. Thanks for the tips!

I know the family was Roman Catholic, and I know my grandparents' birthdates and birthplaces by way of what a cousin posted on Ancestry. I found my grandmother's death certificate on Ancestry, also, but I've never even looked for my grandfather's. It shouldn't be that hard to track down, though, since I know they settled in Scranton, PA after they got here, and lived the rest of their lives there.

There aren't many people left to ask about things, unfortunately. All my aunts and uncles have been gone for quite a while, and many of my first cousins as well, as most of them were older than me. I don't know the later generations at all. For reasons I was never made aware of, my dad didn't maintain much contact with his family while I was growing up, and we were living in a different part of the country, so it wasn't like we could visit back and forth easily. My father had 8 or 9 siblings, but I only ever met 3 of them, and I never met my grandparents at all. (Grandmother died when my dad was a teenager, about 25 years before I was born, and I'm not sure when my grandfather died.)

There are definitely things I could do to find out more, though. Thanks for giving me some ideas.

[blm]

35. We're a County Mayo family, too.

They were known for being inebriated a bit more than was considered proper. 🤓

[chowder66]

45. Ha! If they were there sometime around the famine years can you blame them?

[Rhiannon12866]

51. Very cool! And my great grandmother also came from County Mayo!

Wonder if her family was neighbors with either family, LOL. She came here as a young girl with her family before the turn of the 20th century.

[chowder66]

57. She was newer and shinier!! Coming at the turn of the century.

Makes you wonder how it was for her and the family during the famine. Mayo was going through some had times prior to the famine.

[elleng]

52. FUN thread!

Slainte, all!!!

[chowder66]

58. It's pretty cool that a bunch of descendants are on DU discovering each other.

I wonder what our ancestors would think!

[elleng]

61. Yes, it is cool!

[PortTack]

53. Cool!

[chowder66]

59. Right?!

[malthaussen]

55. I lived in the same town and school district as Jill Biden.

She was five years ahead of me in school, though, so our paths never crossed.

-- Mal

[chowder66]

60. Six degrees of Separation!! That's cool!!