Irish Emigrants` Best Friend - WISE Family History Society

Volume 14, Number 2
Denver, Colorado
April, May, June 2013
Irish Emigrants’ Best Friend
Aristocrat’s Radical Plan Helped Thousands Get to America
—Zoe von Ende Lappin
Human cargo crammed the ship bound from Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland, across the Irish Sea to
Liverpool, England. They were a pathetic band, far in excess of the ship’s capacity, sharing their
quarters with farm animals. Everyone was seasick and the odors were rife. The Irish horde was trying to
escape the ghastly conditions at home, going to England to try to board a ship to emigrate to America or
Canada or Australia.
It was 1847, the worst year of the Great Famine, and one of those on board was a 28-year-old
Anglo – Irish aristocrat and budding diplomat, Vere Louis Henry Foster. He was returning to his
family’s estate in England from their estate in Ireland, Glyde Court, in County Louth.
He had visited Ireland to fulfill his father’s request to arrange
financing for a tenant’s emigration. Young Foster also had witnessed the poverty-stricken Irish wandering along the roadsides,
sometimes with animals, carrying everything they owned. This
forlorn multitude fascinated him, and on the crossing to Liverpool,
Foster chose to stay on deck to absorb it all. His first Irish experience aroused in him a great empathy for those downtrodden souls,
and it set his life in motion.
He was wealthy, and early on, he considered assisting tenant
farmers by teaching ways to maximum agricultural production.
But he realized that would help only a few and to remain in Ireland would mean death for tens of thousands of Irish, stuck in
poverty and desperation. Instead, Foster came to realize that the
best way to aid these poor souls was to help them leave. He devised a revolutionary scheme called assisted emigration into
which he threw himself and his fortune.
Vere’s first move was to personally arrange for the emigration of
Vere Foster in his later years.
40 girls from County Louth to the United States. His brother,
Frederick, residing at Glyde Court, helped select the girls, who were wretchedly poor. Vere himself
got recommendations attesting to each girls’ good character. He financed every part of the journey and
Continued on page 23
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April, May, June 2013
Pastors” “Good and Evil of Immigration; Clear
Ideas upon a Knotty Question” “Discussing Man's
Stupidity in Affairs of the Heart; What a Woman
Thinks of the Neglectful Lover.” All but one of
those headlines came from the 1800s.
President’s
Message
One of the most common topics of conversation
as we “mature” bemoans the changes in our
culture over time. “Things just aren't the way
they used to be,” You just can't let your children
out to play like we used to – “We are just
busier than we use to be. There is no time to relax”– and one of my favorites: “The news is so
biased these days you just don't know who
to believe.”
For one, I am glad things have changed and
yet stayed the same. Our lives no longer
revolve around just the neighborhood. Our
children still need free playtime, with no structure
or adults to tell them what to do. These days they
get to play with children from all over the
world, and as adults we are likely to hear many
languages spoken at work or in other areas of
our lives.
No, we don't typically allow our children
out to play in the front yard; we have play
dates. I find that this allows me to schedule time
to do family history research. During the time
that our children are having the time of their lives
at a friend's house, we are able to count on a
couple of hours a week to catch up on the latest
additions to Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org.
We are able to browse through Google Books
to see if that book we heard about has been digitized or run down to Denver Public Library to see
what is new.
Every time I use newspapers for research I
am reminded of the fact that the more things
change the more they stay the same. Just read a
few of these headlines. Did they come from
today's newspapers or are they from newspapers
published in the 1800s? “Four Women Held
in Murder” “Is Marriage a Failure? London's
Great Social Controversy is Taken up in
Earnest by Americans” “Politics in the Pulpit,
the Duties of Citizenship Pointed out by
The way we do our research changes from
year to year to year, but people do not. With
the introduction of technology to aid in
genealogical research, we have the ability
to travel back in time to Victorian England via
digitized images. We are privileged to read
the newspapers of yesteryear at home. We can
ponder the entries we found in a family
Bible: “Did great-grandpa or great-grandma make
that entry?” Yet we still need to visit the regional
office of NARA to browse unique records
not yet digitized. We long to make that pilgrimage
to the old country to walk on the land where
our ancestors walked, to see the views that
were a part of their everyday lives. We visit
our ancestor's region because there is no better
helper to break down that brick wall than a
local resident.
Just as we join W.I.S.E. to receive help with
our research and technology, we are social people
with a common heritage that we wish to share.
In the end it is how and what we use to do our
research that changes not each of us. We all
must start at the beginning and move backward
step by step. We want to get to know our ancestors
and the lands they came from, and we want
to leave a legacy for our descendants to
eagerly study.
NOTE: All of the headlines cited above
came
from
an
online
resource,
www.Genealogybank.com Newspaper Archives.
In order, they appeared in the Elkhart Truth,
Elkhart Indiana, June 12, 1921, page 2;
New York Herald, New York City, New York,
September 23, 1888, page 10; New York Herald,
New York, New York, October 9, 1882,
page 3; Minneapolis Journal, Minneapolis,
Minnesota, May 27, 1899, Supplements 1, 6 and 7;
St. Louis Republic, St. Louis, Missouri, January 8,
1899, page 15, section part 4.
www.wise-fhs.org
—Barbara Fines Price
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W.I.S.E. Words
April, May, June 2013
W.I.S.E. Family History Society
W.I.S.E. Family History Society is dedicated to
research in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England, the
Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Attention is also
directed to the emigration and immigration of these
peoples as well as heraldry and one-name studies.
Monthly meetings are generally held the fourth
Saturday of most months at the Central Denver Public
Library, 7th Floor. Membership is open to anyone with
interest in family history and genealogy. Membership
dues for the calendar year are $12 for an individual or
$15 for a family living at the same address. The
W.I.S.E. Family History Society publishes W.I.S.E.
Words four times per year, and a subscription is included with membership dues. Add $5 to the dues if you
want a printed copy of the newsletter mailed to you.
© 2000-2013, W.I.S.E. Family History Society,
P.O. Box 40658, Denver, CO 80204-0658
All rights reserved.
Visit our website at www.wise-fhs.org.
Officers and Board Members
President ..................................................... Barbara Price
........................................................ [email protected]
Vice President ........................................... Sandy Ronayne
Secretary ..........................................................Milly Jones
Treasurer ......................................................Laurie Ramos
Past President .................................. Zoe von Ende Lappin
Membership .................................................... Sandy Breed
Members’ Interest Coordinator ................. Terence Quirke
Publicity Coordinator............................ JoAnn DeFilippo
Archivist ...................................................... Elaine Osborn
CCGS Delegate ............................................... Bill Hughes
Membership Report
—Sandy Breed
Welcome to new members who joined W.I.S.E.
Family History Society recently:
December 2012: Patrick Purcell, Marit Taylor
January 2013: Mary Jo Collins, Gay Greenleaf,
Jennifer L. David, Woody and Ruth Hardman,
Barbara Higgins Metzger, Merle M. Moore
February 2013: Meg and Cathy Moore,
Paul Calhoun, Garth MJ Kendrick,
Patricia and Norman Reisch
In This Issue
Irish Emigrants’ Best Friend; Aristocrat’s Radical
Plan Helped Thousands Get to America................ 19
President’s Message ............................................... 20
Membership Report ................................................ 21
New Country Editor for Ireland ............................. 22
Book Selection Ideas for Donations to
Denver Public Library Needed ............................... 22
Call for Volunteers for the 2013 Colorado Irish
Festival .................................................................... 22
Still Room on Salt Lake City Trip .......................... 22
Webmaster ..................................................... Allan Turner
Research Trip to Allen County Public Library
in Fort Wayne, Indiana .......................................... 22
Newsletter Staff
Annual General Meeting ........................................ 25
Newsletter Editor...................................... Nyla Cartwright
.............................................. [email protected]
Looking for my Great–Grandmother and
Finding Grandma Moses ....................................... 25
Book Review Editor .......................... Zoe von Ende Lappin
Tech Tips Editor .......................................... Linda Pearce
Proofreaders...................... Jack and Zoe von Ende Lappin
Distribution Coordinator.................................. Sue Clasen
Calendar Challenged? Try Regnal Years .............. 27
W.I.S.E. Tech Tips, Spring 2013 ............................ 27
Book Reviews.......................................................... 28
Country Editors
Wales ........................................................ Nancy McCurdy
Ireland ......................................................... Thyria Wilson
Scotland ...................................................... Diane Barbour
Member Profiles ..................................................... 31
W.I.S.E. Program Schedule ................................... 32
England ............................................. Tina Taylor-Francis
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W.I.S.E. Words
New Country Editor for Ireland
Thyria Wilson will be assuming the position of
Ireland editor with the next edition of W.I.S.E.
Words. She has been a member of W.I.S.E since
May of last year and is also a member of DAR.
Tryria has taken bicycle and driving trips through
Ireland and has done research while there.
Her mother researched their family genealogy and
Thyria has followed suit. Beck Archives of Rocky
Mountain Jewish history is her employer where
she is an archivist and reference specialist. Thyria
succeeds Marylee Hagen as the Ireland editor. A
hearty thanks to Marylee for sharing her Irish
knowledge with us during her four years of service
to W.I.S.E.
Book Selection Ideas for Donations
to Denver Public Library Needed
—Nancy Craig
W.I.S.E will be running low on book titles for
DPL donations after the first order is placed within
a few weeks. W.I.S.E. members’ help is being requested. If anyone knows of any books that would
be of value for an addition to the DPL collection,
please submit book selection information (author,
title, and a short synopsis of why DPL should have
the book in its collection) directly to Nancy Craig
at [email protected].
Call for Volunteers for the
2013 Colorado Irish Festival
—Bill Hughes,
The 2013 Colorado Irish Festival will be July
12-14. The festival is being held in Clement Park
at Wadsworth and Bowles, in South Jefferson
County (across from Southwest Plaza Mall).
W.I.S.E. members will be manning the Irish
Genealogy Tent.
Last year over 40,000 people attended and
our booth was crowded all three days. Eighteen
volunteers to share their enthusiasm with the
April, May, June 2013
patrons are needed during the entire weekend. You
do not have to be a professional genealogist in order to volunteer. We have all the books, maps and
other materials. You will get free admission and
you can spend the rest of the day at the festival.
This is fun work.
Keep the dates open. Contact Bill Hughes
303-989-8560, [email protected].
Still Room on Salt Lake City Trip
Our annual research trip to the Family History
Library in Salt Lake City is fast approaching with
the registration deadline March 29. The week’s
visit will be April 14-21. The registration form is
posted on our website, www.WISE-fhs.org.
Our travel agent, Sally Garcia, is taking roommate
requests.
She
can
be
reached
at
[email protected] or 303 234-1040.
Zoe Lappin will answer questions at
[email protected] or 303 322-2544.
Research Trip to Allen County
Public Library in
Fort Wayne, Indiana
—DianeBarbour, PLCGS
Have you always been curious to know what this
library is all about? Allen County Public Library
has one of the largest genealogical research collections available, incorporating records from around
the world. If you are serious about genealogy, you
need to visit.
Broomfield Genealogical Society is sponsoring a
trip September 29 – October 3. It is open to anyone interested in coming with us. Join your fellow
Denver genealogists for a trip to Fort Wayne,
Indiana. Sunday, September 29, starts us off with a
"Meet and Greet" at our hotel. The hotel is the
Courtyard Marriott only blocks from the library.
Rooms are $94 per room, single or double occupancy with two queen size beds. Monday through
Thursday October 3, we will be at the library. Curt
Witcher, the director of the genealogical collection
at the library will be arranging a tour for our
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W.I.S.E. Words
group along with an introduction to the collections. We will also have one class per day offered
to those who are interested. Otherwise, you can
just do your research. I have been told one of the
classes will be on PERSI which stands for the
Periodical Source Index. This library has so much
more then just Midwest resources. Make your own
plane reservations. Room reservations have to be
in by September 8, 2013. Contact Diane Barbour
[email protected] for additional information and the online link to our block of rooms at
the discounted price. Sign up now and get
your spot.
Allen County Public Library view
from Plaza entrance.
Irish Emigrants’ Best Friend
–Continued from page 19
accompanied them to Liverpool to see them safely
on board the ship Constellation for New York.
Girls were the best prospects, he believed, because
they were most likely to fulfill his request and
send money home to rescue their families.
Besides, domestic jobs aplenty awaited them
in New York City.
It soon became apparent that merely getting worthy emigrants aboard the ships wasn’t enough.
There were corrupt shipping agents and ship
captains, dreadful lodging houses, cunning
criminals at the docks in Liverpool, Montreal and
New York. Conditions in North American ports
often were as bad as they were in Liverpool,
and these naïve and sometimes confused
Irish were easy marks for nefarious schemers.
So Foster took it upon himself to assist
with the transportation process, with getting the
emigrants settled in the new world, with finding
them jobs.
April, May, June 2013
He, himself, accompanied a group to New York in
1850 on board the George Washington. He experienced wretched conditions on the crossing, and
became critically ill himself from an injury which
he sustained during a brawl. His letter to his brother describing the misadventure on the George
Washington eventually found its way to
Parliament and, with other mounting evidence,
became instrumental in passing of laws strengthening shipboard requirements in both Britain and
the United States in 1855.
After recovering from his near-death illnesses in
New York, Foster contacted potential employers
and he learned that many were quite willing to
receive respectable young domestics. He arranged
for his agents to meet them as their ships docked.
He circulated a questionnaire among U.S. employers seeking information on wages, cost of
lodging and other factors. He wrote letters to Irish
newspapers, detailing areas in the U.S. where
work was available, cost of living, price of land,
suitable crops and housing. He found a trustworthy
agent in Liverpool who would look after the emigrants before they left. He did all this through two
organizations he founded in the early 1850s,
the Irish Pioneer Immigration Fund and
the Women’s Protective Immigration Society.
Though he was Anglican by religion, he was
ecumenical in outlook and he forbade proselytizing of any kind among the emigrants
he sponsored.
Foster received donations from like-minded landowners and aristocrats in the British Isles. He
made several additional crossings himself, and in
1852 he wrote an illustrated pamphlet that became
his most famous work, Vere Foster’s Penny Emigrant’s Guide. Its proper name was Work and
Wages; or the Penny Emigrants Guide to the United States and Canada. It sold for a penny and its
circulation eventually totaled 100,000 copies. It
provided a vast amount of practical information
such as: Ships tend to stink, so take along some
chloride of lime and “throw some into the closet
now and then, to stop bad smells.”
From time to time, he met resistance such as the
day in 1856 when he arrived on the dock at
Drogheda with 70 emigrants bound for Canada.
He wrote in his diary: “Many farmers were mad
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W.I.S.E. Words
with me for reducing the supply of laborers and
servant girls in Ireland, and complaints were
got up that my intention was to make Protestants
of them, that they were bound for a term of years,
to be sold the ‘blacks,’ to the Mormons, etc.”
Another time, about 20 girls were smuggled
off the ship, City of Mobile, and into the vice
dens of New York declaring they refused to remain any longer under Foster’s care. That was a
major embarrassment.
As the famine eased, the Irish establishment –
landowners and the clergy – complained about a
labor shortage and a decline in church attendance
and blamed Foster. But he kept at it, assisting in
the emigration of thousands who still clamored to
leave Ireland. It came to an end with outbreak of
the American Civil War in 1861 when he felt
it was too dangerous to land people in a land
torn by conflict.
Foster then branched into education, paying
for improvement and construction of about 2,000
schools in Ireland. Next, he concentrated
on improving teaching standards, starting with
penmanship. He wrote several series, the first in
1865, whose title was Vere Foster’s National
Schools Copy Books, shortened to Vere Foster’s
Copy Books. They became standard issue
in Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom.
He branched into technical skills such as drawing,
mechanics, art and even anatomy and business –
192 titles in all. Educators loved him, and in
1868 he founded the Irish National Teachers
Organization. He served as its first president, even
though he was not a teacher. His advocacy of
another radical proposal – guaranteed wages
for teachers, financed by taxation – didn’t sit
well with the powers that be, and his
years as teachers’ champion ended with his resignation in 1873.
However, assisting emigration was never far from
his mind, and he embarked on it again about 1870
with the East London Family Immigration
Scheme, helping several thousands of English emigrate to Canada and Australia. In 1880, when bad
times again plagued Ireland, he reinstated his
scheme over the objections of the radical land reformers who saw Foster’s plan as a British plot to
banish the Irish from Ireland. Still, about 25,000
April, May, June 2013
applied and were accepted in the last 20 years of
the 19th century.
Foster’s great philanthropies meant that his
personal fortune dwindled, but still he worked
for others, notably, raising funds for the
Belfast Royal Hospital. He made his home in
Belfast and died – never having married – in his
lodgings on Great Victoria Street in 1900. The
building is gone but a commemorative plaque was
placed on the Belfast headquarters of the Irish
National Teachers Organization in 2002. It calls
him “educationalist and first president of INTO.”
In 1963, a school was named for him in west
Belfast, but it closed in 2011 because of low enrollment – 31 students. Vere Foster is not a
household name in Belfast or anywhere else in
Ireland anymore. Still, he’s remembered as a
noble man. His grave in Belfast City Cemetery
is well–tended.
Now you’re wondering: How many people did
Foster assist in emigrating? The best guess is
merely thousands. Nobody apparently kept track,
and his biographer, Brendan Colgan, does not
make a guess. Further, you’re asking, where can
we learn the names of the people whom Foster
assisted? Most were women and his logs, if they
exist, could expedite research into those elusive
Irish female ancestors.
Colgan, in his biography of 1999, names only
three ships: Constellation in 1848, precise date
unknown; George Washington arriving in
New York in December 1850; and City of Mobile,
arriving in New York in July 1857. Passenger lists
of all three are posted on www.Ancestry.com
(City of Mobile is listed as Mobile.) Foster himself
is listed in the Ancestry passenger lists as arriving
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25
W.I.S.E. Words
in New York in five different years: 1850, 1853,
1857, 1864 and 1871. It’s not known whether
he accompanied his charges on any or all of
those voyages.
The Foster of Glyde Court estate papers that
are housed at the Public Record Office of Northern
Ireland also might offer clues. Unfortunately, these
have not been digitized and posted online.
NOTE: The principal source for this article was
Brendan
Colgan’s
1999
biography
entitled Vere Foster, English Gentleman, Irish
Champion 1819-1900, published posthumously
by Fountain Publishing in Belfast in 2001.
W.I.S.E. purchased the book for the
Denver Public Library genealogy collection. 
Annual General Meeting
W.I.S.E Family History Society held its general
meeting on January 26, 2013. Barbara Fines Price
and Laurie Ramos were elected president
and
treasurer,
respectively,
succeeding
Zoe Lappin and Nancy Craig, who held their positions for four years each. The membership
accepted the budget prepared by the treasurer and
approved earlier in the day by the W.I.S.E. board
of directors.
New W.I.S.E president, Barbara Fines Price, examines
gavel presented by outgoing president, Zoe Lappin.
Sandy Ronanye, vice president and program chair,
was declared W.I.S.E. Guy of the Year by the outgoing president. Lappin explained that it’s an honor she has bestowed on a member who has given
exceptional personal service to the president, as
April, May, June 2013
well as to the organization, throughout the year.
Previous
selections
were
the
late
Gary Routh, who established the W.I.S.E. website,
for 2009; former editor Judy Phelps, 2010;
and former treasurer and membership chair
Nancy Craig, 2011. 
Looking for My
Great–Grandmother and Finding
Grandma Moses
—Sandy Ronayne
I have searched for pictures and information about
Alpha (also spelled Alfa and Alfarata) Bird,
my great-grandmother, for years. She died
when my grandmother was 17 months old. I felt
a strong connection to her when I first saw her
grave in 2001. In June 2012 while continuing
the search, I made surprising discoveries for
my family tree – Grandma Moses, the famous
American painter, and Archibald Robertson.
Grandma Moses is not my great-grandmother.
Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known
as Grandma Moses, is my 1st cousin 4 times
removed. Our common ancestor is Archibald
Robertson – Anna’s great-grandfather and my 5th
great-grandfather. Archibald Robertson was born
in Scotland in 1748, came to North America as a
young man and served in the Revolutionary War.
At last I had found my Scottish ancestor! I always
knew I had Scottish blood and even wore the
Scotland Forever tartan at my daughter
Lisa’s wedding.
How did I identify Grandma Moses and Archibald
Robertson as part of my family? I was racking
my brain in early June 2011 for the perfect birthday present for my older daughter, Jennifer.
I wanted something that would celebrate her birth
and also the approaching birth of her daughter.
I decided a history of her direct maternal
grandmothers – the women who were a direct line
of daughter to mother to grandmother to
great–grandmother, etc. – would be a meaningful
and longlasting gift.
Although I had only few weeks to complete
the birthday letter, I was determined and wanted
to learn all I could about these remarkable
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W.I.S.E. Words
women who lived their lives without cell phones,
internet, grocery stores, GPS and air conditioning.
Starting with my mother, they were:
Rosemary June Ward (1924-1972), Sally Bell
(1891-1957),
Alpha
Bird
(1864-1892),
Sarah Robertson (1837-1922), Eliza Pratt (18091887) and Ruth Shaw (1779-1840). Ruth Shaw
lived her entire life in New York. Sarah Robertson
and her mother Eliza Pratt were born in New York
and moved to Knox County, Ohio, in 1837. My
mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were
born in Ohio.
Armed with the names of my 19th century maternal
grandmothers, I searched online databases, books
and family Bibles. I reviewed the information in
my genealogy database. I found trying to trace
female ancestors to be very challenging. I did not
find any pictures or stories for these women although there were many things written about their
husbands. However, that changed when I followed
the link for Eliza Pratt on www.findagrave.com
which led me to Jack Robertson, an Ohio genealogist, who has done extensive research on the
Robertson family, including Sarah Robertson, the
mother of Alpha Bird. Jack emailed me pictures,
19th century letters and pedigree charts. From
Jack’s and my research, I have learned:
April, May, June 2013
Eliza Pratt was born in Washington County,
New York, in 1809 to Jesse Pratt and Ruth Shaw.
She married Hezekiah King Robertson in 1836 in
New York and came to Ohio with him.
Russell King Robertson, Hezekiah’s brother,
stayed in New York and was the father of Anna
Mary Robertson – Grandma Moses.
Grandma Moses, right, donating her painting of Battle of
Bennington (where her great– grandfather fought) to DAR in
1953. Source, Library of Congress.
Archibald Robertson was born in Wigton,
West Galloway, Scotland in 1748, came to
North America as a young man, and fought in the
Revolutionary War. He was a member of the
Albany County Militia and a private in the 16th
New York Regiment, under the command of
Captain John Blair. He fought at the battles of
Bennington
and
Saratoga.
He
married
Martha Selfridge, Rebecca Carswell, and
Elizabeth Bishop. He died on June 18, 1814 and is
buried at Old Turnpike Cemetery, Cambridge,
Washington County, New York.
Grandma Moses was an amazing woman.
She was born September 7, 1860 and died
December 13, 1961 at age 101. She was
a renowned American folk artist, who began
her career as a painter in her 70s. She
painted mostly scenes of rural life; her paintings
were used for many holidays, including
Thanksgiving, Christmas and Mother’s Day. She
produced more than 1,600 paintings in three
decades. She was awarded an honorary doctorate,
named Mademoiselle’s Young Woman of the Year
when she was 88. The character of Granny
in the 1960s comedy, The Beverly Hillbillies,
is said to have been named Daisy Moses
in honor of Grandma Moses. She is buried
in Hoosick Falls, New York. In 1969
the U.S. Post Office issued a stamp honoring
Grandma Moses.
Three of Archibald’s grandchildren moved to Ohio
in the 1830s – Hezekiah, Ezra and
Ruhamah. They traveled to Ohio with their families via the Erie Canal across New York and then
by wagon to central Ohio. The brothers settled in
Knox County, Ohio where they had big farms and
large families.
I am proud to be a distant cousin of
Grandma Moses and am inspired by her life. I am
also thrilled to have identified my Scottish ancestor, Archibald Robertson. It’s great when our
research leads to unexpected information.
My search for stories and pictures of
Alpha Bird continues.
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27
W.I.S.E. Words
Calendar Challenged?
Try Regnal Years
—Diane Barbour PLCGS
Along the lines of one of my earlier subjects, I
would like to talk more about calendars. Do you
know what a regnal year is? This is a very ancient
calendar derived centuries ago and continuing to
the recent past. It was used before there was a
Julian or Gregorian calendar. It was very popular
in medieval times. It was used by many nations
and even some popes. Regnal means in the reign
of. So the date came from the year of a given
monarch’s reign.
A new monarch came to the throne upon the death
of a previous monarch. The first day of the new
king’s (or queen’s) reign became the first day of
the first year of his reign. So you might see “3rd
June 13 Charles II.” That would mean the 3rd day
of June in the 13th year of the reign of Charles II.
Some derivations or complications would occur if
the 3rd was written out, not numeric, and the month
numeric and not written out, or it was written in
Latin. The calendar year began on the first day of
the king’s reign and not the 25th of March or the 1st
of January. They are different than the days of a
Julian or Gregorian calendar day. They do not
coincide. A regnal year was one which started on a
given date and concluded on the preceding date
12 calendar months later. So at any given time
you could have two calendars going, maybe more.
And you think modern technology is hard?
King James VI of Scotland gives an example of
this. In the 36th year of his Scottish reign, March
1603 by our calendar, Elizabeth I of England died
leaving the throne to him because he was her closest heir. She never married or had children, and in
March 1603 the crowns were united. James became James I of England and retained the title of
James VI of Scotland. His 36th regnal year in
Scotland and his 1st regnal year in England coincided. The two countries had the same king but he
was in different regnal years in each.
Staying with James in Scotland:
1st regnal year was 24 July 1567 - 23 July 1568.
57th regnal year was 24 July 1623 - 23 July 1624.
April, May, June 2013
Last regnal year was 24 July 1624 – 27
1625.
James in England:
1st regnal was year 24 March 1603 – 23
1604.
22nd regnal year was 24 March 1624 – 23
1625.
Last regnal year was 24 March 1625- 27
1625.
March
March
March
March
Why do we care about all of this? Why not stick to
the Julian or Gregorian calendar and forget it?
Because Acts of Parliament and many charters
were signed in regnal years. Many legal documents were signed in regnal years. I have seen
several Scottish testaments (wills) signed in regnal
years. I have seen some Scottish sasines (land
transfers) that were signed in regnal years. So it
will be noted as day, month, year and monarch’s
name. As a genealogist, you may stumble on this
sometime and it is good to recognize what it
means. Then you can be thankful we have calculators to figure out all of this. I think I would have
run out of fingers and toes in medieval times, trying to make sense of the old calendars.
A good book to consult on this subject is
Scottish Kings; A Revised Chronology of Scottish
History 1005-1625 by Sir Archibald H. Dunbar.
You can read it for free on Internet Archives at
www.archive.org. You can also download
it to your Kindle or other electronic reader or
download it as a PDF file. It also is available on
Google Books to read online or to download
as a PDF. Once in a PDF form you can print a
paper copy for yourself. If you want to forget
all that printing you can buy it on Amazon.com for
$7.50 plus shipping. 
WISE Tech Tips, Spring 2013
—Linda Pearce
Faith and Begorrah, March is the month for St.
Patrick’s Day. Time to update a few of our Irish
genealogy websites. And may the leprechauns be
near you to spread luck along your way!
The 1901 and 1911 Irish Census is available
online at www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ If ancestors emigrated from Ireland in that time, then
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W.I.S.E. Words
this is useful, but considering many Irish left the
island in the 19th century, the census may not be
as useful as a U.S. Census.
Land records have been digitized at
http://www.irishgenealogy.ie. But the main reason
to try this resource is that there are 3 million
searchable church records. Not all parishes are
digitized, indexed, or scanned but if your ancestors
came from one of the areas available (Cork,
Dublin, Kerry, Carlow, Ross with County
Monaghan soon to be added) this resource is great.
Ireland Reaching Out http://www.irelandxo.com/
reverses the genealogical process. Instead of starting with today, parish volunteers look at who left
and where they ended up. Future website plans
include searching for living descendants of Irish
heritage and connecting with them. You must first
register for free to use the resources. At present,
the website seems to be more of a message board
rather than an extensive collection of records that
can be easily searched. Personally, I found the
message board interface to be quite non-intuitive.
To post a message, you have to first know your
ancestor’s parish, and then you must formally join
that parish group, and then use the “Post a Message” link on the right side of the page to get to the
message board. Once you compose your message,
you have to enter a word verification code way at
the bottom of the page. It’s cumbersome. When
someone replies to your post, you receive an email
notification (thank goodness for that!). If you
don’t know your ancestor’s parish, there is a (teeny) search box in the upper right hand corner of
the main page, right next to the (very large) Donate button. It appears that this website search
function is in its infancy – none of the surnames I
entered in the main page search box resulted in
any “hits” even though I know my ancestor’s marriage and death records are in Irish Civil Registration Index. It’s a work in progress.
Now, perhaps your ancestors didn’t come
from Ireland, but rather from England. This
wonderful
resource
lists
Pilgrim
ships
and passengers of the early 1600s: ship names,
dates, and passenger names. http://www.packratpro.com/ships/shipnames.htm This is an awesome
resource, but it is housed on an individual’s own
website, not an institution’s page, so beware, you
April, May, June 2013
know how private party websites have a tendency
to follow the “here today, gone tomorrow” tradition. I would advise jumping onto this site ASAP
and downloading any / all information. You can
search by ship date, ship name or passenger
names. The lists are footnoted and there are embedded links to take you to additional information
about the person, ship or other passengers. It’s a
treasure trove.
Book Reviews
Tear Out My Heart From the Emerald Isle
While the Angels Sing
Robert Scally, The End of Hidden Ireland, Rebellion, Famine and Emigration, Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press, 1996.
True and deep is this story of
modern Ireland; of the perfidy of
the English.
How many books have you
read? How many stories have
you heard passed down from
your ancestors? Do you still feel
uncomfortably distant from the visceral truth?
In Robert Scally’s book, we have the true and deep
story of Ireland in gut-wrenching straightforward
nonfiction. Never before has the depth of Ireland’s
troubles been revealed in such stark facts.
Focusing on the townland of Ballykilcline in
County Roscommon in the west of Ireland, Scally
offers a richly detailed portrait of Irish rural life on
the eve of the most terrible famine winter of
1847–1848 and the destitution of the Catholics.
W.I.S.E. Family History Society donated this book
to the Denver Public Library in 2011.
Why did so many starve? Why didn’t the English
feed them? The pain of death by hunger is severe.
Day after day the body burns in torment.
The starving pray to their Catholic god to let them
faint away only to waken again to the torture of
want that slowly weakens and sickens them.
The English Crown recently has released documents previously hidden from public access,
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W.I.S.E. Words
information about the facts of famine years and of
oppression of Catholics of Ireland. Using these,
Scally has penetrated deeply into the heart of
“hidden Ireland” to produce a work of historical
investigation fused with elegant prose.
In 19th century England, the lords and ladies floated serenely from backyard leisure to evening
splendor shining in the diamonds and silks representing the great Victorian British Empire. They
dined on multiple-course dinners costing more
than the annual wages of one housemaid. Many
Irish tongues palpitated in swollen agony for just
one piece of bread for one day. Lurking under the
Persian rugs of the manor houses and palaces was
the accumulated dirt and dust of a pre-conquest
civilization that was dissolving under the wellheeled feet of the indignant, myopic upper
English classes.
A schoolhouse in Ireland was a wretched building
with holes in the mud walls for windows. The one
room was filled with 30 children in rags all sitting
on the dirt floor for there was only one chair in the
room. The children went home to huts sunk beneath the side of the road, their crooked mud walls
cracked from top to bottom, Soot dripped from
above and moisture oozed from the dirt floor.
The peasant culture and economy were already
doomed before the onset of the Great Famine in
1845. The conquests and confiscations of the 17th
century were traumas on a grand scale that mortally disrupted the upper levels of Catholic and Old
Irish society. Ireland, by design, became more and
more isolated with the Crown at her door and only
the sea behind her.
Learn about the layers of middlemen under the
tenant farmers and how this delicate social norm
kept many from starving in an elaborate barter
system. Scarcity was the main objective reality
these tortured people faced daily. Fatalism, hatred
of vanity, faith in God, furtiveness and combustibility were natural responses that had cultural
roots in the deep past.
For the generation before the Great Famine, the
pressure on peasant resources to assure food and
shelter were the most intense in recent history.
Overpopulation, subdivision of farms, falling prices, lean years, debt and rising evictions, ruinous
April, May, June 2013
poverty, all heightened the uncertainty. The ultimate shame of beggary, which many would soon
experience, loomed larger each year. Conflicts
within the peasantry were all about food and therefore about land. Conflicts with the Crown were
about food, land, religion and dignity.
If rents could not be paid in cash, they were paid
in a family’s chickens or cows, thus leaving the
family to find other means to attain food. Cabins
of dwellers who could not pay rent were leveled,
thus leaving the family to find shelter in ditch huts
in hillsides. After two years of severe famine on
one formerly congested estate, only one tenant, his
wife and one child remained. Five of his six children had died of starvation and disease.
Learn about the Penal Law, which targeted the
Catholics and prohibited education and owning
land. Learn what happened to those souls who remained after Parliament cleared the land of its
people.
In town squares, families gathered to say their
goodbyes to their loved ones who would walk the
long roads in hopes of embarking on a ship to
America. The wailing and keening made a horrible
sound. It is said that the souls of the departed Irish
can be heard singing in the rivers of Ireland today.
It is said that Irish people who have watery dreams
are dreams of the Irish soul wanting to go back to
Ireland, to cross the great sea again. There is no
place like home.
—Nancy McCurdy
Thrifty Irish Left a Rich Trail
in NYC
Kevin J. Rich, Irish Immigrants of the Emigrant
Industrial Savings Bank, 3 volumes, Massapequa,
New York: Broadway-Manhattan Co., 2001.
Our Irish ancestors, as everyone knows, were resourceful
characters who not only emigrated by the millions,
but thrived in America.
Many are hard to trace, and
among the most difficult
are the thousands who left during and shortly after the Great Famine of 18451851, especially women.
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W.I.S.E. Words
A great many of these Irish men and women started in New York City where they banded together,
took menial jobs and saved their money. They sent
much of it back home to finance the immigration
of family members, saved some for their own
moves into the hinterland and kept it for a rainy
day. The preponderance of the single women
among them were domestic servants.
At mid-century, John Hughes, the Catholic bishop
of New York, persuaded the Irish Emigrant
Society, mostly Irish-born New Yorkers active in
the city’s commercial life, to organize a savings
bank for the Irish community. Thus was born the
Emigrant Savings Bank in 1850.
Thousands of Irish – and members of other nationalities – opened accounts at the bank, and when
they did, they left mini-biographies, wonderful
details of their lives that genealogists love. The
records were preserved and microfilmed several
years ago. The Denver Public Library owns a set
of these 23 reels, which are not easy to use. A few
years ago a New Yorker with Irish ancestry, Kevin
J. Rich, has taken up the cause of researchers everywhere and has produced a marvelous index – it’s
way more than an index – the current three volumes of which recently were added to the DPL
genealogy collection. They were a 2012 gift
from W.I.S.E.
The records are presented in chronological order.
Each volume has an index to depositors and the
second two include indexes to relatives named in
the savers’ records, such as parents. Thousands of
Irish women opened accounts under their maiden
names before they married.
The records in these three volumes start in
September 1850 and the last, number 12,482, is
dated September 4, 1856. They extend to about
1886, but the later years have limited genealogical
value. However, a fourth volume is in the works.
Here’s what you’ll learn about each depositor, assuming he or she provided the information requested: Date of deposit, name of account holder,
names of two relatives with relationship indicated,
occupation, address in America (not necessarily
New York City), birthplace – actual name of the
county in Ireland – name of ship and date of arrival, birthplace down to such detail as
April, May, June 2013
“Summerhill, 2½ miles from Roscrea, Kings
County, Ireland”; and family data, like this: “father dead, Martin; mother in NY Johanna
[Cronin]; 2 brothers, Pat in NY, Denis in RI; two
sisters in NY, Mary and Bridget; is single.” Unfortunately, we do not know the amount of
any deposits.
Personally, I became interested in the Emigrant
Savings Bank when my research revealed that a
17-year-old member of my Irish family, Julia
Newcomb, had immigrated before 1850, apparently by herself. She joined her older sister
Catherine in New York, and their siblings came in
chain migration until 1853. Family stories have it
that for at least 10 years, Julia was a domestic
servant in New York City – as were millions of
Irish girls – meaning the Emigrant Savings Bank
records were an obvious place to check. I had
guessed that Julia was the young woman named
Julia Newcome who arrived in New York on the
ship Independence from Liverpool on June 28,
1845, but had no proof.
When I checked the Newcomb surname, I came up
with several, including Julia and her brother
Thomas making deposits in 1854. There was nothing for Catherine. Julia’s biographical information
fit almost exactly with what I already knew about
her. Most importantly, it confirmed that it was she
on the Independence in 1845, and that she was a
domestic servant. Since I now know where she
lived in Manhattan in 1854, I might be able to
trace the address to learn the name of her employer. Thomas’ savings bank record, too, verifies
much of what I knew about him, but he’d forgotten when he’d immigrated – as so many immigrants did. He got the ship’s name right, but the
date wrong, and I know that because I have a photocopy of the manifest that lists him and some siblings. Let that be a caution.
I checked my other surnames, and came up with
several enticing clues, but nothing definite. But I
did delight in the details in these records, and I
recommend that any researcher – especially
W.I.S.E. members – whose folks were in
New York City even briefly in the 1850s should
check them.
— Zoe von Ende Lappin
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W.I.S.E. Words
April, May, June 2013
Member Profiles
Susan Clausen, better
known as Sue, has been
the W.I.S.E Words distributor for two years.
She joined W.I.S.E three
years ago in search
of support in finding
her almost exclusively
English / Scottish ancestors, many lines of which came across the pond by
1640. She had a casual interest in genealogy since
about 1963 when she received manuscripts on two
of her maternal grandfathers' family lines,
researched for over 50 years by a grand–uncle.
One branch included Stephen Grover Cleveland,
but what really got her interested was tracing
the family back to 1610 in England to a
Solomon Leonard.
She could not spend serious time on family history
until getting her two sons through college, retiring
from the federal government and moving to the
Denver area in 2008. She was able to link
Solomon to the Mayflower and is now a
Mayflower Society member. She is a firm believer
in visiting the area where ancestors lived and spent
two weeks in September in Massachusetts and
Connecticut. She just returned from a week at the
New England Historic Genealogical Society
Library. She has been able to flesh out surnames
of Bennett, Chilton, Corse, Hathaway, Higby,
Leonard, Munn, Nash, Nims and Wells families
from herself back to the Old Country as a result of
these travels. Ancestry.com and Denver Public
Library were also a great help.
Sue is also seriously involved in her church's social concerns ministry, United Methodist Women
both locally and at the district level, and the Board
of Global Missions of the Rocky Mountain
Conference of the Methodist Church. She sings in
two choirs and is an avid birder, which adds to any
travels she does. Birding and genealogy work
great together. She looks forward to a trip to Peru
this summer – no relatives there that she knows of.

Bill
Hughes’
interest
in genealogy began 10
years ago after all his older
relatives had passed away
and Bill picked up the
mantle of family historian.
He began his search by
contacting every Hughes in
up–state New York until he
found a 98-year-old relative who had an interest in
family history. She passed away within six months
but she shared much of what she knew. He has
since researched and reconstructed his family histories in Potsdam, New York; St Louis, and in
Donavon County, Kansas. He has traced the Prussian (Peskier) and Scottish (Clark) sides back
to the villages of origin, but he is having trouble
locating the origin of the Irish (Cullen, Hughes)
branches.
Bill is a trained architect with masters in
city planning and in urban design and loves studying history and walking the streets and villages
where his ancestors walked and lived.
Bill absorbs the history and architectural character
of the places along with the family history. He
has been to Ireland, Potsdam and Scotland several
times and experienced the culture, architecture
and cemeteries of his ancestors.
In his business life Bill worked for several consulting firms and city planning agencies, and he
is now a self–employed Urban Planner and
Commercial Realtor with an interest in the
architecture and history of the properties he
works with. Bill's wife, Maria, is an architectural
renderer and shares his passion for experiencing
the history and architectural character of the places
they visit.
Bill recenty began serving in the capacity as the
W.I.S.E delegate to the Colorado Council of
Genealogical Societies (CCGS).
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W.I.S.E. Words
April, May, June 2013
W.I.S.E. Program Schedule
23 March 2013
1:30 p.m.
Scots-Irish Research
John Mears
Denver Public Library John will discuss Scots-Irish (also known as Ulster Irish) immigration from the 1600s
to the 1800s and associated research techniques. 
7th Floor
14-21 April 2013
Family History Library
Salt Lake City
27 April 2013
1:30 p.m.
Denver Public Library
7th Floor
Annual Research Trip
W.I.S.E Members and Guests
Please see details about joining the research group on page 22 
Outrageous Molly Brown
Janet Kalstrom
Janet will provide an interpretation of Margaret (Molly) Brown that will include information on her Irish heritage. She will be dressed as Molly. Janet will also talk
about the Titantic and will answer questions.
British Isles Immigration Through Ellis Island
Zoe Lappin
18 May 2013
By the time Ellis Island opened in 1892, immigration from British Isles had been become a trickle. However, like the millions who came before them, those British and
Irish immigrants had stores to tell, and these were collected with many others by
Denver Public Library
National Park Service oral historians during the 1990s. Zoe Lappin, former W.I.S.E
president, will share some of these interviews and describe Ellis Island records.
7th Floor
Please become familiar with the Ellis Island website www.ellisisland.org ahead of
the meeting. Note the one–time date change to the third Saturday of the month.
1:30 p.m.
www.wise-fhs.org