Ed, What wonderful information. Is that information only available in person or can I write or phone the Massachusetts Archives? Thank you so much for your hard work. Loretta McDermott McGinn (Shea-Sullivan-McCarthy-Driscoll-Kearney) In a message dated 3/21/2015 7:44:43 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, beara@rootsweb.com writes: Ed, this is fascinating and important information. Well done. Keep posting your results, please. Quin Shea For those of you with Beara roots whose ancestors came to live in Fall River, Massachusetts, I say you have plenty of company. I spent a day at the Massachusetts archives in Boston last week and discovered a trove of Beara men. The archive has microfilmed the naturalization applications for the latter part of the 1800’s. The applications were only from men. The applicants listed their birthday, current address, day and place they came to the US, their age and the age they were when they immigrated. I spent a day going through the first films available from the 2nd District Court of Fall River. I covered only the years 1886 to 1890. The results were astounding to me. Although I did not keep track of the total number of applications I looked at during these four years I found 30 individuals who claimed the Beara as home. They noted their homes as Bearahaven, Bar Haven, Bear Haven, Castletownbere, Airies Cork, and many other variations, but from the Beara in any case. I did keep track of the number of some surnames in total and found for instance that 88% of the Sullivan applicants for those 4 years (17 total) were from the Beara. 80% (5 total) of all the Harringtons were from the Beara. All of the Leary’s (4) and all of the Shays/Sheas (4). There was also a Sheehan, Toomey and a Foley from the Beara. If you consider the percentages of surnames etc in the naturalization records represent a good sampling of the families in the city at this time, you have many Beara familes there. There were 574 Sullivans listed in the 1890 Fall River City Directory. We can estimate 505 of them were from the Beara. Harringtons, Sheas, Learys, Murphys, Toomey and more area living side by side in these old records, working in this center of the industrial revolution in textile manufacturing. I have been working with the census and immigration manifests to assemble these family groups. Next step will be to match them to their homes using Riobard’s work. Although tedious, with the records now available you can project that someday we will be able to make many connections from this popular center of 1800’s employment in Massachusetts back to the Beara in Ireland. Regards ED FOLEY ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BEARA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message -----Original Message----- From: EFoley1 <EFoley1@aol.com> To: beara <beara@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sun, Jan 29, 2012 10:34 am Subject: [BEARA] Beara familes in Fall River For those of you with Beara roots whose ancestors came to live in Fall River, Massachusetts, I say you have plenty of company. I spent a day at the Massachusetts archives in Boston last week and discovered a trove of Beara men. The archive has microfilmed the naturalization applications for the latter part of the 1800’s. The applications were only from men. The applicants listed their birthday, current address, day and place they came to the US, their age and the age they were when they immigrated. I spent a day going through the first films available from the 2nd District Court of Fall River. I covered only the years 1886 to 1890. The results were astounding to me. Although I did not keep track of the total number of applications I looked at during these four years I found 30 individuals who claimed the Beara as home. They noted their homes as Bearahaven, Bar Haven, Bear Haven, Castletownbere, Airies Cork, and many other variations, but from the Beara in any case. I did keep track of the number of some surnames in total and found for instance that 88% of the Sullivan applicants for those 4 years (17 total) were from the Beara. 80% (5 total) of all the Harringtons were from the Beara. All of the Leary’s (4) and all of the Shays/Sheas (4). There was also a Sheehan, Toomey and a Foley from the Beara. If you consider the percentages of surnames etc in the naturalization records represent a good sampling of the families in the city at this time, you have many Beara familes there. There were 574 Sullivans listed in the 1890 Fall River City Directory. We can estimate 505 of them were from the Beara. Harringtons, Sheas, Learys, Murphys, Toomey and more area living side by side in these old records, working in this center of the industrial revolution in textile manufacturing. I have been working with the census and immigration manifests to assemble these family groups. Next step will be to match them to their homes using Riobard’s work. Although tedious, with the records now available you can project that someday we will be able to make many connections from this popular center of 1800’s employment in Massachusetts back to the Beara in Ireland. Regards ED FOLEY ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BEARA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BEARA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message