G'day Susan, At 16:33 30/12/04 -0500, "Rick and Susan" <rickandsusan@swva.net> wrote: >Thank you for the most entertaining post I've read in a while, LOL >Susan in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia Thank you. And yes I think I am supposedly "in charge" of this list in some way but I do not (yet) have a clue what to do. I'm fairly experienced in running mailing lists, but my experience relates to the Yahoo ones and various older types. It's just that I don't yet understand the Rootsweb ones properly and have no experience per se of them. I don't even know what URL to go to for one's own list. Or is there an URL? Can anyone tell me that? I'm of largely-celtic ancestry I think, and so am interested in these things. There are at least half a dozen diffent (clan and even spurious) origins of the Burns/Byrnes surname. But I think everyone generally agrees that they are at root a celtic crowd. Masses and masses of them emigated to Blue Ridge type places and became the so-called "Hillbillies". There's much resemblance in early Irish-type folk music between colonial Aus, eastern USA mountains country (Appalachia?) and Eire itself. On my mother's side I also have a major German element ("Steiner" surname) but I have not traced that beyond that fact that it came from "Germany". On my father's side we are a family that cannot trace (on surname side anyway) more than 200 years of history (virtually the Aus part only) because of the state of records in Ireland .. they managed unfortunately to set fire to them in the final semi-successful revolt in Dublin in the early 1900s (around WWI time). My family comes from David Burns (a patriot/rebel[?probably/?possibly] but who also was in the government militia [?maybe drafted, maybe freely enlisted - nobody knows] from which he deserted) exiled from Ireland as political prisioner after the 1798 war of independence (in which the native side of the Irish were rapidly crushed by vast English military superiority .. as you probably know). His wife, from whom he was separated of course when transported, wrote to the then Lord Lieutenant in Ireland saying that he was really highly faithful to the English overlords and should be set free so that he could help her and the six children escape starvation or the poorhouse or whatever might befall them without a provider. But in Dublin in 1798 he was given a life sentence and was thereafter sent here on the ship "Friendship" which carried a load of political prisioners being sent out of Ireland. Here David married another convict by the name of Ann Reffin, who was from England (Leicestershire Wolds south of Nottingham). That's my family history in a nutshell and there is more about Ann Reffin (my results of trying to backtrack in that direction) viewable at http://www.geocities.com/doctorjohn72/reffin.htm There you can see that the town where she was baptised, Walton on the Wolds, is very nicely preserved. Please send along any URLs of any websites you know about by Burns/Byrnes, especially if of a family history or general historical flavour ... Perhaps could make a compilation of those .. Or has somebody done that already? Happy New Year, John Byrnes (Sydney, Australia)

John, The records do survive in the local churches if you have any idea where to look. Only the documents held at the main Irish records Office were destroyed in the fire of 192? but slowly records in private hands that did survive are being used to reconstruct what they can. So no not everything is lost in Ireland. As for the variants in the surname one should consider BURN also which is the Scottish/ Northern English original spelling. The S being added at a later time. Rob Burns ----- Original Message ----- From: "John" <john.mail@ozemail.com.au> To: <BURNS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2005 1:13 AM Subject: Re: [BURNS] One of possibly the greater byrnes tribe is bouncing > > > G'day Susan, > > > At 16:33 30/12/04 -0500, "Rick and Susan" <rickandsusan@swva.net> > wrote: > > >Thank you for the most entertaining post I've read in a while, LOL > >Susan in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia > > > Thank you. And yes I think I am supposedly "in charge" of this list in > some way but I do not (yet) have a clue what to do. I'm fairly experienced > in running mailing lists, but my experience relates to the Yahoo ones and > various older types. > > It's just that I don't yet understand the Rootsweb ones properly and have > no experience per se of them. > > I don't even know what URL to go to for one's own list. Or is there an > URL? Can anyone tell me that? > > I'm of largely-celtic ancestry I think, and so am interested in these things. > > There are at least half a dozen diffent (clan and even spurious) origins of > the Burns/Byrnes surname. But I think everyone generally agrees that they > are at root a celtic crowd. > > Masses and masses of them emigated to Blue Ridge type places and became the > so-called "Hillbillies". There's much resemblance in early Irish-type folk > music between colonial Aus, eastern USA mountains country (Appalachia?) and > Eire itself. > > On my mother's side I also have a major German element ("Steiner" surname) > but I have not traced that beyond that fact that it came from "Germany". > > On my father's side we are a family that cannot trace (on surname side > anyway) more than 200 years of history (virtually the Aus part only) > because of the state of records in Ireland .. they managed unfortunately to > set fire to them in the final semi-successful revolt in Dublin in the early > 1900s (around WWI time). > > My family comes from David Burns (a patriot/rebel[?probably/?possibly] but > who also was in the government militia [?maybe drafted, maybe freely > enlisted - nobody knows] from which he deserted) exiled from Ireland as > political prisioner after the 1798 war of independence (in which the native > side of the Irish were rapidly crushed by vast English military superiority > .. as you probably know). His wife, from whom he was separated of course > when transported, wrote to the then Lord Lieutenant in Ireland saying that > he was really highly faithful to the English overlords and should be set > free so that he could help her and the six children escape starvation or > the poorhouse or whatever might befall them without a provider. But in > Dublin in 1798 he was given a life sentence and was thereafter sent here on > the ship "Friendship" which carried a load of political prisioners being > sent out of Ireland. > > Here David married another convict by the name of Ann Reffin, who was from > England (Leicestershire Wolds south of Nottingham). > > That's my family history in a nutshell and there is more about Ann Reffin > (my results of trying to backtrack in that direction) viewable at > http://www.geocities.com/doctorjohn72/reffin.htm > > There you can see that the town where she was baptised, Walton on the > Wolds, is very nicely preserved. > > Please send along any URLs of any websites you know about by Burns/Byrnes, > especially if of a family history or general historical flavour ... Perhaps > could make a compilation of those .. Or has somebody done that already? > > > Happy New Year, > > > > John Byrnes > > (Sydney, Australia) > > > > > ============================== > New! Family Tree Maker 2005. Build your tree and search for your ancestors at the same time. Share your tree with family and friends. Learn more: http://landing.ancestry.com/familytreemaker/2005/tour.aspx?sourceid=14599&targetid=5429 >

Thanks Rob, At 01:09 01/01/05 -0000, "rob" <madbadrob@robburns.wanadoo.co.uk> wrote: >John, >The records do survive in the local churches if you have any idea where to >look. Only the documents held at the main Irish records Office were >destroyed in the fire of 192? but slowly records in private hands that did >survive are being used to reconstruct what they can. So no not everything >is lost in Ireland. Yes, I realise that, and many people have found their records still in local parishes. But it is a BIG search to find the right parish "cold", first off. The flax producers index, of all who got a flax subsidy, sometimes can narrow it down a bit. My "Burns" has an induction date into the Londonderry Militia which is preserved. This *may* mean that he was a Burns from the North (Ulster). But on the other hand, the time when he was inducted/enrolled (and the roll still survives in UK archives) was 23 April 1795 and other data shows that the Londonderry Militia at that time was at Carrick on Shannon (in central Ireland) and at the time there was major uprising of the Catholic rural people and a famous battle/skirmish occurred at a bridge over the Shannon just a little east of Carrick. So it could be that the military immediately inducted reinforcements then from the local population. And if the family were from thereabouts then statistically they would most likely have been of the O'Beirne clan, quite distinct from the O'Byrne further east. The British indiscriminately spelled them all as Burns/Byrnes at the whim/knowledge of individual clerks, and the ancestors themselves could none-of-them write their own names or records. So the field is just too wide .. could be anywhere in northern or central Ireland I think, and the number of parishes is large (also the parishes are different within the different religious denominations as well). Maybe somebody someday will track down records but there is no simple way to jump back into Ireland's history and find a lost relative it seems(?).... esp. considering that in transportation to Australia NONE of the paperwork was sent with the prisoners. >As for the variants in the surname one should consider BURN also which is >the Scottish/Northern English original spelling. The S being added at a >later time. The muster roll for the Militia states "David Burns .. deserted" so we think he had an "S". A legal document about his in 1805 stated "David Burn" and when he sought a land grant for a farm, after conditional pardon, in 1820, the official memo (Memorial) stated "David Burne" but for the most part the few sparse colonial records put an "S" on the name. But the spellings of all Burn(s)/Byrne(s) in colonial Australian records are highly erratic. You cannot really generalise that there's much system to it here (the spelllings), I don't think. My family does in fact have much Scottish/Northern English flavour too but I think that possibly just comes in later because my closer ancestors married Scottish or norhern English women (of the families Gibson and Graham, which families tended to range northeasterly across the Scottish lowlands and norther England I understand). They fact that at least two times Scottish-background women married into the family here possibly does suggest an inherent "liking"/fondness for the Scots(?); and maybe, just maybe, this could favour an Ulster area family origin back in the 1700s ---- but this is just very weak suspicion/speculation on my part. I don't really expect to see the 'problem' of our family's geographic origin solved on the celtic side ;-) Cheers, John