Hello again, I do not know if anyone else has taken on such an extreme effort as Mr. Wrin has with his indexing of this large collection that he inherited from his family that is noted in the book, "Irish Californians: Historic, Benevolent, Romantic" by Patrick J. Dowling. He is descended from Captain Michael J. Wrin (1837-1903) who was the founder of many many societies in San Francisco. The indexes the Mr. Wrin now has are all from this time period basically (some go up to 1906). He is still entering data into the database as he apparently has a massive collection. You can find out all you want about his project by visiting: http://www.wrindex.com - it has a list of the various societies (32 pages printed out!). This is especially valuable for me as persons that you tend to find in these indexes may appear numerous times as is the case of my great granduncle and great grandfather, John and James W. O'Donnell. They were both in the same societies and it is especially interesting to compare the two and you can see how they were at the same events together and the like. In the obituary of John T. O'Donnell, it specifically mentions his activity in YMI, a Irish Young Men's Chrisitian Institute apparently. It is like taking a look back in time to see what they were actually doing on a specific date! Here are samples of the index that I have scanned in from my own printouts: http://www.geocities.com/sfodonnell_2000/john1.jpg http://www.geocities.com/sfodonnell_2000/john2.jpg http://www.geocities.com/sfodonnell_2000/jw1.jpg If you look you can see how the two brothers were both involved (seeming quite heaving) and were both at these events at the same time in commensurate types of positions many of the times. Both of them were bookkeepers and they were both in the same positions frequently of "Finance Comm", "Treasurer", etc. So, if you happen to think that one of your O'Donnells was in San Francisco during this time and they were in any of these societies, I may have a record of them. However, although the index has 1,200 O'Donnells listed, many are indeed the same person from one year to the next as you can tell by viewing the records. I find this to be a fascinating and especially tool for me anyway (quite unexpected). If anyone else out there has such documents in their possession, I should hope they would try to do as Mr. Wrin is now doing. I hope this answers the questions regarding this index (the samples above pretty much tell the story). The codes for the societies can be found with their description here: http://www.wrindex.com/typesocieties.htm Regards once again to everyone, Sue O'Donnell >From: Kathleen <kgrone@yahoo.com> >To: ODONNELL-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: Irish Societies >Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 16:06:04 -0700 (PDT) > >Hello O'Donnell cousins, > >What are the names of some of the Irish societies. On the info about my >ggreatgrandfather- Michael and his son James both were members of the >Benevolent Society of the Elks and "other Irish societies". One mentioned >was >the "Finnians"? or something like that. Are they Irish society lists for >other >areas? > >Thank you for your time! > >Blessings, Kathleen > >===== >"The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears." >Cherokee > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. >http://personals.yahoo.com > > >============================== >Visit Ancestry.com for a FREE 14-Day Trial and enjoy access to the #1 >Source for Family History Online. Go to: >http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=702&sourceid=1237 > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp