Hi Julie, I question what the various censuses actually say regarding his birth place. "N Ireland" -- if you mean "Northern Ireland" didn't exist till 1922. It's remotely possible that 'the north of Ireland' was indicated in all those censues, but I question it. It's very common for ages to differ in the censuses and with other sources. Learning to deal with this is a common topic in genealogy lectures, articles, etc....I can't digest all that stuff here.... It's not even surprising that they differ.... It would be surprising if they didnt. > His naturalization papers state he arrived at the Port of >New York on 15 July 1886 -- he's not on any immigration list anywhere, even on >boats that arrived on that date. I checked the Canadian lists, thinking he The only way to find this is to search the ship lists of all ships arriving on that date sequentially. They are not indexed. If you pick up a book like "The Source" it will tell you what is indexed and what is not. As I said in an earlier post, the New York ship lists aren't all indexed. If you don't find him on THAT date, then you search several days before and after. It's tedious work. I've done it at an LDS library that had all the film there. This helped for speed and cost. I do not think Ancestry has 1886 indexed yet, but it is not difficult to tell.... >might have snuck over the border and also checked Baltimore, Gulf Coasts, >Philadelphia and San Francisco as well as checked into Australia in case he went >their first in chains. Nada. Nowhere. Maybe he rowed across. Again, unless you've checked the actual ship lists for these ports, you've not checked them. A few may be indexed -- I gave the (free) source I use a lot in a prior email. Most at your date won't be because of the volumes of ships arriving and the lack of volunteers to do the indexing <grin>. Not sure at all about how many of the Aussie arrivals are indexed but I would expect that they are not. A thorough search of the New York arrivals using microfilm of the actual ship lists is in order. If you did this, I'd do or have it done again, being careful to look for funny spellings. Indexes are always wrong at least 10% of the time. With the exact date, you should be checking the actual records, even if your search of an index has been negative. You cannot assume his religion by his surname. People change their religion all the time -- as you know <Grin>. >I can't start writing away for church records when I have no idea where to >look. Any guidance/thoughts will be much appreciated. My advice is to spend some time learning a bit more about him in the USA. I would (and while I do genealogy professionally, I still do this myself ALL THE TIME) re-read information in "The Source" and other important genealogy books on American ship lists and censuses. I would review all the data that you have. I would obtain obits. I would research all his children and get their death info, looking for additional clues. I would follow up on occupation related clues. I would then do a search again for the place in Ireland using reputable gazetteers. I would arm myself with some additional knowledge about Irish placenames, re-reading articles. I would re read my reference material on Ireland and make a list of the types of records that exist and that might help me find th is man in his time frame. I would then attempt to locate him in those surviving records. In doing this you will learn a lot, as I do every time I do it, that will help you. I am very curious as to where you think you will write for Irish Church Records. There really is not a single place to write. They are not agregated in any one spot. If you doubt what I say consult Ryan "Irish Records". You will see that many church records are still locally held. Many are aggregated by county. There are 32 counties in Ireland. So you can pay to have a search done of indexes for records that are indexed -- 32 times. You may find civil registration a better option. The biggest problem we all face with finding our ancestors is that we don't know how. We believe we do, but we don't. We don't bother to learn how the experts have gone about doing the research. We think that we can make do on the INternet though we don't know if records have ever existed that could be indexed and put on the internet (ie pre 1820 ship lists). So of course we can't succeed, even with 'easy' cases, let along hard ones. It's even possible that your family research has been completed by a cousin who published the research in a genealogy magazine. Have you checked PERSI? There are great free courses on how to do immigration research at www.genealogy.com/university.html . I got books I paid for that are not as good as these or as easy to use. When I start out with one of these, I review ALL the info and as I do so, I write down ideas of things to follow up on. If the information is not primary, I check the original. Ie I would be very surprised if every single census and document listed a country that didn't exist as his origin and birthplace. Could be (I've seen stranger <grin>) but you must check. Possibly there is a clue somewhere in these records. Finding that they all do say "North of Ireland" itself is a clue. Then you review the ideas you wrote down and you make a list. You go over the sources as I mentioned. There are some things that can be very difficult to follow up on. Others are easy. You start with the easy and methodically pursue them.At each step you consult reference books. You do this even when you use the INternet. Too many people use Ancestry and have not got an idea at all of what percentage of existing records are indexed in Ancestry. Thus they cannot possibly evaluate a negative result. They also can't then go find the rest of the records. When it comes to Irish research, due to records destruction and to records that were never recorded in the first place, one of the experts said in a lecture I heard that you need to spend a third of your time learning what records exist, a third figuring out how to get those records, and only a third looking at the records. He's right. So if we aren't doing all that reference work, it is hardly surprising that we can't get results. If the experts need to work this hard, you can bet the rest of us must work even harder. As we move earlier in time in Ireland, the records situation, which in the mid 1800s is different from the USAs (meaning we must learn how to do it or we screw up), gets far worse. In fact often in Irish genealogy classes, one is told it is not possible to do Irish genealogy before about 1820 unless you descend from the aristocracy. That's often not true but it is hard and requires a lot of effort. Best of luck!! Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net

Thanks, Linda, for all of the great information that you always so willingly provide! I have not spent any time yet looking in Ireland, but I am discouraged before I begin since my Irish or Scotch-Irish ancestors came to the US in the very early 1800s - and they have names like Johnson/Johnston, McGuire and MacDonald!! I'm thinking the best I might be able to do is learn as much as possible about the areas they came from and leave the lives of those before to my imagination. Tracy -----Original Message----- From: Linda Merle [mailto:merle@mail.fea.net] Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 11:50 AM To: Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [Sc-Ir] Another elusive Scots-Irish Hi Julie, I question what the various censuses actually say regarding his birth place. "N Ireland" -- if you mean "Northern Ireland" didn't exist till 1922. It's remotely possible that 'the north of Ireland' was indicated in all those censues, but I question it. It's very common for ages to differ in the censuses and with other sources. Learning to deal with this is a common topic in genealogy lectures, articles, etc....I can't digest all that stuff here.... It's not even surprising that they differ.... It would be surprising if they didnt. > His naturalization papers state he arrived at the Port of >New York on 15 July 1886 -- he's not on any immigration list anywhere, even on >boats that arrived on that date. I checked the Canadian lists, thinking he The only way to find this is to search the ship lists of all ships arriving on that date sequentially. They are not indexed. If you pick up a book like "The Source" it will tell you what is indexed and what is not. As I said in an earlier post, the New York ship lists aren't all indexed. If you don't find him on THAT date, then you search several days before and after. It's tedious work. I've done it at an LDS library that had all the film there. This helped for speed and cost. I do not think Ancestry has 1886 indexed yet, but it is not difficult to tell.... >might have snuck over the border and also checked Baltimore, Gulf Coasts, >Philadelphia and San Francisco as well as checked into Australia in case he went >their first in chains. Nada. Nowhere. Maybe he rowed across. Again, unless you've checked the actual ship lists for these ports, you've not checked them. A few may be indexed -- I gave the (free) source I use a lot in a prior email. Most at your date won't be because of the volumes of ships arriving and the lack of volunteers to do the indexing <grin>. Not sure at all about how many of the Aussie arrivals are indexed but I would expect that they are not. A thorough search of the New York arrivals using microfilm of the actual ship lists is in order. If you did this, I'd do or have it done again, being careful to look for funny spellings. Indexes are always wrong at least 10% of the time. With the exact date, you should be checking the actual records, even if your search of an index has been negative. You cannot assume his religion by his surname. People change their religion all the time -- as you know <Grin>. >I can't start writing away for church records when I have no idea where to >look. Any guidance/thoughts will be much appreciated. My advice is to spend some time learning a bit more about him in the USA. I would (and while I do genealogy professionally, I still do this myself ALL THE TIME) re-read information in "The Source" and other important genealogy books on American ship lists and censuses. I would review all the data that you have. I would obtain obits. I would research all his children and get their death info, looking for additional clues. I would follow up on occupation related clues. I would then do a search again for the place in Ireland using reputable gazetteers. I would arm myself with some additional knowledge about Irish placenames, re-reading articles. I would re read my reference material on Ireland and make a list of the types of records that exist and that might help me find th is man in his time frame. I would then attempt to locate him in those surviving records. In doing this you will learn a lot, as I do every time I do it, that will help you. I am very curious as to where you think you will write for Irish Church Records. There really is not a single place to write. They are not agregated in any one spot. If you doubt what I say consult Ryan "Irish Records". You will see that many church records are still locally held. Many are aggregated by county. There are 32 counties in Ireland. So you can pay to have a search done of indexes for records that are indexed -- 32 times. You may find civil registration a better option. The biggest problem we all face with finding our ancestors is that we don't know how. We believe we do, but we don't. We don't bother to learn how the experts have gone about doing the research. We think that we can make do on the INternet though we don't know if records have ever existed that could be indexed and put on the internet (ie pre 1820 ship lists). So of course we can't succeed, even with 'easy' cases, let along hard ones. It's even possible that your family research has been completed by a cousin who published the research in a genealogy magazine. Have you checked PERSI? There are great free courses on how to do immigration research at www.genealogy.com/university.html . I got books I paid for that are not as good as these or as easy to use. When I start out with one of these, I review ALL the info and as I do so, I write down ideas of things to follow up on. If the information is not primary, I check the original. Ie I would be very surprised if every single census and document listed a country that didn't exist as his origin and birthplace. Could be (I've seen stranger <grin>) but you must check. Possibly there is a clue somewhere in these records. Finding that they all do say "North of Ireland" itself is a clue. Then you review the ideas you wrote down and you make a list. You go over the sources as I mentioned. There are some things that can be very difficult to follow up on. Others are easy. You start with the easy and methodically pursue them.At each step you consult reference books. You do this even when you use the INternet. Too many people use Ancestry and have not got an idea at all of what percentage of existing records are indexed in Ancestry. Thus they cannot possibly evaluate a negative result. They also can't then go find the rest of the records. When it comes to Irish research, due to records destruction and to records that were never recorded in the first place, one of the experts said in a lecture I heard that you need to spend a third of your time learning what records exist, a third figuring out how to get those records, and only a third looking at the records. He's right. So if we aren't doing all that reference work, it is hardly surprising that we can't get results. If the experts need to work this hard, you can bet the rest of us must work even harder. As we move earlier in time in Ireland, the records situation, which in the mid 1800s is different from the USAs (meaning we must learn how to do it or we screw up), gets far worse. In fact often in Irish genealogy classes, one is told it is not possible to do Irish genealogy before about 1820 unless you descend from the aristocracy. That's often not true but it is hard and requires a lot of effort. Best of luck!! Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net