The Ballycastle Blog: Irish Genealogy and More

According to Irish surname specialists, the surname “Whelan” is the 79th most common surname in Ireland. Thousands of Irish immigrants named “Whelan” came to America in the last two centuries. A large number of them saw their family name recorded “Whalen” by government immigration and census officials on government forms. Consequently, when searching for your long lost Irish ancestor “Joseph Whelan” or “Josephine Whelan”, be sure to look for “Whalen” also. Surname spelling variations occur with other Irish surnames also. To my bemusement, my global search for the surname “Whalen” for the entire country of Ireland in the Griffiths Valuation Survey (1840 – 1860) database produced zero households, and in the 1901 Irish census only 9 households.

Lesson Learned: If at first you don’t succeed in finding an ancestor with one Irish surname spelling, try a slight variation of that surname spelling to see what you might find.

Let us know what Irish surname spelling variations that you’ve encountered in your research and post them here.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

On a recent visit to Washington and West Virginia I read an article on the Scots-Irish emigration to America in the 18th century which, unfortunately, I have mislaid so I am quoting from memory. These migrants were Presbyterians, mainly from Ulster, and they started their migration due to religious persecution as they were very seriously discriminated against at the beginning of the 18th century. There is a dispute about the term Scots-Irish but these Presbyterians were only three or four generations in Ireland and probably thought of themselves as Scots. Many settled in West Virginia and the article indicated that over one million arrived in the United States during the 18th century.

I also became aware of the 2006 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics from which an extract from Table 2 is given. Census of Ireland statistics show that Ireland lost over a million population between 1841 and 1851. There were three components to this population loss

i) Deaths from starvation during the Famine of 1845-7 where there was widespread failure of the potato crop in three successive seasons.

ii) Huge population losses caused by a whole series of epidemics of cholera, typhus and typhoid fever that swept through a weakened population. These epidemics took their toll even in areas that had access to food e. g. maritime communities and the families of officials such as police and Coast Guards who could have afforded to buy food.

iii) Mass emigration which really started in 1847. This was largely landlord sponsored e. g. in that year Sir XXX Gore-Booth chartered three ships and sent nearly 2,000 of his tenants to St. John’s, New Brunswick. The authorities there complained that he had rounded up the old, the destitute and the trouble makers on his estate and dumped them in St. John’s where they became a great burden on the parish. The destination recorded for the vast majority of emigrants leaving Ireland in 1847 was Canada as Government assisted migration to Canada cost £3 (=$12) while passage to the United States cost £4 10s. (= $18). I know of one ship that left Killala in 1847, was quarantined in St. John’s, New Brunswick and then proceeded to Boston where most of the passengers disembarked and I suspect that many of those who left for Canada in 1847 ended up in the United States.

I had not appreciated that the mass emigration, triggered by the Famine, continued so strongly right through the 1850’s with, on average, over 100,000 emigrating to the United States each year. For seven decades from 1860 to 1929 the United States was the main focus of Irish emigration with an average of 40,000 per year for all those 70 years.

The world depression of the 1930’s saw Irish emigration shrink to a fraction of what it had been. When it started up again in the 1940’s the main focus was Britain. During the 1950’s nearly 500,000 emigrated to Britain. This was ten times the number emigrating to the United States. This emigration continued up until the early 1990’s and was only reversed in the 2000’s when we have received 400,000 to 500,000 immigrants. We have at last put behind us the legacy of emigration left to us by the Famine.

During the century of American emigration from Ireland 1830 — 1929 4,500,000 Irish people emigrated to America. I will finish this contribution with the heart-warming story of a family who left a rented farm of four acres of very poor quality land in North Mayo in 1847. Landlordism was at its most cruel and avaricious at the time and they would have paid half their annual income to rent those miserable acres. After surviving the coffin ship they eventually ended up owning a 200 acre farm in West Virginia. On my recent visit there I was struck by the very high quality of land and was not surprised to hear that the main farming used to be dairying and orchards, though the orchards have largely disappeared. The climate is relatively mild with long hot summers and only about a foot of snow in each of the months of December, January and February. Looking at the area with tree-less North Mayo eyes it appears to me that trees grow naturally everywhere. This would have provided them with easily accessible material for fuel, housing, furniture and fencing. They must have felt they had reached the Promised Land. America was very good to our people in those dreadful times.

A large Irish immigrant population settled around the B&O railroad yards in west Baltimore during the railroad’s heyday. This photo was taken in that neighborhood in the early 1920’s. This photo portrays one Irish immigrant custom of photographing the youngest member of the family on a pony on a city sidewalk. Notice the prince valiant bowl haircut! This is not quite the rural wild-west scene that many Irish children fantasized about when they went to the cowboy movies at the cinema. We have seen a number of similar photos in family albums over the years. A child on a pony is totally out of place on an urban city sidewalk. At that time, it was not unusual for photographers, hawking their photography skills and services on the streets of Baltimore, to use a pony to close the deal! Apparently, the combination of the Irish love of horses and the American wild-west was irresistible to the Irish immigrants of west Baltimore!

We would love to see your (similar) photos and hear your stories. We will post them in the comments section of this website.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.