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Unraveling Irish Ancestry in the 19th Century: Delving Deep into Historical Challenges

Unraveling Irish Ancestry in the 19th Century: Delving Deep into Historical Challenges

Finding Irish genealogical records from the 19th century is challenging due to large-scale emigrations, inconsistent record-keeping before 1864, the loss of documents in the 1922 Dublin fire, common surnames, Anglicization and Latinization of names, and undocumented internal relocations. This combination of factors makes tracing specific Irish ancestry complex.

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Scotland’s American Revolution

Scotland’s American Revolution

Scotland’s American Revolution began in the Fall of 1759. Benjamin Franklin – then Colonial Envoy to Great Britain for Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Georgia – made his first reported trip north to the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. He spent the next two months enjoying good friends and good company in the taverns and meeting houses of a city that played no small part in the new political, social and economic ideas that would dominate the American Revolution.  

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English Canadians: From the periphery to confederation

English Canadians: From the periphery to confederation

English Canadians were very much outsiders when they arrived not long after the French in the early 1600s. An Italian paid by King Henry VII of England did make the first European contact since the Vikings in the 11th century but the age of imperial expansion was well underway by the time the English made any impact. Portugal, Spain and France were miles ahead in the competitive resource grab and only a remarkable series of events made the cultures of Britain and Ireland replace the dominance of the French.

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When New Zealand was a British, Irish and Māori Wild West

Dominant Christian denominations in each territorial authority, 2013 census. The Chatham Islands have roughly equal numbers of Anglicans and Catholics.

When New Zealand was a British colony in the late 19th century, its recorded history already stretched back centuries. In 1642 the Dutch led by Abel Tasman were the first Europeans to attempt to land there. Four were killed by Māori warriors at Golden Bay on the northern tip of the South Island as they tried to go ashore for water. That violent first encounter came two to three hundred years after the Māori themselves settled what they initially called Nu Tirani and Aotearoa.

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English Australians: Exile to the Lucky Country

Oil sketch of the British colonising Sydney in 1788 | © Algernon Talmage

In the late 18th century, English Australians were made up of the exiled – people transported largely for petty crime or debt to what eventually became their ‘lucky country’. As ‘prisons’ go they were very fortunate. The consequences of their arrival for Australia’s aboriginal population was a different matter. One of the world’s most ancient continuous peoples – they did experience a form of imprisonment but that is far beyond the scope of this article which focuses on how modern Australia came to be.

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