The Irish in America

WHERE GENEALOGY COMES FULL CIRCLE

Category Archives: Where they went


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Will the Real Annie Moore Please Stand Up?

Annie Moore with brothers Anthony and Philip, Ellis Island, 1892

Annie Moore with brothers Anthony and Philip, Ellis Island, 1892

Megan Smolenyak is on a mission. She wants the world to know the real Annie Moore. You have probably heard of her – Annie Moore was the first immigrant to arrive at Ellis Island when it opened on January 1, 1892. Annie became an instant celebrity that day, but just as quickly as the gold and silver coins were distributed and attention enveloped this girl from County Cork, Annie melted into the masses and another Annie Moore took her place in history.

AnnieMoore_EllisIsland

Annie Moore sculpture at Ellis Island

We didn’t know of Annie’s identity crisis until 2005 when Megan Smolenyak decided to pitch a story idea to PBS for a documentary on American immigrants. Megan had always been fascinated with Ellis Island and the immigration story, and why not explore the genealogy of Ellis Island’s first immigrant, Annie Moore? 

Megan is a well-known and respected genealogist, author, blogger, lecturer, finder of President Obama’s Irish roots, contributor to TV programs (Who Do You Think You Are?) and documentaries. Megan didn’t set out to bust any myths, she simply saw that little was known about Annie Moore and she wanted to see what information she could find on this important figure in American history.

As she began to trace Annie Moore, Megan came across one inconsistency after another. It wasn’t long before Megan realized that the Annie Moore everyone accepted as THE Annie Moore was born in Illinois, not the first immigrant on Ellis Island. And there is more…click here to see the proof Megan has compiled showing that the wrong Annie Moore had become the heroine of the story. Megan was determined to set history straight.

annie-moore-smLast month I had the pleasure of listening as Megan shared her Annie Moore research journey via her wonderful Legacy Family History webinar, Annie Moore of Ellis Island – A Case of Historical Identity Theft. Megan explained the process of making things right – finding evidence of the real Annie Moore, contacting Annie’s descendants, bringing them together for a reunion, and even helping to get a headstone for Annie’s previously unmarked grave.

The real Annie Moore didn’t go West. In fact, she never made it out of New York’s lower east side tenements. You can follow Megan’s research here. Megan has put together links, videos, audio clips, and photos to tell this fascinating story. It amazes me that so many people could be so wrong about Annie’s identity for so long. No one even thought to look into Annie’s story…until Megan. Thank you, Megan, for your persistence and dedication to learning the truth.

Annie Moore with brothers, Cobh, County Cork

Annie Moore with brothers at Cobh, County Cork

Megan’s discoveries have tremendous impact on how each of us views our genealogy research and the lives of our immigrant ancestors. It is important that we do not simply accept stories we hear as the truth because, “That’s what Grandma always said…” Family lore is priceless, but it can be useful to back those stories up with research. That’s how we turn the stories into history.

This case of mistaken identity reminds us to value all the experiences of our Irish immigrant ancestors. They didn’t all come to America and follow the path of dreams, adventure, and success that read like a Hollywood film script. But neither did all immigrants struggle in poverty-stricken urban slums. Many fell somewhere between; there is great diversity to the Irish immigrant experience and it is important to keep an open mind when researching your family’s history.

I can’t wait to see what Megan finds out about Annie’s life in Ireland, before she became the first immigrant at Ellis Island. Stay tuned…

You might know that Irish artist Jeanne Rynhart is responsible for the bronze sculpture of Annie and her brothers at Cobh, as well as Annie at Ellis Island. What other famous sculpture in Ireland is also the work of Ms. Rynhart? Another trivia question…who actually cast the bronze statues? Leave a comment if you have either answer!


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From Sheepshead to Casper

Unknown town sceneRecently, in an exchange of emails with Danny Tobin about a couple of family gatherings he has planned for this summer (click here to read more about the Tobin and Coughlan family gatherings) I learned of the connection between the Sheepshead Peninsula in West Cork and Casper, Wyoming in the United States.

Danny told me that many of the emigrants from Sheepshead had gone to Casper to, naturally, work on the sheep ranches. He suggested I check out History of Casper’s Irish Colony.

What a fantastic recommendation! The site is actually a complete version of the book Register: The Story of Casper’s Irish Colony, written by Harry Arundel Ward. The site includes the full second edition published in 2003, as well as later corrections and additional information compiled since publication.

Register provides a history of Casper, Wyoming and explores the role of Irish immigrants in the foundation and growth of the town. It also includes vast biographical information on each Irish immigrant who made Casper home and presents it all in an easy to search tables (I just used the “find” function to explore the tables.) The tables include over 500 names, many more than the author, Harry Ward, anticipated:

When I undertook the project, I expected to collect 50 or 60 names at the most.  Had I realized how large the project would be, I may never have started.

It is possible to SEARCH the entire site – click here,  The author provides detailed HOW TO  instructions for navigating the site – click here.

Whenever I read about immigrants who settled the American West – the farmers, the railroad workers, the ranchers, the miners – I marvel at how brave they were. They left their homes for new lives in a place so very different from where they came. In the case of Casper, the Irish who came may have had experience raising sheep, but imagine their thoughts upon first setting foot on a Wyoming ranch. Desolate, dusty, and twenty miles to town.

Click here to read Casper 1887-1987: An Irish Legacy, by Linda L. Doherty.

TheGathering_logo_Blue_RSo, if you are planning a Gathering this year and the old family stories tell you that a relative moved to Wyoming to in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, definitely check out History of Casper’s Irish Colony. The author also includes information on other Irish settlements throughout the Western United States – Nebraska, Montana, and Oregon – click here.

Psst…if you are a native of Casper and claim Irish heritage, drop us a line. Someone may just be looking for you!

Lucille O'Brien and some sheep in Chinook, Montana (closest I could get to Casper!)

Lucille O’Brien and some sheep in Chinook, Montana (closest I could get to Casper!)


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A Little Bit of Ireland in Lake Michigan

James Earl Jones (from http://www.achievement.org)

I have Michigan on my mind. It all started the other day when I came across a great blog post from St. Patrick’s Day: James Earl Jones is a Michigan Irishman and Other Stories About Michigan’s Irish Heritage. Louis Blouin of FoundMichigan.org explores Michigan’s Irish heritage. Here’s the introduction – very funny:

St. Patrick’s Day is all about getting your fake Irish on, whether it be decorating yourself in various cheap green crap that was no doubt made in China, not Ireland; busting out the one Pogues song you have on your iPod; or choking down a breakfast of green eggs and ham at your local Irish(ish) pub. It’s about that, and having an excuse to drink before 10 a.m. But Michigan has plenty of authentic Irish heritage to hang your hat on (even the oversized Leprechaun headgear you got at Meijer last night). Here’s a roundup of some of Michigan’s real-deal Irish heritage you might not have known about—and a nod to some of the fake stuff, too.

Blouin’s entire article is interesting, but the section titled, Beaver Island: Mormon turned Irish Kingdom, definitely caught my eye. I had never heard of Beaver Island. What a fascinating history…click here for Blouin’s full article. Read what he has to say about Beaver Island, then come back for more on the research taking place.

The University of Notre Dame’s Historical Archaeology of Irish America project investigates the nineteenth century Irish settlement of Beaver Island, Michigan. The head of the investigation is Deb Rotman, Ph.D., RPA of Notre Dame. On the project blog Professor Rotman explains:

This archaeological and historical project allows scholars and students to investigate an aspect of the Irish Diaspora that is currently virtually unknown – that is, the lived experiences of Irish immigrants who settled away from the large urban centers on the East Coast…

Since 2006, my students and I have been investigating Irish immigrant experiences in South Bend, Indiana, including archaeological excavation in the city as well as archival research and oral history collection in both Ireland and the United States. Beginning in 2010, this project expanded to include Beaver Island, Michigan, which was inhabited in the late nineteenth century by immigrants from Árainn Mhór off the coast of Co. Donegal.

Beaver Island, Michigan (from http://www.beaverisland.net)

What I like best about this project is that it is taking a serious look at the lives of Irish settlers in America’s rural Midwest. Professor Rotman points out that little research exists on any Irish immigrant settlements other than the urban centers of New York City and Boston. The Irish were pioneer settlers in much of the Western United States, and it is about time attention be paid to their lives and the contributions they made to their communities and adopted country.

The project website includes a number of papers completed by students involved with the Beaver Island project. The papers explore the history and sociology of the island using the archaeological evidence they have unearthed. Check out the blog here.

Professor Rotman, perhaps when you finish up with Beaver Island, you might want to take a look at Clontarf, Minnesota and nearby Tara Township? I have always wanted to do a dig by my grandfather’s birthplace  in this rural American Irish settlement…just think about it!

Click here for more information about the history of Beaver Island – from its days as a “Mormon Kingdom” to a land full of names like Gallagher, Boyle, and O’Donnell, where Irish was the language of choice. I wonder what the folks in Donegal have planned for next year’s Gathering Ireland 2013…will the people of Beaver Island be welcomed “home” to Ireland?

Corktown, Detroit, Michigan (from corktownhistoric.org)

Links to more on the Irish in Michigan:


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This Old Farmhouse

The first time I visited Ireland in 1988, I was struck by the number of derelict farmhouses dotting the countryside. ”Why doesn’t someone just tear those old houses down?” I wondered. “That’s what we do in the good ol’ USA…we don’t leave houses to fall down on themselves. If we don’t want or need them, we get rid of them and build something new and better…”

Abandoned house near Ballyedmond, County Laois (all photos by Regan McCormack)

This sentiment came from a teenage girl from the city who spent more time in the countryside during six weeks in Ireland than she had in sixteen years back home – in the ”good ol’ USA”. I thought I was so smart…

Fast-forward twenty years and I am closer to home, driving the country roads of Tara Township, crisscrossing its thirty-six square miles in Swift County, Minnesota. My maternal great-great-grandparents were among the pioneer 1870s settlers of this township on the vast prairie of Western Minnesota. This was my first visit to Tara. I had traveled three thousand miles from home on a number of occasions to visit Ireland, my “ancestral homeland”, yet I had never bothered to drive a few hours west to see where my people settled when they came to Minnesota.

Granted, as far as vacation destinations are concerned, Ireland is a bit more attractive than Western Minnesota, but it turns out, the two places have some things in common.

There are the obvious similarities in place names in this part of Minnesota. Bishop John Ireland established several colonies of Irish Catholic settlers with names like Avoca, Kildare, Tara, and Clontarf. Hundreds of Irish families from cities and communities in the Eastern United States seized the opportunity to own land and live in a community with its own church and priest, surrounded by fellow Irish Catholics.

The Depression came early to rural communities and persistent crop failures and changing farming practices combined to make farming unviable for most small farmers. My relatives moved to Minneapolis, as did several other Tara families. Some of the original Irish settlers had left Tara even earlier, moving further West, always in search of better land.

So, I wonder why I was surprised to find this in Tara Township?

Section 22 of Tara Township – the McMahon place

On nearly every section of land in the township stands an abandoned farmhouse, or at least a grove of trees planted by the original settlers to protect a house. And this in the “good ol’ USA” where we tear things down!

Folks in Ireland and Tara Township have the same reaction when I ask them why they don’t simply tear down the abandoned houses. They shrug and say that they are no bother and they can be used for storage. That is the practical response, but I wonder if there is something a bit more sentimental lurking beneath?

The abandoned houses got me thinking…A similar hopelessness that drove millions of Irish to America during the 19th and 20th centuries could be seen in rural Americans who fled the farm for the city in the 1920s. Major difference, of course, is there was not a famine like Ireland experienced, however there was tremendous poverty, crops failed miserably, families were split up, and life changed permanently and dramatically.

I am rather ashamed of my sixteen-year-old self for not being as smart as she thought she was. She should have realized that the same reason this stands today in Ireland…

Near Ballyedmond, County Laois – 2011

might be why this…

Cahir Castle, Tipperary – 2011

and this…

Rock of Dunamase, County Laois – 2011

and this…

Johnstown, County Kildare – 2009

are still here today. I doubt that the farmhouse ruins will have the staying power of the castles and abbeys of centuries gone by, but in the meantime they can remind us from where we came. Whether it is a farmhouse in Ireland or Tara Township, Minnesota.

Now, if I could only get Jimmy to fix up this old house…

Two Jimmy McCormacks at old family house in Ballyedmond – 2009


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Happy Birthday Minnie!

Mary “Minnie” Foley, 1875-76

Minnie was my great-grandmother, and according to my grandma she absolutely hated the nickname “Minnie”. Please forgive me, Great Grandmother, but I think it is a cute name, and since your real name Mary is shared by at least 75% of the women in your family tree, I chose to call you Minnie.

Minnie Foley was born in Fisherville, New Hampshire on January 2, 1875. She was the fourth of five children born to Patrick Foley and Mary Crowley (their eldest son did not survive infancy.) Patrick emigrated to the United States from Kilmichael, County Cork in 1864. Mary came a year earlier in 1863, also from County Cork.

Minnie was baptized on January 24, 1875 at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Concord, New Hampshire. John Foley and Mary Casey were her godparents.

Three years later, Minnie and her family moved west to Clontarf, Minnesota with several other Irish families from the Concord, New Hampshire area, including the Regan family. John Regan and Patrick Foley emigrated together in 1864 from Kilmichael. The families settled on farms in Tara township. Minnie and Nellie Regan were best friends from a very young age.

First-Generation American Girls: Minnie and Nellie in about 1886

My grandma told me that Minnie worked hard her entire life, and that included working on the family farm in Tara Township while she was growing up. Her sister Maggie worked inside, while Minnie and her younger brother Jackie worked outside. My grandma confessed, she wasn’t sure where Minnie’s older brother Tim worked!

The McMahons, an Irish family from County Fermanagh, lived about a mile from the Foleys in Tara. Minnie married Thomas McMahon at St. Malachy Catholic Church in Clontarf on June 28, 1904. Minnie’s sister Maggie and Tom’s brother Frank were their witnesses. I imagine Minnie and Hoosie (as Tom is referred to in Minnie’s autograph book) having secret meetings over hay bales and missing chickens during their courtship…

Minnie and Tom raised seven children and after giving farming all they had the McMahons moved to Minneapolis in 1925.

When she died in 1945, Minnie was living with my grandma, her husband John Regan, and their new baby (and my mother) Eileen. My grandma said that Minnie was smitten with Eileen. Minnie would say that she had never known a baby to sleep as much and as well as little Eileen. Minnie marvelled at how Eileen would even fall asleep with a bottle in her mouth.

In many ways things came full circle for Minnie. Also living with my grandma in 1945 was Neil Regan, Nellie’s older brother and my grandpa’s father. Eighty years earlier Patrick Foley and John Regan had journeyed to the United States. After Fisherville, New Hampshire and Clontarf, Minnesota, the families came together again in Minneapolis…a long way from Kilmichael.

In my grandma’s recipe book are a few recipes attributed to Minnie, her “Ma” – I think I will make “Ma’s Spice Cake” in Minnie’s honor today.

Nellie Regan Byrne and Minnie Foley McMahon, 1942


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Letters from North America

The New Brunswick Archive in Canada has a great collection of letters to and from Irish emigrants to the area.  You can read the actual hand-written letters, or if you prefer not to struggle with nineteenth century script, transcriptions are available for download. The collection contains items from the nineteenth century, as well as some from the early twentieth century.  Also included are a diary, family histories, and other documents.  Take a look around the site…fascinating stuff!

An example of what the New Brunswick archive has to offer…

The Laurence Hughes collection (MC2618 :: Laurence Hughes fonds) contains several letters written to Laurence Hughes of Fredricton, New Brunswick from relatives in Ireland and elsewhere in North America.  I think these letters are particularly interesting for they demonstrate the networks of Irish emigration and how that support facilitated further migration from Ireland and within North America. The letters span seventeen years (1837-1854) and see several relatives in Ireland considering emigration and dealing with the decision to stay.

In 1837 Laurence’s brother Thomas writes from Newry sharing the news from home.  Thomas encourages Laurence to move to Boston and gives him advice on how to be successful there:

Now before you go to Boston enquire of every respectable person that knows you if
they can give you a line or two of recommendations to any person they may be acquainted with…[damage]…the Catholic Priest of Fredericton…

Good advice, I would say.  Thomas provides his brother with options, outlining a plan for Laurence’s return to Ireland since, “It is only natural to expect you would prefer living in Ireland.”   Laurence stayed put in Fredricton, at least until 1854.  Thomas mentions that he had four children and was looking forward to more…”We calculate on having one every 13 or 14 months that’s not bad trade thank God.”

In the 1837 letter, Thomas mentions another brother, Edward, who had also gone to New Brunswick.  By 1852 he was living in Pennsylvania with a large family and looking to move west to Iowa:

I some times think of selling it to go live in the west. There is a fine
colony of settlers from Carlow in loway State sent out by Rev. James Heigher and they have fine schools there now for boys and girls. I think dear Lawrence if we would go there it would be a fine chance for our children but I am afraid it is not healthy there.

Read Edward’s full letter here.  I wonder if Edward ever made his way to Iowa?  Establishing Catholic colonies in the midwestern United States was popular during this time (until the mid-1880s.)  The goal of such projects was two-fold: provide opportunities for Irish immigrants to escape congested Eastern conditions and own land, farm, and raise families in a Catholic community, and to strengthen the American Catholic Church by populating the West with Catholic settlers.

These letters are full of interesting observations.  Edward comments on his fellow Irishmen who work on the railroad, a job many felt lucky to get:

There is a great deal of railroads making here but the most degrading characters work on them now. Some of this is a disgrace to the land that gave them birth.

This comment is important because it reminds us that all Irish immigrants were not treated equally in America, even by their fellow countrymen.  Clearly Edward was educated to some degree, and from his letter it is apparent he was a religious man who did not approve of drink.  Irish in America like him would have had little time for the poor, uneducated, Famine-era emigrants.  Edward and his brothers made the decision to come to North America before the worst years of the Famine hit Ireland while for many of the million who came during the Famine, the alternative was starvation.  This is not to say that conditions in Ireland were favorable at the time of the Hughes brothers emigration, but judging from the letters, it was not a case of emigrate or starve.

Research Help Requested…

Edward mentions a “Catholic Almanac” in his letter to Lawrence.  Has anyone ever heard of that before?  I would love to know where I could find 19th century copies!


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The Famine: Views from Ireland and Abroad

“The Coffin trade is the most flourishing one at present here.”

This quote appeared in the January 8, 1847 edition of the Cork Examiner.  Steve Taylor of Vassar College has compiled a fascinating collection of newspapers, illustrations, and other items from Irish and British sources pertaining to the Great Famine.  The collection, Views of the Famine, is available online and provides a glimpse into how the press was reporting the crisis, and what people were doing (or not doing) to cope with the disaster.

"The causes of emigration in Ireland." 13 January 1849 (from Views of the Famine)

The collection includes excerpts from the Cork Examiner during 1846-47.  The weekly reports of death by starvation and disease and a pervasive sense of hopelessness can be difficult to read.  Entire families perished, their lifeless bodies found on the dirt floors of make-shift huts, post-mortem exams showing not even a trace of food in their stomachs and intestines.  Columns reporting over-capacity in the workhouses appear alongside advertisements for steerage passage to North America costing more than most Irish could ever afford.

On September 1, 1847, a column Emigrant Disasters ran in the Cork Examiner.  The column explains why the journeys of emigrants bound for the United States were more ”successful” than those destined for Canada.  The major difference was the ships used to transport emigrants to Canada were timber ships, vessels utterly unsuitable for passengers.  The Examiner explains: “…less attention to be paid to their [ship's] sea-worthiness, since they are laden half the way with what can’t sink, and the other with a freight, which is thought no loss if it do.”

The passage to Canada (British America) was cheaper and the preferred route for much of the “assisted emigration” that took place during the Famine years.  Owners of the large estates in Ireland who favored a more “humane” method of getting rid of tenants, chose to send them to Canada rather than merely evict them from the land.

The destination for many of these emigrant ships was New Brunswick, Canada.  The New Brunswick Archive offers a collection of online databases pertaining to the Irish who came to Canada.  Specifically, there are some useful resources related to assisted emigration.

The Fitzwilliam Estate Emigration Books 1848-1856 lists the tenants evicted from the Coolattin estate of Lord Fitzwilliam in County Wicklow, Ireland.  The archive provides an informative introduction, a narrative by Jim Rees providing context, a finding aid, and a transcript, complete with genealogical information.  Quite an interesting and useful tool.

The New Brunswick Archive also has a collection of letters, transcribed and available online.  I will address some of these letters in my next post, but I would like to turn your attention to a group of letters, Letters from Irish Emigrants and others, put in by Sir Robert Gore Booth Bart: [1846-1849].  Click here and scroll to the last group to read these letters.  Sir Robert owned an estate in Sligo.  These letters speak to the conditions and challenges faced by the Irish in the New World.

For more information on the Famine Irish in New Brunswick, read this essay by Dr. Stewart Donovan of St. Thomas University, In the Wake of Dark Passage: Irish Famine Migration to New Brunswick.

Just a couple more examples of the resources available online to help us better understand the Irish experience in America (and Canada, too!)

Resources:

Views of the Famine

New Brunswick Irish Portal

Irish Canadian Cultural Association


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She Liked Nice Things

Over the past several months, I have used the items left behind by my great-grandmother Annie Hill Regan to help tell the story of an Irish woman who came to the United States at the turn of the last century.

Items have included a sweet Christmas card from a sister in Ireland, a small photo-pin of a priest, some memorial cards, and a Whitsun postcard.

I find these remnants from Annie’s life fascinating, and they have provided tiny, yet invaluable peeks into her life.  They have also complicated my vision of Annie, creating new questions and contributing to ongoing mysteries.  This is especially the case with the photographs.

Nearly all of Annie’s photographs are unidentified.  There is ONE photo with the label, John’s Aunt Mary.

John's Aunt Mary

Initially I was so excited to find an identification that I forgot I had no idea who this Aunt Mary was!  I assumed the “John” was my grandpa, and he had an Aunt Mary Regan, but she died when she was thirty-years-old.  This Aunt Mary appeared older than thirty.  And the photo was one of Annie’s, so this Aunt Mary must have come from her side.  I knew so little about Annie’s family, so I set the photo aside and I would think about it later.

Later turned out to be seven years ago my mother and I began looking into our family history.  When we learned that Annie had a sister named Mary Hill O’Brien who lived in Montana, I remembered the photo.  Some lucky timing brought me in contact with Mary’s grandson who still lived in Montana.  Jack O’Brien has this same photograph of his grandmother, Mary.

Here is one last postcard that was among Annie’s things.  This is from Mary to Annie:

Lucille O'Brien amongst the sheep

from Mary to Annie

Annie, ca. 1900

Click here to read my story in the current issue of Irish America magazine about how meeting two of my great-grandmother’s nephews has brought me closer to developing an understanding of the woman Annie was.


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Oops…was it a mystery or memory block?

Father John J. Molloy

The “mystery” from last time was actually solved a few years back.  My mom reminded me that we confirmed the identity of the priest when we compared the photo-pin to a photograph of Father John J. Molloy that we found in the book Meet Shieldsville, by Mary L. Hagerty.  I spaced this discovery out, and I must admit that this was not entirely an accident.  At times I become overwhelmed with my own family history research, and when a discovery opens up a new can of worms and I don’t have the time or energy to deal with it, I will slip the cover back on and vow to deal with it at a later date.  This is precisely what happened with good old Father Molloy.

Priest Pin

Above is a reproduction of the photo of Father Molloy.  It is not of the highest quality, but I think you can appreciate the resemblance to the photo-pin on the right.  My great-grandmother worked as Father Molloy’s housekeeper (1905-1910) before she was married.  While I was pleased to learn the identity of the priest, it meant that there was even more to learn about Father Molloy.  The first thing I wanted to know was how Annie came to know Father Molloy.

John J. Molloy was born in County Mayo, Ireland and educated at St. Patrick’s College Maynooth, County Kildare.  He was ordained in 1891 and arrived in Minnesota later that year.  Father Molloy served as an assistant pastor for a number of parishes throughout Minnesota before settling at St. Patrick’s in Shieldsville.  He served the community for fifty-two years.

All of that was well and good, but I couldn’t find anything in the biographical information on Father Molloy that could point to a connection to my great-grandmother.  That was until I read in his obituary that he was survived by one sister named Delia in Manchester, England.  Immediately I  thought of the dozen or so photographs taken in the studios of Manchester, England that Annie had saved.  Of course, none of the photographs were identified, but I assumed they were of family members.  Annie had one sister who moved to Manchester and raised a family (Bridget) and another sister who lived there for a few years before returning home to Kildare (Catherine, who I have mentioned before.)  Manchester could be the connection, but it made my head hurt and I told myself I would tackle this another day.

I believe the day has come.  It is time to dust off my Manchester file and see if I can’t figure this one out.  A wonderful book, The Reynolds Letters, provides considerable insight into the lives of Irish emigrants living and working in Manchester during the 19th and early-20th centuries.  I will use the resources available on ancestry.com and elsewhere on the internet to see if I can learn anything more about a possible Molloy-Hill connection in Manchester. 

Here are some of my of mystery Manchester photographs…

 

Probably one of the Hill girls...

Unknown Couple from Manchester

Perhaps Annie's sister and family?

The Hill sisters that I believe spent time in Manchester are:

Margaret (Maggie)

b. 1866

Catherine (Katie)

b. 1872

m. John Howe

Bridget (Delia)

b. 1876

If anyone has experience researching Irish emigrants in England, specifically Manchester, please let me know.  I will keep you posted…

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