52 Ancestors – 52 Weeks
This week’s prompt is water. I live in Wisconsin USA and since all four lines of my ancestors came from Ireland, water places a significant role in my genealogy. The Irish who came to Wisconsin in the highest number came in the years during and immediately after the famine of the 1840s. Some of my ancestors came to North America before that time.
The song, An Emigrant’s Daughter, lyrics by Barry Taylor, tells the tale of those leaving their homeland Ireland for a land unknown.
The seas roared in anger, making desperate our plight
And a fever came o’er me that worsened next night
Then delirium possessed me and clouded my mind
And I for a moment saw that land left behind.
Could hear in the distance my dear mother’s wailing
And the prayers of three brothers that I’d never see no more
And I felt father’s tears as he begged for forgiveness
For seeking a new life on the still distant shore.
“An Emigrant’s Daughter, ” Traditional
The first evidence of my ancestors coming to North America are the Carews who came from County Cork, Ireland to Canada in 1825. Grace Carew Fitzgerald is my paternal grandmother. The Carews came to Canada (then know as British North America) aboard the ship Fortitude at a time when Britain was overrun with poor, unemployed, and often sick Irish and Scottish emigrants. The British government developed a plan to fund assisted emigration programs for Irish desperate to leave Ireland for a better life. Peter Robinson (1785-July 8, 1838), a Canadian politician who served as Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Ontario, was selected to lead the expedition.
The Michael Carew family (my third great grandfather) left Cork, Ireland on May 10, 1825 and reached their destination of Scott’s Plains, presently Peterborough, Ontario, Canada by mid June 1825. Most of the ships carrying Irish emigrants to America, were well built and adequately supplied. However, the ships were overcrowded and often illness and fever broke out among the passengers. The Carew’s fifth child was born, died and buried at sea during their voyage.
My paternal grandfather is John Hugh Fitzgerald. His line of ancestors also came from County Cork, Ireland to New York’s Ellis Island before 1853. His great grandfather and my second great grandfather, John H. Fitzgerald was the first of this line to come to the United States. I do not know why the Fitzgeralds came to the United States but the reasons may be tied to the Irish potato famine of 1845-1850. The effects of the famine continued to spur Irish emigration into the 20th century. The Irish still faced poverty and disease in their homeland. Many set out for America where they reunited with relatives who had left Ireland at the height of the famine. The early Fitzgeralds settled in Connecticut but eventually made their way to Wisconsin.
My mother’s ancestral lines are Flannery and Crain. James Flannery, my great grandfather and his to be wife, Catherine Behan came to the United States in the year 1800 aboard the City of Paris. Both came from the Cloughjordan area of County Tipperary, Ireland and come into the United States through Ellis Island, New York. It appears that James came with another relative, John Flannery and Catherine came with her uncle John Behan’s family.
My maternal grandmother was a Crain. My second great grandfather, Michael Crain, came to the United States between 1852 and 1855 at the age of 36. He swore allegiance November 27, 1860 to become a citizen of the United States. I do not know where he came into the United States but do know that he eventually made his way to the Town of Lebanon, Waupaca County, Wisconsin where he married, had a family and was buried.
I have records to show some of my ancestors arrival in Canada and the United States but I could not get them to format to display here.