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My own mother's family came from east County Galway. Their house started with ten children, one by one they emigrated to the UK, the USA and Canada, while one stayed home to run the farm.
The same thing happened in houses right across Ireland. A small farm could rarely provide a separate livelihood for all the children, so, particularly after the Great Famine, it often passed to one son. While some of the others married locally or found work nearby, some remained unmarried and helped on the farm, but many simply left the country.
When the Letters Stopped
In many places the night before someone left had the feelings of a Wake rather than a party, and in fact was often called an "American wake". Neighbours came in, there was music and food, and there were tears, because everyone in the room knew they might never see this person again, and the emigrating child knew they would not see their parents again before they died. A living Wake of sorts.
Of course, letters would arrive home over the years, sometimes with money enclosed, and maybe with news of a wedding or a new baby. But once the parents at home had died, the letters became less frequent, and in many families they stopped altogether. Within a generation or two, cousins in Ireland and cousins abroad had often lost touch completely.
That's one reason why the branch that stayed is so often the gap in our family trees. We may know a great deal about the emigrant's life abroad, while the family still on the farm maybe little more than a familiar name.
For the Ones Who Stayed
They lived full lives in the same area your people came from. Many lived on through the Land Acts that allowed tenant farmers to buy the farms their families had rented for generations, and then lived on through the partition of the island and the years after it. Some of their children were baptised in the same church as your emigrant ancestor, and descendants of those families still live in Ireland today.
From a genealogy point of view, I'd add that this branch can be easier to find than you may expect, especially if the family remained in the same townland. If they held on to the land, the valuation revision books will often show you who was recorded as the next occupier, and the one after that. Civil registration of all births, deaths and marriages began in 1864, with non-Catholic marriages registered from 1845. And the 1901, 1911 and 1926 censuses will show you the households that stayed, with names, ages and relationships.
And at the end of this trail, as Kathleen found, you will often find living cousins.
So, I'll leave with a question for You
Kathleen asked whether other readers share her experience. I suspect many of us do, but I'd love to find out more. So, my question for this week is: Do you know what happened to your relatives who remained in Ireland?
Perhaps, like Kathleen, you've found them and stayed in touch. Perhaps you know a little, such as a name on the back of a photograph or a farm someone once visited. Or perhaps you've always wondered and never found out.
Do hit reply and tell me. While we can't answer every letter, Carina and I read every single one, and there is no part of this "work" we enjoy more.
Thank you, as always, for reading and for sharing this letter with your family and friends.
Slán for now,
Mike. |