Where in County Limerick?



Portion of page 2 of the David Brown letter
(Click to enlarge)

After David Brown listed the possible early ancestors in County Limerick, he gave more specific information about the first immigrants to America and when they may have emigrated from Ireland.  (See copy of the letter at the left.)  I tried to follow his path and located 1860 census records in Columbus, Ohio and Chicago, Illinois.  I also located baptismal and marriage records in St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Columbus, Ohio.   I will share those specific records when looking at each of the family members – each is very interesting in their own way.  But, like David, and many new genealogists, I most wanted to know where they actually came from in Ireland!  

David gave information for each of the immigrants in the suspected order of their birth including estimated birth dates and, if not specific, at least estimated death dates for all.  I tried to locate death records for each of them, but, either could not find records, or they died too early to have actual death certificates where birthplace and parental information is given.  As David stated in his letter, it is pretty difficult to identify birth records in Ireland without the names of both parents, especially with a common surname such as “Brown”.

That is until I came to the youngest, Thomas.  Because the letter is difficult to read at this point, here is a transcript of the initial information given for Thomas Brown.  He was born on May 3, 1846 and died February 21, 1926.  The letter states, “This man was the youngest of the group of seven who came from Ireland and he was also the last of the group to die and I have always regretted that I did not know he was living in the 1920’s and in fact, at the time I had never heard of him, even though he was living at Sandusky, Ohio just ninety miles North of Columbus . . . In his later years he lived in various Soldiers Homes, the last being the Ohio Sailors and Soldiers Home at Sandusky, Ohio, where he died in 1926 . . .”
 

1926 Death Certificate for Thomas Brown
(Click to enlarge)

Finally, something specific I could easily find!  The Ohio death records were not online at that time,  (they are now available at FamilySearch.org), but records from this time frame are available at the Ohio Historical Society where I obtained a copy of the death certificate. ¹ (See copy at the right.)  It did give the names of the parents!  The father was listed as Timothy Brown and the mother as Hannah Kelly.  Disappointingly, the place of birth was given as Boston.  I also questioned whether this was, indeed, the correct family since the David Brown letter never gave the mother’s name as anything other than Johanna.  Also, the Boston birthplace implies that the father could have emigrated with the rest of the family but that did not fit in with other information in the letter.  Johanna/Hannah could have been pregnant with Thomas as she made the crossing which would have been very risky.  However, the 1880 census does show “Hannah” Brown living with Patrick Brown, in Saybrook, Illinois.  I believed this to be the oldest son.
 
Because I wasn’t getting any further with my research on this side of the ocean, I decided it was time to see what was available at the Limerick Archives.  Not that I wanted to spend the money for something that I was far from sure of, I had also heard that the Archives were going to be closing which gave further impetus to sending for the information.  So, in December 2003, I wrote to the Limerick Archives and received a very quick response.
 
The next post will identify the contents of the response . . .
 
 

1..   Thomas Brown, Sandusky, Ohio, death certificate 8771 (1926), “Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1X6ZK-89Q, FHL microfilm 1,984,193

In the beginning . . .

Welcome to my blog!

Every family history begins with a story.  My memories of the stories came from listening to my great aunts talk about their parents and grandparents at family gatherings.  I remember them saying that the Browns definitely came from County Limerick.  There were also vague references to a letter that had been written to my mother by a more distant family member, David Brown.  I never saw the letter until shortly before my mother died in 1996.  And, like so many of us, once I had seen the letter, I never had the chance to talk about the information contained in it with the older generations. 



Beginning of David Brown Letter
(Click to enlarge)

The letter itself ¹, dated in 1943, is 16 pages long and includes ten pages of narrative and six charts.  It starts with a listing of Brown families identified in O’Harts Irish Pedigrees ².  (See a copy of the first part of the letter on the left.)  Mr. Brown then goes on to describe the information he had gathered over what is probably many, many years of research.  He identified what he thought was the time frame when the family emigrated from Ireland and the names of those emigrating - Hannah Brown and her children, Patrick, Mary, John, Johanna, James and Thomas.  David did have the advantage of being able to talk to children of the original immigrants, and as such, was able to give pretty detailed information on each family member.   He was not, however, able to identify a specific location in County Limerick where the family originated.  And, he seemed desperate to uncover the name of the husband and father of the immigrants.   

I believe that everyone needs to be remembered.  And so, sometime in the early 2000s, I decided to try to uncover the Brown story.  At that time, there was little information on the internet or in libraries, and even less about Irish genealogy, so progress was very slow to say nothing of my naivety about doing genealogical research.  Since then, particularly in the last few years, extensive information, at least for Ireland, has become available.  Using the letter as an inspiration and road map, I have been able to uncover a large amount of information on the Brown family, and, continue to do so.

 To ensure the information is not lost, and to share the information with other researchers, I will document my research and findings in this blog.  It is an ongoing project.  I will include clips of the letter where appropriate and information uncovered as a result of the research.  And, of course, I welcome comments, corrections and any additional information others have uncovered.  

So, in the beginning . . .

1.        Brown, David Earl, Kewanee, IL, 11 May 1943. Letter to Esther ________, Columbus, OH.  Letter contains genealogical information for the Brown Family from County Limerick.

2.       O’Hart, John, Irish Pedigrees; or The Origin and Stem of The Irish Nation (Dublin, Ireland, James Duffy and Co., Limited, 1892), Volume II, 72-77, Digitized by Internet Archives.  Now available online at: http://archive.org/stream/irishpedigreesor02char#page/72/mode/1up.