The National Archives of Ireland have released the 1911 census. This is a fascinating resource with scanned copies of the original forms filled in by households around Ireland available to download. Personally when I downloaded the form for my grandfathers family I discovered that my great-grandfather was born during the famine. My great-grandparents spoke both Irish and English, something I can not do and neither could their children. They had 10 children, 7 of which were still alive at the time of the census. My father remembers that another 2 died young sometime after the census. Those were harsh times in Ireland.
My family comes from Waterford county close to the area where the Ryans came from. Some members of the Ryan family moved to Newfoundland sometime before 1800 and one of their descendants, Ann Ryan married John Noseworthy in 1967 setting in train a series of events that would eventually lead to this blog. Over 100 years later after the migration to Newfoundland there were still Ryans living in the area. For example in the parish of St Mary's where my family come from there were 13 Ryans any of which could be related to the Newfoundland Ryans and possibly related to the Flynns. What this could make Lauren and myself is probably a matter for absolutely no discussion or debate around the family dinner table...
No comments:
Post a Comment