Bond of Office, Sheriff Samuel Jones, Gilmer County, Georgia, 1844-1845

Nancy Hicks, a Jones family researcher, forwarded this to me in January of 2011.  It is a copy of the bond that Samuel Jones signed to ensure he faithfully carried out the duties of the office of Sheriff of Gilmer County, Georgia for his elected term in office of 1844-1845.
 

A transcription of the document follows as best as can be deciphered follows below.

 

Copy of original bond as provided by Nancy Hicks

 

Samuel Jones Sheriff Bond For 1844-1845

Georgia, Know all men by these presents that we Samuel Jones, John P. Alexander, Joseph Garren and John P. Fouts, are held and firmly bound unto his Excellency George W. Crawford Governor and Commander in Chief of the army and navy of this State and of the Militia thereof, in the full sum of Twenty Thousand Dollars to be paid to said George W. Crawford or his successor in office, Governor of the said State for the time being, for which payment well and truly to be made and ?, We bind ourselves and our heirs Executors ADVISERS and each and everyone of THEIR saintly and SEVERELY FIRMLY by these presents,

Sealed with our seal and dated the third day of February 1844.  Where as the above bound Samuel Jones on the first day of January 1844 elected Sheriff of the County of Gilmer in the said State. Now the conditions of the above obligation is such that if the said Samuel Jones shall well and truly do and perform all and SINGULAR the duties required of him in virtue of his said office of Sheriff of the County of Gilmer as aforesaid according to law and the trust reposed in him then the above obligation to be void otherwise to remain in full force and virtue.

Sealed and delivered in presence of  

H.K. Osborn J.J.C. L-----? Stephens J.J.C. Samuel Jones John P. Alexander Joseph Garren John P. Fouts

Registered the 26^th February 1844, R.B. Perry clerk

Irish Famine Years- McGinnis and Donahue’s….. What Might They Have Endured

 

Between 1811, when John McGinnis was born, and 1836, the year of his immigration to Canada, Ireland suffered thru at least 8 years of famine, as well as epidemics of Typhus in 1817 and Cholera in 1832.  He was but 25 when he entered Canada in 1836.

One might easily assume that within these events lies the reason for the man to emigrate to Canada.  He was no different than many others before and most especially those that followed him as a result of the “Great Famine Years” some ten years later.

Although we commonly think of but one devastating Irish famine as occurring between 1845 and 1849 there were smaller harvest failures in 1816-18, as well as others when many died from malnutrition and disease. This was a European famine period that certainly reached the Island of Ireland as well.  Then comes the year 1821 and it begins once again

The following list might help to bring all the years of suffering in Ireland into better focus.  At least those years that our ancestors had surely experienced.  Famine was not new to Ireland in the 1800’s for records reflect occurrences long before.  Nature as well as political events both took their toll on the Irish people.  The famine periods only added to the stress and misery that an Irish Catholic especially had to endure.  Protestants suffered greatly as well but they did not have to deal with the same prejudice that the Catholic population also had to deal with.  In reality, people of all faiths suffered through what nature brought their way.  The divide rested not entirely between religious differences, but between gentry and the common people, between the rich and the poor.  The Catholics being the dominant religion, especially of the poor, simply due to numbers took the brunt of the suffering.

1811- John McGinnis Sr. born in Ireland, assumedly in County Monaghan

1816- Thomas Donahue born in Ireland, assumedly in County Galway

1817- Famine and typhus in Ireland

1821- Margaret McCarron McGinnis born in Ireland

1821-1822- Famine strikes Ireland again

1825- Mary McKeough Donahue born in Ireland

1830-1834- Famine stalks Ireland again

1832- Cholera epidemic in Irish towns

1836- John McGinnis emigrates to Canada; Famine strikes again

1841- The population of Ireland is 8,175,000

1843- Margaret McCarron, future wife of John McGinnis Sr. emigrates to New Brunswick, Canada

1845- Thomas Donahue emigrates to the U.S. and joins the U.S Army. This is the latest probable year for his immigration based on his enlistment record.  He may have arrived perhaps two or three years earlier.  No actual arrival record has been found.

1845-1849- The Potato Famine; the major famine period that drove so many out of their homeland.

1850- Mary McKeough latest probable year of immigration the the U.S based on the year of her marriage to Thomas Donahue.  Her actual arrival year has not been determined but there are immigration records suggesting her year of immigration was about this time.

1851- The Irish census immediately after the famine in 1851 counted a population of 6,552,385, a drop of almost 1.5 million in 10 years, or 20%, while the rest of Europe continued to increase in population.  Famine and immigration both contribute to the decline.

Early Irish Education Under British Rule- The Possible Donahue Story

The US census for 1860, 1870 and 1880 for Thomas Donahue lists him as being unable to read or write.  The 1870 entry for his wife Mary McKeough does not reflect her literacy but her entries for1860 and 1880 reveal that she too was illiterate. What might have been the conditions that faced so many of the population of Ireland that found so many of the immigrants landing on North American soil unable to read or write.

The Irish had it rather difficult to find a decent Catholic education in Ireland itself certainly during the childhood of these two ancestors. Catholic schools were forbidden under the law beginning in the early 1700’s up until 1782 when the law was repealed. 

The purpose of the law was to force the Catholic parents to send their children to free Government schools where they were proselytized and encouraged to abandon their faith.  The Catholics throughout the country defied the edict and would not allow their children to attend .  The statistics prove out that the defiance of the law had a near total impact among the Catholic congregations of the entire country.

Private, clandestine if not secret schools began to take over the education of the Catholic children and they became known as the Hedgeschools.  The name originated from the fact that the schools were hidden from the authorities and were conducted anyplace they were able to find secret hidden space, often literally in the shadows of field hedges or within the walls of ancient ruins, decaying, crumbling monasteries', churches or remote barns.  The result was that most of the classes were conducted in an open air classroom .

These hidden schools were even then not available to all for the secret schools did require a compensation to be collected from the parents for the pay of the teachers.  Not all peasants could afford what little payment was required.  Thus the birth range of Thomas and Mary Donahue found Ireland only beginning to bring the Catholic schools out of hiding and it is easy to assume just why the two parents came to North America unable to read or write.

The following is a link that adds more detail to the education difficulties that existed in Ireland for many decades:

The Hedge Schools - Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area

Due to lack of education and the difficulty for such individuals to eventually gain any significant property the poor of the country were caught in a seemingly never ending state of poverty that lasted over generations.  Once born into poverty one would find it extremely difficult to escape the influences that perpetuated in every day life that forced one to struggle their entire lives.  e

Emigration was a way out of such a life to those of the mental and physical and financial capacity to accept the challenge and leave their homeland.

In the case of Thomas Donahue and his wife Mary just what circumstances they experienced we cannot document but it is easy to surmise that they both most likely came from the class of people that were caught in the struggle that was most certainly passed on to them from their parents, also raised in poverty at some level.  That to me is the most likely cause of the lack of education for these two ancestors.

 

Mary McKeough Donahue

About 1825-1900

 

Mary Donahue hinted at the above scenarios in a sworn affidavit late in her life as she was attempting to claim her right to a veterans widow pension following the death of her husband.  Thomas was on a meager Mexican War veteran's pension at the time of his death which suddenly left Mary with no income and only her children to support her, one, Alice, 21 years of age, still at home tending to her mother’s daily needs.  The following is an extract from one affidavit in March of 1899 and it tends to paint a picture of her early life that leads me to believe that she indeed was of a poor class of Irish citizens:

“That this affiant claimant never made a claim for pension other than those described above- had no reason to do so, so long as her late husband was alive.

That she thinks it almost impossible to furnish the date of her birth because she was born in Ireland 74 years ago, and that at the time of her birth and a number of years thereafter there were no schools there [unreadable] and were unable to get any kind of an education, but so soon as about old enough had to work, and learn to work was the only education they were able to get.

That her parents died when she was not quite six years old, was taken to an uncle who raised her and her uncle and his folks spoke no other language than regular Irish.”

All this really does not confirm any definite circumstances of Thomas and Mary during their upbringing in Ireland but it certainly allows me to connect what is known of Irish history and the probable culture they endured as they were growing up.  They must have experienced prejudices and poverty that none of their descendants have had to endure.

Margaret McCarron McGinnis and the Year 1861

It had to have been a difficult year for our great-grandmother. Her husband John died in February of the year leaving her with a family of six to support and none of age enough to have working skills of their own.  The oldest, her stepson Patrick, was sixteen and probably capable of finding some sort of minor employment in order to bring in a meager amount of support to help with the sustenance of the family.

I suspect it was a time of charitable giving and receiving coming from close family and friends in the community and the major sources of help certainly might have centered around the local Parish Church, St. Michael’s.  But what might have been the family situation following the death of the family breadwinner can only be speculated on.  What follows are some possibilities of what might have developed for the family as discussed and speculated on by myself and Molly McGinnis.  It is only conjecture for the census of 1861 only provides questions and no real substantial answers regarding Margaret McGinnis and her children.

John McGinnis Sr. was a cobbler by trade and at the time his trade was defined as a Cordwainer according to the only census entry found for him in 1851 in Chatham. Perhaps he was working out of his home or employed elsewhere in the village of Chatham.  By 1861 it very well may have been considered more than a village, more likely a small town, a small and prosperous town I suspect. 

The era of wooden ships was alive and thriving and the small town had an ample shipbuilding industry long established in the community.  The Cunard family being the principle owner of the apparently largest shipyard along the Miramichi River where so many of the wage earners of the local Irish community earned their salaries.  Other members of the Cunard family went on to form a successful shipping company originating in St. John’s, New Brunswick that still exists today.  The Cunard company was the major shareholder in the White Star Line, the company that eventually financed and commissioned the building of the the fateful ship Titanic.

Ten years before his death, in 1851, John Sr. practiced a trade of a cobbler or cordwainer, of which there were 20 in the overall population of 1700.  Obviously he passed his skills on to none of his sons for the evidence is that most followed the obvious trade of ship carpentry, a much needed skill in the shipyards.  Wood from the abundant forests along the upper Miramichi and the availability of such downstream in Chatham was the driving force behind the establishment of the shipbuilding industry that the small town became famous for.  The era of wooden ships by 1871 was being replaced by modern steel ships being built first in Europe during the emergence of the era of steel ocean vessels.  This transition can be directly attributed to the McGinnis family’s eventual migration out of Canada and to the United States.  The industry eventually died in their small town and employment prospects were much greater in the land to the south, the U.S, 

Margaret and her brood continued to strive on, obviously, following the death of the family head but apparently it was not an easy time for her.  The Canadian Census was taken later that year and Margaret and her family do not appear, at least as a family unit.  The entire family may have been missed in the count that year.

Searching through the census of 1861 there are possible entries for some of the family members suggesting that maybe some of the children were living with family and friends but nothing to date can really be pieced together in order to create a valid picture of just what the family was experiencing.  The entries that are found cannot really be established to be of Margaret’s family.  This leads me to suspect that Margaret may have been experiencing difficult times finding ways to support her children, a rather likely experience for any new widow with a large family.

Margaret’s oldest charge, her stepson Patrick, just might have been the redeemer of the family.  His personal enterprise as reflected in his later success in life suggests that he very well could have been assertive enough to step in and slowly helped the family financially, even at such a young age.  If there were employment possibilities for one so young then younger brother James surely soon began to add help for the family sustenance as well.  With her family coming of age in that decade it is easy to assume they all pulled together to keep the family intact.  But the few years immediately following the death of John Sr. had to have included some trying hardships for all to experience.

So the story of what transpired for the remaining McGinnis family for the next ten years, until the next census of 1871, is only something to be wondered about.  The 1871 census reveals that the family is together along with Margaret’s father and a sister.  The appearance of these latter two individuals suggests that times may have improved over that decade as the two new McCarron's in the household are certainly new immigrants for they do not appear in any earlier Canadian census in any province, at least not within any of my data searches.  Somehow, collectively I surmise, enough funds were put together to enable the two to book passage to Canada to join Margaret.  This alone establishes that some level of prosperity had taken place.  The possibility that the father and sister provided their own funding to emigrate out of Ireland is rather unlikely based strictly on the economy of Ireland during the period.  Possible I suppose, but to me rather unlikely.

So 1871 arrives and the economy of Chatham, New Brunswick slowly began to decline as the era of wooden shipbuilding began to die out.  The rest of the story plays out in the U.S. and it amazes me how they all ended up in Washington State still a family unit of extended family for many years to come.

St. Michael’s Cemetery, Chatham, NB…..Another Grave Yet to be Found……Hopefully Never Forgotten

Where lies James McCarron………… ?

St. Michaels Basilica and Cemetery

There is no new uncovering of facts here but what this does accomplish is raise questions yet to be answered.  It tells a basic story without all , organizing and describing and posting these small facets of our ancestors past comings and goings is that almost every discovered fact very often leads to more questions.  Thus this serves as a place to bring up those questions and hopefully as time goes by some of the unknowns will be resolved.  At least this becomes a place for me to be reminded of what needs further looking into in order to uncover some long lost family information.

To explain, James McCarron is the father of Margaret McCarron, later married to John McGinnis Sr.  This would make James McCarron the Great-Great Grandfather to my generation, the direct descendants of Mary Agnes McGinnis.
The man holds the distinction of the oldest identified ancestor in the McGinnis/McCarron line and the oldest ancestor born in Ireland and buried on North American soil. The actual proof of his existence can be found in but two pieces of documentation found in Chatham, New Brunswick records.

The first piece of evidence regarding his identity is to be found is his inclusion in the 1871 Canadian Census living in the household of what most certainly is his daughter, Margaret McCarron McGinnis.  This was some ten years following the death of Margaret’s husband John McGinnis.      

 Margaret McGinnis Transcription 1871 Canadian Census
Chatham division 3, pages 1 & 2, Margaret McGinnis, 50, Patrick, 23, James, 22, John, 20, Arthur, 18, Sarah, 16, Hugh, 13.  Also in same household, McCarron, James, 80, Mary, 40.  Patrick and James are listed as carpenters, John as a school teacher, Arthur as a laborer.  Sarah also has an occupation listed that is unreadable.
     

Margaret McCarron McGinnis

Circa 1890, She left her Father in the Graveyard of St. Michaels

Note: The dark material outlining her head appears to be the back of a chair or something she is sitting on at the time

The second piece of evidence is his record of death and burial in the archives of St. Michael’s parish church in Chatham.  The death date is followed by burial two days later.  His burial in the church cemetery is undisputable however a search of an hour or two in the rain during my last visit to Chatham, in the summer of 2007, even with the help of two friends, we could not locate his grave.  Is it lost to time, I certainly hope not for it needs to discovered and honored in some respectful way.  

As in many old cemeteries the earliest graves tend to lack maintenance over the years as cemetery funding diminishes and family, relatives and descendants die off or leave the area.  This eventuality very well may be the case for the grave of James McCarron leaving the possibility that his grave marker may have been destroyed by the weather alone.  The museum historical records merely record the death and burial information and the actual grave location was not indicated.  The museum directed me to a caretakers office to see if they had the precise location but that facility was not open the day I was there.  The grave location might be found in those separate records maintained by the parish Sexton or others in the church office with access to the actual records.

James McCarron Death and Burial Record

(lower left entry)

Found and photographed at the St. Michael’s Museum and

Historical Center

The 1871 census really adds more questions than facts. Ten years after her husbands death Margaret has then living in her household, other than her children, what appears to be her father and most likely a sister. What are the circumstances that allowed two family members, most likely rather newly arrived from Ireland, to join Margaret and her brood? Who or what provided the funding for this to occur? Another question for another time.

This all leads to another rather basic unanswered question regarding the family survival after the death of John Sr.. Was Margaret and her children left in near poverty or was it actually the opposite of conditions? However, this needs some additional thought for a posting on the subject at a later date. Of course the primary question in this posting is where in St. Michael’s cemetery does James McCarron lie? Someday I hope to find the grave. 

Chicago St. Valentine's Day……… !

From the department of trivia and a small coincidence to note. I found it rather interesting.

A well told story seems to predictably emerge in all sorts of media every year it seems.  The story is told time and again about the Chicago Valentine’s Day Massacre, the result of which began the long and bloody task of purging the local Mafia of the time from the local streets by honest law enforcement agencies.  At least by those honest lawmen that could be found to be loyal during the twenties and thirties.
It happened on St.Valentines day in Chicago, in 1929?

The struggle between the Italian controlled Mafia of the South Side of the city against the Irish controlled Mafia of Chicago’s North Side.

This is a repeat of an e-mail shared with some family last year.  It really sheds no light on our family history but when I recognized the address in Chicago where the incident occurred it just caught my curiosity.  The murders happened some three months before our grandmother Mary Ellen McGinnis died in Stanwood some 40 years after her and her husband left Chicago for Seattle.  I just wonder if she ever realized when hearing of the event in Chicago, did she ever recognize that it happened in her old Chicago neighborhood. 

From: allie
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 3:59 PM
To: Nancy Robbins; Michael Jones; DON & JENNINE
Subject: TRIVIA

Hope all are having a memorable Valentines day............ !

Here is a bit of trivia discovered today......

As happens almost every Valentines day, some TV channel runs something about the Chicago Valentines Day Massacre of 1929 supposedly masterminded by Al Capone.
The program I watched just now on the History Channel gave the address of the infamous garage where the crimes took place..........2122 N. Clark St., Chicago, very near the lake front. That address really sounded familiar.

It seems, according to an 1885 Chicago City directory, James McGinnis Sr. and his new wife Mary Ellen Donahue were living on that very street, but a block south, at 2022 N. Clark St., some 44 years earlier of course. Our ancestors left town in 1889 and one can naturally assume the neighborhood really went downhill after they left. But it remained an Irish part of the city and eventually was under control of the Irish gangs.

An older brother of our Grandmother, Patrick Donahue, ran a grocery store in the neighborhood, in the same 2000 block of Clark St. He died in late 1930. He was still a grocer in Chicago in the 1920 census I believe. Maybe he was still in business in the neighborhood and if he was close to the mob action, he may very well have wished he had left town with his sister. I hope he didn't die of "lead poisoning" administered by some member of the Italian run South side gangs.

Like I said, it is but trivia, the kind that I really get a kick out of.
AJ

http://www.prairieghosts.com/valentine.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Street_(Chicago)

Irish/English Naming Conventions for Children

It seems that tradition was not faithfully followed by our Irish ancestors and relatives.

There was a tradition, supposedly established long ago, for families to follow in naming their offspring.  If followed faithfully, and that is the big question, if and when it was applied, then it would be possible to loosely construct a family tree going farther back than current documented knowledge would allow.

It was interesting to come across this bit of possible family practice with those of Irish and English descent some years back but until now I never really made a study of our ancestry to see if it was applied in our lines.  The answer to that question, is no, not really, at least not using information that we know to be reasonably correct.

Irish Naming Patterns for Children:

The 1st son was usually named after the father's father
  The 2nd son was usually named after the mother's father
   The 3rd son was usually named after the father
    The 4th son was usually named after the father's eldest brother
     The 5th son was usually named after the mother's eldest brother
 

The 1st daughter was usually named after the mother's mother
  The 2nd daughter was usually named after the father's mother
   The 3rd daughter was usually named after the mother
    The 4th daughter was usually named after the mother's eldest sister 
     The 5th daughter  was usually named after the father's eldest sister 

We only have any degree of confidence in those descendants of our Irish beginnings starting with John McGinnis (1811-1861) and Thomas Donahue (1816-1898).  Coming forth into present times a reasonably accurate accounting for all the offspring of these two and their wives, Margaret McCarron and Mary McKeough, has been established and documented by a few of their descendants.  It becomes rather obvious when looking at a current family tree that after two or three generations coming forward from these ancestors that any possibility of descendants following traditional naming practices for children really went by the wayside by the time of our mother’s generation.  Simply stated it appears there was little or no effort made to follow tradition beginning in the early 1900’s when the younger and modern generations began their families.


Beginning with the Donahue line we have a fairly accurate guess at the names of the parents of our Thomas Sr.  For now I have accepted them to be Patrick Donahue and Mary Connelly.  Nothing to date has been found regarding the names of the parents of his wife, Mary McKeough. So in counting all possible descendants for two succeeding generations a reasonably accurate count of 70 possible descendants can be established.  This includes surnames that previously were never known to be related in any way, many of which lived their lives out in Wisconsin, and were never known to our branch of the family.  The children of John Shimunok, Robert Puls and William Scherer are surnames included in my count of seventy for they too are direct descendants.  All three of these men married a Donahue daughter of the first generation on American soil.


To repeat, coming forward but two additional generations, out of those seventy possible names only 37 have reliable documentation of names of great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts in order to clearly see if a naming convention of a child was actually followed.  When looking at the spouses of the progeny of Thomas and Mary, as well as the son and daughter in laws established by marriage, not enough of their ancestors has been found to really determine any naming pattern for those that married into the family.  Thus the list dwindles by at least half to use to study the possibility of tradition being followed at all.


The result is that out of the 37 names where relatives names are known only 6 seem to have followed the supposed actual system of naming children.  That small amount is enough to state that the system of naming really was not followed at all and if it was it very well may have been by accident and not really meant to be following tradition in any way.


The list of possible descendants in the McGinnis line is far fewer.  A known list of 25 names can be established coming forward two generations from John McGinnis and his wife Margaret McCarron.  However the possibility of following tradition increases in this family line.  Using all known ancestors, uncles and aunts of this group, 14, possibly 18, of these descendants may have been named using the old traditional naming patterns.  That is clearly a larger proportion than the Donahue line.


This is only an exercise of no great importance currently, only something that needed looking at to see if more names might be logically assumed, i.e. the given names of the parents and other close relatives of Thomas Donahue and John McGinnis.  If one has a reasonably accurate guess of the given or Christian name of earlier Irish ancestors that never immigrated it could be a definite help if and when anyone is able to establish the home parishes of both these lines in Ireland.  Looking at old records knowing only a surname is a broad brush approach, however, if all the given names were known in these lines going back to perhaps the mid to late 1700’s, then the process of elimination of unlikely ancestors in old records would be much easier.


But the obvious answer to all this is that in our lines it is rather doubtful that the traditional system can be relied on to aid in making educated guesses of the names of unknown ancestors.  The system should be kept in mind though because one should never say never.

An Excellent Video That Summarizes The Irish Potato Famine Experience

Maybe you might want to know a bit more of your Irish background.  If so, I can recommend this video link.

<sup>I have read several accounts of early Irish history regarding the Potato Famine and the treatment of the calamity by the English rule of the time and this video tends to give a very good example in 45 minutes of just what our ancestors may or may not have experienced. However, the general conditions that prevailed throughout the land had to have impact to some degree on the absolute majority of the citizens that were not major landowners, It had to have affected all in some way.  The farmers, the laborers and the shop keepers were all affected certainly.
   
The video  follows a specific family line and the ship disaster they encountered does not apply to us but it is a typical example of what many immigrants did experience. The video really is well done and thru some re-enactment gives a good overall picture in one presentation. I am impressed with it.

The English defeated the Irish some two or three hundred years earlier and that defeat was a disaster for the Irish beyond all current practices of war, at least to the extent that the English introduced. Their eventual total victory gave them the opportunity to actually seize ownership of land and they were merciless. Eventually the Irish became tenants to English landowners on their very own land and this only helped to bring about wide spread poverty with so many of the Irish natives in the years proceeding the 1845 famine only able to lease very small plots of land. These small plots barely provided enough food for a family. Of course this is a worst case scenario but as the film states it may have involved one in three Irish families.

The film presents one families story and just what our ancestors experienced can only be guessed at but due to the millions that immigrated to North America for various reasons, surely some of the same motivations applied to our lines as well. The failure of the potato crops beginning in 1845 seemingly did not affect the McGinnis's since large numbers of the Irish began to immigrate much earlier. The famine was the crowning blow so to speak. Before that due to wide spread poverty, disease, persecution of Catholics and constant contentious English rule there were many reasons to leave long before the major famine period.

If you watch the video keep in mind what is known today of our lines.  John McGinnis, from County Monaghan, and two of his sisters immigrated in the 1830's. One or more of the sisters may have came alone, or with friends and not family.  A list of passengers of one ship, the Britannia, that is available on the internet, lists one Catherine McGinnis as a passenger to St. John’s, New Brunswick in 1834.  On that same ship was a Buchannan family.  The first wife of John McGinnis was Mary Buchannan.  The name of one Margaret Buchannan on the ships manifest is different but close, and the year of immigration for Catherine later listed in the 1851 census as 1836, the same year for her brother, is also different.  I only mention the similarities here as a future reference to be explored in more depth if and when better records ever do surface.  But the similarities are such that makes me really wonder of the accuracy of the later census data for sister Catherine.  The families the sisters eventually married into also immigrated during this same period or just before. For what reasons we do not know but as stated here there were other reasons besides the famine for there were earlier but smaller famine periods.

John McGinnis married Margaret McCarron, his second wife, in about 1846.  Margaret had immigrated in 1843. Her immigration year was closer to the famine period which spread gradually beginning before 1845 and she may have left during the early period of the disaster. We don't know. She did leave a father and a sister behind, perhaps other family members as well, that eventually joined her in Canada sometime between 1860 and 1870. What the McCarron's that were left behind in Ireland eventually experienced may have been related to the major famine but that is but speculation. Since the father and sister did survive in Ireland during the major famine they may have been much better off than the really poor and destitute families. Maybe we will find out some day, at least that is my hope.

As for the Donahue’s, that story comes closer to the major outbreak of the famine years for Thomas Donahue immigrated in 1845, or just before.  This is based on the fact that he joined the U.S. Army in 1845.  The famine did come on gradually so being from Galway he may have been in search of better times.  Again we don’t know.  He did leave a daughter behind that he also brought to the U.S. in the early 1850’s not very long after his marriage to Mary McKeough and his discharge from the army in 1850,  That portion of Ireland where Galway is situated was not considered the most productive land and sometime during early English rule those Irish that wanted were permitted to migrate to this area of the north coast of the island.  This leads me to believe that the Donahue’s may have had hard times through the years and perhaps poverty was a factor that motivated Thomas to seek a better life in North America.  Just when and where Thomas landed on the continent is not known exactly but I have found a record of his possible landing in Boston.  The record needs more thought so I am unable to really state it as fact at this time.  Time will tell perhaps.

The Irish literally scattered to the four winds, to Australia, North America and even South America where small enclaves of Irish descendants can be found in Brazil and Argentina even today just as in Boston or Savannah.

Anyway I do recommend the video for it paints a picture of the Irish diaspora in a brief presentation and is very well done.</sup>