(April) 2011 - Irish Genealogical Website International

_____________________________________________________ Tracing Irish Women in the Midwest
Jay Fonkert is a Certified Genealogist
specializing in Midwest and Dutch genealogy.
He is past president
of the Minnesota
Genealogical Society
and is a member
of the Association
of Professional
Genealogists. He has
studied advanced
genealogy research
methods at the Institute
for Genealogical and
Historical Research at Samford University and
completed the National Genealogical Society’s
home study course.
New Benefit:
Searchable Pedigree
Charts
With the launch of the new website a new
benefit will be revealed. A ‘members only’
searachable pedigree charts section. This
benefit allows members to search a surname
through all the pedigree charts in the
program.
Pedigree charts are not proof but clues
for the researcher. A place to start your
search with a few details that could help.
Individuals submit their charts and through
the years changes are made. The researcher
should investigate the information on any
pedigree chart regardless of where they find
that chart.
At this time most of our charts come from
members who have sent a chart on paper
to IGSI. A few volunteer members are
transferring that information into GED files
so we can enter it onto the website. We have
a large grouping of pedigree charts and could
use more help. If you have time please contact
us at questions@IrishGenealogical.org.
We hope you will submit your own chart.
Send a copy of your chart as a GED file
to IGSI. For more information on how
to do this or any questions contact us at
questions@IrishGenealogical.org.
Irish Genealogical Society International
Elusive Women, Inspiring Stories
By Maureen K. Reed
Editor’s note: The value of this article is
enhanced through the reading of the
explanatory footnotes to be found at the end
of this article. The combination of article and
references provides a learning experience for
family researchers.
Why bother searching for the history of
our women? It is vexing, expensive,
and time consuming. Whatever resources
are required to uncover the stories of our
men, those required to uncover the stories
of women are many times greater. Dozens
of historical factors conspire to make their
stories obscure. They changed their names.
They weren’t naturalized. They usually
didn’t own land or businesses. They didn’t
warrant lengthy obituaries. And add to
these factors a long held notion: their lives
were ordinary and mundane, not worthy of
study and not of much value to us today.
Really? The lives of the women who were
our ancestors are timeless tales of courage,
dedication and selflessness. Children dying
of whooping cough. Who rocked them in
the night? Husbands maimed in wagon
accidents. Who changed and washed the
bloody dressings? Farms in foreclosure.
Who planted the garden and marketed the
butter and eggs? Bitter winds and snow.
Who knit the stockings and patched the
woolen pants? A missed period at age 47.
Who worried about surviving a seventh
(or a tenth) pregnancy? To know the full
stories of our female ancestors is to take a
giant gulp from an inexhaustible fountain
of inspiration.
The thirst for inspiration is but one reason
to pursue women’s stories. Another is the
thirst for accuracy. A few facts are better
than none at all, but facts without context
don’t lead to understanding. Without
knowledge of our female ancestors it is
difficult to place the circumstances of our
male ancestors into proper context. The
more complete the data collection, the more
accurate is our knowledge of the past.
Finally, for those invigorated by the
challenge of a difficult search and energized
by connecting seemingly unrelated small
facts, researching the women in an ancestral
line is a challenge too tempting to ignore.
In 2000, our family only knew three
meager facts about our great-grandmother
before she married: her maiden name was
Sheehan, she was born in Ireland, and
she came up the river from St. Louis to
Caledonia, Minnesota. All that follows has
been discovered since.
The Home Place: Ballynestragh
The farmland of Ballynestragh townland in
northern County Wexford was the home
place of the extended Sheehan family for
centuries. 2 Instead of paying their rent in
cash, the Sheehans paid the Esmonde family
by their labor on the nearby Esmonde
estate. 3 In the shadow of the manor house
in the winter of 1836, Mary Sheehan was
born to James and Mary (Nolan) Sheehan.
Then, in the arms of godparents Ann Nolan
and Brian Connor, Mary was baptized at
nearby Killinierin Catholic Church. 4
Some thirty years later 5 and under
circumstancesthathavesincebeenforgotten,
Mary Sheehan packed her belongings and
immigrated to St. Louis, Missouri. There
is no information to suggest that Mary’s
parents accompanied her to St. Louis. The
elder Sheehans may have lived out their
days at Ballynestragh, or they may have
immigrated to America but died before
arriving in Missouri.
In all probability, however, Mary did not
sail to America alone. Her younger sister
Sarah materialized in St. Louis about this
same time, 6 suggesting but not proving that
they traveled together. Their port of entry
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