Genealogy Canada: Mar 14, 2015

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Irish Research

A good place to start researching the Irish who came to Canada, is the Library and Archives Canada site at http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/history-ethnic-cultural/Pages/irish.aspx

They say that ‘Canada's most recent census returns list the Irish as the fourth largest ethnic group in Canada with almost four and a half million Canadians claiming either some or full Irish lineage. Indeed, this bond between Canada and Ireland has been in existence for centuries’.

At this site, they have the Genealogy and Family History section, where they list under the headings of Research at Library and Archives Canada, Research in Published Sources, and Research at Other Insitutions and Online sources that may hold answer to your Irish research.

So if you have Irish anscestors, this may be a good place to start your Irish research.

Check the Canadian Week in Review every Monday morning for the latest in Genealogy, Heritage, and History news in Canada.

If you missed this week’s edition, it is at http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/03/canadian-news-in-review-09-march-2015.html

It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in Canada!

It has been a regular post every Monday morning since

April 23, 2012.

It’s St Patrick's Day!

Why is St Patrick's Day such a time of celebration and remembrance in Canada?

Maybe the following statistics will give you a clue.

From 1825 to 1970, 1.2 million Irish immigrants arrived in Canada, and at least half of those in the period from 1831–1850.

By 1867, the Irish were the second largest ethnic group (after the French), and comprised 24% of Canada's population.

In my neighbourhood of Ottawa-Gatineau, there is the famous McCabe List: Early Irish in the Ottawa Valley.

At http://www.dippam.ac.uk/ied/records/22293 dpf, there is a list of the McCabe Irish which gives county, parish, townland of origin, number of male and female children and names and addresses of relatives in the homeland for some 700 mostly Irish families who were in the vicinity of Bytown (now known as Ottawa) on 5 February 1829.