Irish Emigrant Society

[1vinnie]

I was going through an old relatives things and found a stack of memorandums from the Irish Emigrant Society. They are from 1919 to about 1923. They have different denominations on them. Does anyone know what they are and what they can tell me?

[Wiggy]

Welcome to Rootschat Vinnie!  Hope there is help available for you here.

Are you going to post some of the memoranda so people can look and try to work things out??   

 If you are not sure how to post a photo go to the tip of the photo board and there are instruction threads there.

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,517366.0.html   

this link might be helpful.

Wiggy     

[LizzieW]

They sound like some insurance receipts to me.  People used to pay weekly to the salesman who came round to the house.  My gran insured my dad like this and carried on paying even after he married, until the end of the war when she knew he was safe.  We managed to claim on the insurance at his death in 2003!.

Of course, I could be totally wrong here.

Lizzie

[1vinnie]

Here is the "Memorandum"

[Pastmagic]

What country did you find them in? If US, following may be  be relevant:

http://www.rootschat.com/links/0hl2/
History.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAEireland.htm
has a line on them:

"A census carried out in 1850 revealed that there were 961,719 people in the United States that had been born in Ireland. At this time they mainly lived in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio and New Jersey. The Irish Emigrant Society tried to persuade immigrants to move to the interior but the vast majority were poverty-stricken and had no money for transport or to buy land. They therefore tended to settle close to the port where they disembarked."

http://www.eisbirishnyc.com/eisbirishnyc_006.htm

See Andrew Carrigian

[Pastmagic]

The bank was founded in 1850 by 18 members of the Irish Emigrant Society with the goal of serving the needs of the immigrant community in New York.[1] The headquarters used to be at the Former Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank on Chambers Street. Emigrant Savings collected extensive records of the arriving Irish immigrants to America, which were later donated to the New York Public Library and serve as valuable genealogical resources.[3]
In 1986, The Emigrant Savings Bank converted from a mutual to a stock savings bank following several years of loss in an unfavorable environment. The bank increased its online presence with the introduction of the virtual bank Emigrant Direct in 2005. (Wiki)

The address on the document you posted is Chambers St.
PM

[1vinnie]

Do these types of documents have value or they just family collectibles?

[Pastmagic]

They average about £1-3 on ebay, but as family records they are priceless - they record a history of survival in a foreign country, having had to go into exile - a lucky find for you!
Pm

[irishrose]

I think this is  a receipt for a money order that would be sent back home to Ireland from the emigrant in USA.  It is the emigrants record of the transaction.  When the money order arrived in Ireland, it would be cashed by the Bank of Ireland here. My granduncle sent them from Philadelphia to his brothers and sisters for years after he arrived there in the 1920s
Irishrose