Author Topic: Mystery: Why g-grandparents emigrated in 1865 and not earlier  (Read 2382 times)

Offline Maiden Stone

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Re: Mystery: Why g-grandparents emigrated in 1865 and not earlier
« Reply #9 on: Monday 11 February 19 01:13 GMT (UK) »
In Pennsylvania my g-grandfather worked in a coal mine along with his brother-in-law Thomas Lynch, who had brought his family in 1859 from Lancashire in the UK where he also was a miner.  At this time the coal fields in this part of Pennsylvania were just being developed and I wonder whether the families decided to go there, to get in on the ground floor.

Have you researched mining linked to migration?
The Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland

There is a mining database project Find Your Mining Ancestors

Mining and Migration
https://www.glensoflead.com  *
"As with the Cornish who worked with the Irish in mines across 18th and 19th-century Ireland, Irish mineworkers were also highly mobile, moving from one mining field to another as the fortunes of the industry waxed and waned."
Cornishmen were often the mine-captains.

"Networks of Metalliferous Mining Migration in the Nineteenth Century Transatlantic World"

"Miners in Migration: The case of Nineteenth Century Irish and Irish-American Copper Mines" by Timothy O'Neil. (2001) Irish-American Cultural Institute vol. 36. Project Muse.
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/667014/pdf

Cornish tin mining declined from 1840s.
Many Irish miners went to Cumberland and Lancashire in North-West England or Yorkshire, Durham and other counties of North-East England and to Scotland. It's possible that some Munster miners may have gone to Welsh mines or to mines in South-West England.
See website Cumbrian Irish. Many lived in the village of Cleator Moor.
Edit* link doesn't work. Try googling that and other topic titles.

Cowban

Offline Maiden Stone

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Re: Mystery: Why g-grandparents emigrated in 1865 and not earlier
« Reply #10 on: Monday 11 February 19 02:35 GMT (UK) »
Emigration from 1850. Encyclopedia of Irish history and Culture https://www.encyclopedia.com
1850-1854 when most migrants still responded to the Great Famine's immediate effects.
1855 average migration began to decline to pre-Famine levels.
"About two-fifths of overseas migrants left Munster, with another 13% from Connacht and 23% each from Leinster and Ulster" (I'm not sure to which period these statistics relate.)
"In terms of 1851 population, Munster was over-represented among overseas emigrants".
(N.B. a lot of Ulster people went to Scotland.)
                                            ****
31% of Irish immigrants to New Zealand 1853-1870 were from Munster.
Some NZ immigrants had gone there from Australia.
U.K. census 1871: 26% of Irish-born were from Munster.
Cowban

Offline Maiden Stone

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Re: Mystery: Why g-grandparents emigrated in 1865 and not earlier
« Reply #11 on: Monday 11 February 19 03:50 GMT (UK) »
System of tenant farming and landholding changed after the Famine. Until then land had been subdivided between adult sons - hence the dependence on potatoes. Post-Famine, one son took over the land from his father. Other sons had to look elsewhere to make a living. Some managed by working in Britain, in either seasonal or permanent jobs. Those in seasonal or short-term jobs might return to Ireland when they had no work in Britain. Some chose emigration.

This is another mystery.  My g-grandfather was born circa 1816 according to his death certificate, although I know these dates sometimes have only a tenuous relation to the truth.  Anyway if true, he would have been in his late 40s when he emigrated.

I've looked at Griffith's and revision books for the townlands surrounding Cooneen (in Dolla civil parish) up until the late 1800s looking for my g-grandfather and possible siblings.  I really can't find a Ryan family listed with him as the tenant during the period after he married (1859) until they emigrated.  Now it could be that he and his wife were living with one of his or her relatives, but as far as I know that's not possible to tell from extant documentation.

I also cannot find Bridget Lynch's father Michael, who emigrated with them in 1865, anywhere nearby in Griffith's from the 1840s through 1865.
They would only have been included in Griffiths' Valuation if they were property holders.
Have you looked for them on U.K. 1851 & 1861 census? You said in your opening post that Thomas Lynch was a miner in Lancashire before he emigrated in 1859. Were the others miners? Plenty of coal mines in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, English Midlands, Scotland, Wales; iron-ore, copper and slate in Cumberland; slate in Wales; &c. There was work in Lancashire and Cumberland for wives, daughters and young sons in cotton and linen mills and in woollen mills in Yorkshire. An Irish miner with my surname moved from Scotland to County Durham at this time. Labouring jobs building railways, roads, houses &c. were easy to get too. Irish people were mobile. Travel across the Irish Sea and on railways was cheap.
 
Cowban

Offline NewHudsonRyans

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Re: Mystery: Why g-grandparents emigrated in 1865 and not earlier
« Reply #12 on: Monday 11 February 19 20:51 GMT (UK) »
In Pennsylvania my g-grandfather worked in a coal mine along with his brother-in-law Thomas Lynch, who had brought his family in 1859 from Lancashire in the UK where he also was a miner.  At this time the coal fields in this part of Pennsylvania were just being developed and I wonder whether the families decided to go there, to get in on the ground floor.

Have you researched mining linked to migration?
The Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland

There is a mining database project Find Your Mining Ancestors

Mining and Migration
https://www.glensoflead.com  *
"As with the Cornish who worked with the Irish in mines across 18th and 19th-century Ireland, Irish mineworkers were also highly mobile, moving from one mining field to another as the fortunes of the industry waxed and waned."
Cornishmen were often the mine-captains.

"Networks of Metalliferous Mining Migration in the Nineteenth Century Transatlantic World"

"Miners in Migration: The case of Nineteenth Century Irish and Irish-American Copper Mines" by Timothy O'Neil. (2001) Irish-American Cultural Institute vol. 36. Project Muse.
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/667014/pdf

Cornish tin mining declined from 1840s.
Many Irish miners went to Cumberland and Lancashire in North-West England or Yorkshire, Durham and other counties of North-East England and to Scotland. It's possible that some Munster miners may have gone to Welsh mines or to mines in South-West England.
See website Cumbrian Irish. Many lived in the village of Cleator Moor.
Edit* link doesn't work. Try googling that and other topic titles.

Yes, I've looked into Tipperary mining.  In the early 1800s there were copper and silver mines near Newport, southwest of Nenagh (this town is close to Templederry, where my g-grandparents' church was located).  I think the records I've seen were in Abington civil parish.  A Michael Lynch was living near there in Griffith's.

Of course there are coal mines in Ballingarry, about 35 miles east of Templederry.

At some point in the past I found a contact knowledgeable about miner records in Tipperary, and he told me that unfortunately there are not many extant records of miners' names from the mid 19th century.


Offline NewHudsonRyans

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Re: Mystery: Why g-grandparents emigrated in 1865 and not earlier
« Reply #13 on: Monday 11 February 19 21:01 GMT (UK) »
System of tenant farming and landholding changed after the Famine. Until then land had been subdivided between adult sons - hence the dependence on potatoes. Post-Famine, one son took over the land from his father. Other sons had to look elsewhere to make a living. Some managed by working in Britain, in either seasonal or permanent jobs. Those in seasonal or short-term jobs might return to Ireland when they had no work in Britain. Some chose emigration.

This is another mystery.  My g-grandfather was born circa 1816 according to his death certificate, although I know these dates sometimes have only a tenuous relation to the truth.  Anyway if true, he would have been in his late 40s when he emigrated.

I've looked at Griffith's and revision books for the townlands surrounding Cooneen (in Dolla civil parish) up until the late 1800s looking for my g-grandfather and possible siblings.  I really can't find a Ryan family listed with him as the tenant during the period after he married (1859) until they emigrated.  Now it could be that he and his wife were living with one of his or her relatives, but as far as I know that's not possible to tell from extant documentation.

I also cannot find Bridget Lynch's father Michael, who emigrated with them in 1865, anywhere nearby in Griffith's from the 1840s through 1865.
They would only have been included in Griffiths' Valuation if they were property holders.
Have you looked for them on U.K. 1851 & 1861 census? You said in your opening post that Thomas Lynch was a miner in Lancashire before he emigrated in 1859. Were the others miners? Plenty of coal mines in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, English Midlands, Scotland, Wales; iron-ore, copper and slate in Cumberland; slate in Wales; &c. There was work in Lancashire and Cumberland for wives, daughters and young sons in cotton and linen mills and in woollen mills in Yorkshire. An Irish miner with my surname moved from Scotland to County Durham at this time. Labouring jobs building railways, roads, houses &c. were easy to get too. Irish people were mobile. Travel across the Irish Sea and on railways was cheap.
 

Yes, I've looked at the 1851 and 1861 UK censuses.  I did find Thomas Lynch and his family living in the town of Wigan, County Lancashire.  I know that those mines began to decline in the latter part of the 19th century which might explain why the family relocated to Pennsylvania, where the coal fields were being discovered.

One of the Lynch descendants became relatively wealthy after emigration and the family is described in one of those "Who's who" books that were popular in the US at least in the late 1800s.  In that description, Michael Lynch's daughter briefly mentions Michael Ryan as an "miner, deceased", and hardly mentions her father at all.