Looking for Artifacts of the Irish Diaspora in America

If you are a descendant of Irish immigrants to America, the Little Museum of Dublin would like to borrow some of your family items.  The Little Museum (I wonder if it really is little?), a nonprofit, formally opened in October 2011 in Dublin, Ireland.  Its mission is to remember the social, cultural, and political history of the city.

From May to August of this year the museum is planning the Huddled Masses Exhibition, which aims to tell the story of Irish America and the search for the American dream.  The exhibition also intends to explore the relationship between Ireland and the United States.

The museum is currently looking for documents of all sorts -- letters, photographs, newspaper clippings -- books, clothes, and other artifacts that relate to the theme of Irish immigration to the U.S. and that will add to and enrich the exhibition.  Some of the suggested items are documents relating to emigration and immigration (tickets, letters, posters, visas, passports), American wakes, the Irish Catholic church in America, Irish American women, Irish regiments in the Civil War, and Irish domestic servants around the turn of the 20th century.

More information about the planned exhibit and the request for contributions is in this article.

I visited Dublin in 1996, so of course I didn't get to visit this museum because it didn't exist yet.  It sounds like a lovely little place.  I especially like the idea of the "I Love Dublin" classes they have for school children, to teach them about the heritage of their city.

Research on the Migration of Lithuanian Jews

Nathan Shapiro, a student at Hofstra University in New York, is writing an honors thesis about the migration of Lithuanian Jews during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  As part of his research, he wants to interview the descendants of Jews who emigrated from Lithuania during this time.  Ideally, he is looking to interview people who are one generation removed from the emigrant.  If you fit these criteria, or if you know someone who does, please contact Nathan at nathan.shapiro@me.com.  His research is not focused on any specific destination, so he is looking for interviewees from anywhere in the world!

Family History in Unexpected Places

Even though I think about family history a lot, and it has become such a popular pastime, I am sometimes surprised where I see it pop up.  Recently a friend gave me a copy of The Illustrated London News from Christmas of 1956.  My friend gave it to me because of a painting showing the heraldry of the opposing sides at the Battle of Crécy in 1346.  While it was a fascinating painting, what caught my eye more was a page titled "Outcasts--Social and Melodramatic:  Family Problems of a Century Ago", which shows two mid-19th-century paintings focused on families.

The Emigration Scheme

The first painting is The Emigration Scheme (c. 1850), by James Collinson.  Migration from one country to another was not only a significant event in the lives of many people's ancestors, it often becomes a major focus of research, trying to trace immigrants back to their countries and cities of origin.  Emigration was considered a viable solution to unemployment, urban overcrowding, and rural poverty in England in the early 19th century.  The Petworth Emigration Scheme is an example of one such plan.  But many records from this period have not survived, and it can be difficult to determine when and from where someone traveled.

The Outcast

The second painting is The Outcast (1851), by Richard Redgrave.  Here the subject appears to be a daughter who has had an illegitimate baby.  She is being turned out of the house by her father while other family members look on in sorrow.  Beyond the sadness of the situation, one of the first things I thought was, "This is a brick wall in the making."  Perhaps the shamed daughter gives her baby to a childless couple, or marries quickly and never talks about her own family again.  It can take creative and time-consuming research techniques to reconnect such a woman to her family.

The other unexpected place I ran into family history was Sports Illustrated magazine!  In the December 3, 2012 issue, writer Tim Layden has a wonderful article about his great-uncle Johnny Evers, of the famed double-play combo Tinker to Evers to Chance.  Apparently Layden has been tossing his great-uncle's name around for years as a well known calling card but didn't really know much about the man himself.  He finally got around to doing real research on Evers' life after a comment by a colleague.  The article is a good mix of the facts he was able to find and the stories he wasn't able to verify, and has a nice twist at the end.