The records provided here result from my efforts to trace the
settlement in America of my immigrant ancestors from Ireland. An
important
strategy in researching family history is to find and transcribe every
record containing the family name in the area where they settled. These
records contain clues useful for tracking down the ancestors of
interest.
My immigrant ancestor lived briefly in Ontario county, New York,
then moved westward. His siblings, however, stayed in or near Ontario
county, and by collecting the data on these people, I was able to fill
in some important data about my own ancestors.
The data presented here may help others in their search for ancestors.
These records are transcribed from parish records of Catholic churches
in Ontario county, New York. A few records from churches in other
counties are also included. Since the Walsh families immigrating from
Ireland were all Catholic, the records of Protestant churches are
irrelevant, or at least inefficient to search. Generally, the original
records available start between 1850 to 1870 and go well into the 20th
century. The beginning of a church's records generally coincides with
its construction, as Catholic churches started to appear in this area
in the second quarter of the 19th century. The Yankees who dominated
this area before the waves of European immigration did not build
Catholic churches. Of course, there were Walsh,
Welch, and other Irish families that had migrated to America in
colonial days, but they were probably all Protestants and were part of
the Yankee culture by the time of the wave of migration that began a
little before the famine, and then crested in the mid-1800s. The
records selected for transcription began with the earliest available
from each church and continue until about 1900. This period covers the
great period of Irish immigration and settlement.
The records in the table linked from this page are transcriptions
from the original records. They contain the standard entries of the
original records, but may not contain other notations or rare
variations. See the table
of
churches for the names of the churches searched and the dates
covered. Not all the priests (or the people who made the records)
seemed familiar with the Irish names, so spellings vary greatly.
Baptismal records and marriage records are included in the tables here.
The baptismal records typically show the birth date, parents, and
sponsors (god-parents). In cases where the records did not show the
mother's maiden name, the maternal Walsh lineage could not be
represented. Also, in some churches, baptisms are indexed, were not
read, and only the Walsh/Welch/Welsh entries were transcribed. The
marriage records are particularly helpful because they often show the
parents of the bride and groom. Since good census data is available for
about every five years in New York State, it is possible to construct
multi-generation histories of families. I have done this
re-construction using census data for heads-of-households Patrick Walsh/Welch and John Walsh/Welch in the
selected time
period, to
which you can add your family members from the census and the church
records.
copyright © 2005 by Joseph C. Hager
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