Irish Heritage Feature

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NOVEMBER 29, 2014

HEN it comes to tracing your Irish family roots there is an endless supply of resources to turn to.

W One of the most valuable services for research on Irish

ancestors who lived during the 19th century is Griffith’s Valuation database. This free online service (www.askaboutIreland.ie) from public libraries includes detailed maps for houses, out-houses and ownership boundaries for every townland in Ireland. Many historical collections are also available on the site from different periods, for example The Limerick Leader 1944-50, The Waterford News 1915-17 as well as a collection of historic film clips from the early 1900s onwards including many of Ireland’s most important historical events such as Queen Victoria’s visit to Ireland in 1900 and the Easter Rising.

Many libraries will also arrange talks from local historians and hold interesting exhibitions related to the history of the local area.

Many of Ireland’s county and city councils also provide a wealth of information. For example Derry City Council’s Archive and Genealogical Service allows access to the civic records of the Council and its predecessor, the Londonderry Corporation.

The collections provide a comprehensive record from the latter half of the seventeenth century to the present day, consisting of minute books, legal documents, architectural drawings and plans. Its genealogical collections includes a database of over one million records including traditional family history records such as birth, marriage and death records.

This month Findmypast also released 10 years of Pettigrew & Oulton’s Dublin Almanac & General Register of Ireland 1835-1845, which can now be searched online.

Pettigrew and Oulton’s was the first annual publication to include a street by street directory of Dublin. First published in 1834, the Almanac provided not simply a street directory but also an alphabetical list of inhabitants, grouped by profession.

Genealogy centres are also a valuable resource. The Irish Family History Foundation has been the co-ordinating body for a network of county genealogy centres on the island of Ireland for over 25 years. The centres’ databases includes parish church records of baptisms, marriages and deaths, census returns and gravestone inscriptions.

Millions of these records are searchable online, providing a unique resource for family historians.

DALCASSIAN ORIGINS Family Research & Genealogy Service

■ Based in County Clare and specialising in Irish and U.S. genealogical research ■ 30+ years experience researching my own family tree in both the U.S. Jane Halloran Ryan is a and Ireland genealogist and family ■ All commissioned research projects historian undertaken — queries to full reports ■ Member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and CT Society of Genealogists (U.S.A.) Certificate in Genealogical Research Methods from University of Limerick.

Contact Jane:

Telephone: 0353 087 9771385 Website: www.dalcassianorigins.ie Follow Jane’s blog at: janehalloran.wordpress.com Twitter: @jane.halloran.ryan Facebook: www.facebook.com/dalcassianorigins Email address: info@dalcassianorigins.ie Knockjames, Tulla, County Clare, Ireland.

■ YOUR FOUR PAGE SUPPLEMENT TO PULL OUT AND KEEP

Did Your Ancestors Go to America?

NEW YORK GENEALOGIST CAN HELP FIND THEM

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16 | November 29, 2014

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Waiting for the wounded Over 210,000 Irish served in the British Army during World War I. Among them were doctors, such as Patricia Harty’s grandfather, who tended the wounded and saw the brutality of modern warfare up close. Here the Irish America Editor traces his history “A British advance has just begun, and the surgeons of a Divisional Collecting Station near the Somme are awaiting the arrival of the first laden stretcher-bearers. In a few minutes the three officers will be at work, perhaps for 24 hours on end. At one Casualty Clearing Station a distinguished surgeon performed, without resting, 19 difficult operations, each lasting more than an hour, in cases of severe abdominal wounds, where delay would have meant the loss of life.

In almost every case the man was saved. Another surgeon operated for 36 hours without relief. Such devotion is not exceptional in the Royal Army Medical Corps” — This is the caption to the “Waiting for the Wounded” sketch as written by the artist Muirhead Bone.

W

E didn’t talk much about my grandfather when I was a child. He had been a doctor in the British Army, decorated for his service in the First World War, but in Ireland, no matter how heroic, a relative in the British Army wasn’t something you bragged about.

William “Bill” Egan, my mother’s father, was born on September 30, 1881 into a

farming family outside the town of Dungarvan, Co. Waterford.

The youngest of three sons of Anne Duggan and Maurice Egan, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1912, shortly after graduating from Medical School.

World War I began on July 28, 1914, and two weeks later Bill was on active service in France and Belgium. With the exception of six months in a German prisoner of war camp, he was on the front lines for the four years of the war’s duration. A battlefield surgeon in one the bloodiest conflicts in history.

Nine million soldiers and seven million citizens were killed.

At the Battle of the Somme, where the ‘Waiting for the Wounded’ sketch (now in the Imperial War Museum, London) was made, 1,000,000 soldiers died or were wounded.

At Gallipoli, where my grandfather was also, there were half a million casualties. Three thousand of those were Irish, including one of my grandfather’s fellow alumni of University College, Cork, Vincent McNamara, an engineer who had played rugby for Ireland in 1914 and whose final resting place in Gallipoli is unknown.

“From a medical standpoint, World War I was a miserable bloody affair,” US historian John Campbell wrote, putting into perspective on my grandfather’s service. “Generally there were four kinds of cases: gas injuries, shell shock, diseases, and wounds. World War I was the first conflict to see the use of deadly gases as a weapon. Gas burned skin and irritated noses, throats, and lungs. It could cause death or paralysis within minutes, killing by asphyxiation.

As soon as troops learned that gas was in their area, they had to put on masks. Even having the fumes in their clothing could cause blisters, sores, and other health problems. Bathing and changing clothes immediately helped, but was not always possible. Many thousands of gas victims suffered the painful effects of damaged lungs throughout their lives.”

Campbell also wrote about the conditions in the trenches: “After they stood in water for weeks at a time, their socks would begin to grow to their feet. In severe cases, the soldiers’ feet had to be amputated.”

For much of the war, grandfather was the Officer Commanding No. 44 Field Ambulance, which was part of

the 14th. (Light) Division. (The previous OC of the 44th Field Ambulance was a Victoria Cross recipient and former Irish Rugby International, Dublin man Major Thomas J Crean VC DSO).

Following the war, the remaining members of the 44th put together a journal of remembrances. Reading it today, you are stuck by the appalling choices that the doctors had to make.

“One sometimes got downhearted at appalling casualties in obtaining what, in our hearts we knew were meager results,” one unnamed doctor wrote in the journal.

“One abdomen, one laparotomy, means a whole hour devoted to an altogether uncertain result; it means, at most, half a chance of saving one man. An hour given to other severe wounds (heads, limbs, etc.), means that you will save three at least, therefore, as the stream of wounded increases, one has to make a choice.”

PRISONER OF WAR Captured at Landrecies on October 18, 1914, Bill Egan was interned at Sennelager Prisoner of War Camp in Germany until June 26, 1915.

One prisoner’s account of

Senneglager camp in September 1914 described it thus: “It was an open field enclosed with wire… there were no tents or coverings in it of any kind. There were about 2,000 prisoners in it – all British. We lay on the ground with only one blanket for three men.”

Following Bill’s release (in what may have been a prisoner exchange), he returned to London and immediately married Norah Wall, a girl from his hometown. A month later he was back on active service, first with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in Malta, then Gallipoli and then back to France and Belgium where he served as the Officer Commanding No. 44 Field Ambulance until near the War’s end in November 1918.

RETURN TO NORMALITY The 44 Field Ambulance journal writers grappled with returning to normal life. The introduction to the journal was written by my grandfather and as the following show, he too struggled with the return to normality after four years of war.

“We have now tided over four years of post-war struggle — a struggle in many ways more strenuous than our four years in the field – and I am delighted to see that my old comrades of the 44th have still the power of sticking together, a characteristic for which they were always famous. May that characteristic continue ’til the last of us goes over to the best of us!

“Situated many thousands of

DOCTOR: Major William Egan, Royal Army Medical Corps. miles from the scenes where these achievements were enacted, I can picture some of them as vividly as when they occurred. The mud and drudgery of the ‘Salient’ are almost forgotten; but memory still clings

SING FEATURE

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November 29, 2014 | 29

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Search our unique database of pariwar sh and d – my grandfather’s tears in their eyes, unable to do more than wave a sad good-bye to their departing comrades? With what joy we all met again at Bournonville, a few weeks later, on the unit’s re-formation! The memory of Noyon, where we left so many of our best, will always be a sad one; but, after all, death but joins us to the great majority.

I wish this record every success.

It should be treasured by each and every one of us as a souvenir of the bad old days; as a glorious record of the deeds of our brave dead; and as an inspiration in the days to come.

W. EGAN. Quetta, Baluchistan, May 24, 1922

POST WAR YEARS WAITING FOR THE WOUNDED: This sketch by Muirhead Bone, shows Major William Egan in the centre of the tent at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 to the football matches we won and the races we pulled off.

“Who can forget that memorable day at Ecquedecques, when the Ambulance was broken up, and the cadre moved off, leaving those who stayed behind with lumps in their throats and

Following the war, April 1919, Bill embarked on his second tour of India and was stationed in Quetta on the Afghan border, where the British were engaged in the Third Anglo-Afghan War. When the conflict ended in August 1919, my grandmother Norah set out to join her husband in Quetta. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to travel to India with a baby, my mother Norah, and a toddler, my mother’s older sister Patricia.

Another child, a son, named Bill

other records for the island of Ireland for his father, was born in Quetta (now the capital of the Baluchistan province of Pakistan) on the border of Afghanistan.

In 1923, the family returned to Britain, when grandfather was posted to Edinburgh, Scotland. A panel from the Scottish National War Memorial, Edinburgh Castle, bears his image. He was the Deputy Assistant Director Medical Services, Scottish Command, when the memorial was being designed and built.

In March 1927, the family moved again, this time to Jamaica, where, now as Major Egan, grandfather was in charge of the British Military Hospital in Newcastle, and the Up Park Camp near Kingston.

Many wonderful photographs survive of the family during this happy period. Sadly, it didn’t last.

Grandfather, who had survived the battlefields, malaria, “a whiff of gas,” and a German prisoner of war camp, died on 11, December 1929, from a ruptured spleen as a result of a fall from the veranda of their home.

Following his funeral, my grandmother brought my mother and her two siblings back to Ireland. They never returned to Jamaica.

EPILOGUE

In September 2013, I visited my grandfather’s grave in Jamaica.

The British Military Cemetery is located in the old Up Park Camp outside Kingston on what is now a Jamaican Defence Force facility.

A young officer helped me to locate the spot and once there, he gave my grandfather a military salute, as my friends Tina, Peter, and Brian (all Londoners), and I stood to attention.

I was struck by how young my grandfather was when he died – only 48. His age hadn’t registered until I saw it on his headstone.

I imagined my mother as a 10-year-old, standing where I now stood, saying goodbye forever.

And then as I turned to go, I noticed that the grave next to Bill’s is was that of a boy who also Irish — John Francis, eight years’ old, son of Patrick and Anne Quinn, who died in 1926.

Grandfather and John Francis would continue to keep each other company, as they had for so many years, on this island so far away from home.

Subscription Service now available. . www.rootsireland.

www.rootsireland.ie www.rootsireland. www.rootsireland.ie New records added atwww.rootsireland.ie regular intervals by our 33 CountySearch Genealogyour Centresunique databa n To read more of the 44th Field Ambulance journal, and for more on Major William Egan, see http://noelharty. net/index1.htm

FINAL RESTING PLACE: Patricia Harty at her grandfather Major William Egan’s grave in Kingston, Jamaica, 2013

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30 | November 29, 2014

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Getting help from the professionals From Clare to here finding your ancestors JANE HALLORAN RYAN is a genealogist and family historian living in Co. Clare, Ireland.

She has over 30 years’ experience researching her own family history in Ireland and the US. Jane has spoken at the Cork Genealogical Society, The Genealogy Event in Limerick and at the Milwaukee Irish Fest with regard to genealogy research and local history projects.

Available to assist in any genealogy project big or small as well as consultations with regard to genealogical brick walls, Jane is also a member of the Law Society of Ireland having practised as a solicitor. She brings a unique advantage in her research skills as a result of this — particularly with probate and land matters.

As a volunteer with the Ireland Reaching Out project, Jane was recently awarded the Volunteer of the Year in 2013 for her contributions to the project.

She has a Certificate in Genealogical Research Methods from University of Limerick and is currently pursuing her Masters in Local History.

Jane is a member of the Association of Professional

Genealogists and the CT Society of Genealogists.

Follow Jane’s blog at janehalloran.wordpress.com. You can also find her on Twitter (@

jane.halloran.ryan) and on Facebook at ‘dalcassianorigins’.

See www.dalcassianorigins.ie or call 00353 087 9771385 for further details.

Researching and recording your family history ANN Marie Coghlan is an experienced family history researcher based in the southeast of Ireland.

“My areas of expertise include Irish city dwellers and the people of the North and Midland counties of England,” she says. “I am especially interested in family patterns and migration. I believe that family research should be open to everyone. I also offer training in researching and recording family history.”

Among Ann Marie’s other services is online research and networking.

“I am experienced in traditional research methods as well as online research and

networking,” she added. “I manage social media on behalf of Irish Genealogy Societies.”

Ann Marie is a long-time member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and the Society of Genealogists. Among her areas of expertise is Cork and Dublin City as well as counties Cork, Clare and the south east of Ireland.

She also provides family history talks and training packages for both new and experienced family historians in Irish or English heritage.

See www.familyandpast.com or call 00353 87 956 2840 for further details.

Searching Stateside for family who migrated

AWARD WINNER: Jane Halloran Ryan

DID your Irish or British ancestors go to America? Have you always wondered what happened to the members of your family who emigrated in the 1800s? Or do you want to find living family members in the US? Professional genealogist Patricia Mansfield Phelan, a native of Brooklyn who has many Irish forebears, has many years of experience researching individuals who emigrated to America.

Patricia is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, and the Irish Family

History Forum, a New Yorkbased group devoted to Irish and Irish American genealogy and family history.

For the last four years she has been editor-in-chief of the Forum newsletter, which won the 2013 National Genealogical Society local society newsletter award and was runner-up in 2014.

This year, she was awarded first prize in the genealogy newsletter category of the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors Excellence-in-Writing Competition.

She also worked as copy editor

on Joseph Buggy’s highly acclaimed book, Finding Your Irish Ancestors in New York City.

Former British-based client Sylvia O said: “I can’t thank Patricia enough for all she has done for me regarding my grandmother who emigrated to the US. I just never dreamt that she would find out so much, and I am so grateful to her for putting me in touch with my family.”

Another client Anne S added: “I am absolutely thrilled with all the results and information Patricia got for me, from so little at the beginning...She has been an absolute treasure.”

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