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Celts

stephpd

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Dec 7, 2007
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191
Location
Claymont, Delaware, USA
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Never been to Ireland, relatives seldom spoke of Europe. Misinformation abounds. Gots some learnin' to do.

Hard to even find out which part of the Islands my families came from. Ancestry.com says my Irish family is part of the O'Niel clan from County Antrim. Spelling of the name changes several times, not unusual considering they couldn't read or write and trying to use phonetics to a heavy accent didn't help. Not sure of the accuaracy since records were destroyed.

Scottish grandmother was the only one to talk of family, guess the name MacDonald meant something to her. Seems like a fairly large clan. So at least the Kilts,tartars and pipes are a part of one side of my family.

Never heard of Uilleann pipes, I'll stick to the piano and drums. One makes music the other just a beat. I Look like 'animal' from Sesame Street when playing drums.:celebrate
 

Jeff the Baptist

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Feb 25, 2008
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Newark, Delaware, USA
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Kilts are a scottish thing as are bag pipes, no self respecting irishman plays the bagpipes only Irish americans.
Celtic does not mean Irish. The Celts are a people group that spread all over Europe. The Scots, Irish, and Welsh are all Celts. Kilts are gaelic and therefore celtic, but not Irish.

And yes all Irish bagpiping and kilt-wearing was either imposed by the English or (in an odd turn of events) is a political display to show Gaelic unity and snub the English.
 

dave_in_delaware

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May 10, 2007
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Newark, Delaware, USA
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I just thought I'd throw this in the mix.... I like the quote.

IRAnewtshirt.jpg


Us Irish are a strong pig-headed bunch, aren't we? LOL.
 

sprat

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Dec 17, 2007
Messages
184
Location
, Florida, USA
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Yes Jeff

Scots and welsh are celt's, and speakvariations of gaelic, but kilts and bagpipes are not native to Irish culture, they are as you pointed out Engish importations

Dave the IRA no longer exist, it officially disbanded a few years back per the good friday agreement

sprat
 

PT111

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Jul 31, 2007
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2,243
Location
, South Carolina, USA
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The best I can tell most of my ancestors immigrated to South Carolina from North Carolina in the early 1700's. This is except my G-G-Grandmother who was Cherokee and don't know when her ancestors came to SC. I also have a G-G-G-grandfather that was a British deserter after he figured out that the war wasn't going so good for Cornwalis. But I think most came either from England or Ireland with a little Scotch mixed in. Primarily they are American and that is the only way Iknow how to describe it.

One side note is my daughters could join the DAR through 5 different ancestors that we have confirmed (3 on my side and 2 on my wife's) but they never have. Maybe one day they will. As I say I am just an American.:D
 

BobCav

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Feb 7, 2007
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No longer in Alexandria, Egypt
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I've researched my maternal family dating back to 1882 in Ireland. My Great-Great Grandfather, Thomas Patrick Gordon was born in Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland in 1862 and was a shoemaker by trade. I've been told he was adopted, so I'm not sure if the name Gordon is his natural surname (obvious Scottish origins) or his adopted surname.

He joined the King's Royal Horse Artillery in 1882 and retired in 1902. He then came to America and finally saved enough to send for his wife Mary Gordon and their children. They came to America onboard the S.S. Lucania and left Queenstown on 11 November 1906 and arrived in Ellis Island, New York on 17 Nov 1906.

We having living relatives still in Ireland and I dream of one day visiting them myself and walking in my ancestors' footsteps. As you can guess, I'm my family's geneaologist!
 

BobCav

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My family that visited Ireland got copies of my G-G-Grandfather's military records and I gleaned MUCH info from that. The rest I found here: http://www.ellisisland.org/

Awesome resource! Happy hunting!


EDIT: If anyone needs help researching a family member, PM me all the info you have and I'll see what I can find!
 

sprat

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Dec 17, 2007
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184
Location
, Florida, USA
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Ellis Island is one source and it will help if your family came over at the turn of the century to ww2, but if your family came over before hand Castle gardens is the place to look http://www.castlegarden.org/

also each county in Ireland has a genelogist office to assist you for a small fee. I have a list of those offices and contact info

also the best place to start is the OLD family church here in the US as all the birth, death and baptism records are found there. The first to come here had to detail the parents in the old country.

the US Census also is a good source these can be found on Ancestry.com for a small fee the mormons(LDS) also has a good record system, I prefer not to use their records as they are duplicate's

Oh Bobcav

I lived in Reno in the early 90's off Mayberry by Rayleys, I go back every other year. last year my friends and I did the ghost towns of Pine Grove, so. of yerington and the immigrant trail in the black rock desert, throughHarden City and the high rock canyon area. north of Gerlach I always miss the battle born state, Washoe Co in particular sorry at times I left. Finally got reciprocity, this year

Sprat (Ancient Order of Hiberians)
 

PT111

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, South Carolina, USA
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OneShot wrote:
Is it true that last names were created in the days of old by your trade? I heard Smith was taken by blacksmiths way back when.

You might want to check this link out. Last names were given for many reasons and their trade was just one of those. Many times it was where you lived (Rivers = Beside the River)or maybe your father (Johnson = John's Son). Smith was a common one because there wre many different types of Smith. Others were modified over time and some chosen at random because they wanted to hide. When my G-G-G-Grandfather got married he took his wife's name because we think he was a British deserter in the revolutionary War and did not want to be found out. :question:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_(metalwork)
 

BobCav

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No longer in Alexandria, Egypt
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OneShot wrote:
Is it true that last names were created in the days of old by your trade? I heard Smith was taken by blacksmiths way back when.


Absolutely! Many people's surnames names came from their parents or trades. By from their parents, I mean William, John's son became William Johnson. John the Cooper (barrel maker) became John Cooper, etc.

Here's a handy index that will show you more. Enjoy!
http://genealogy.about.com/library/glossary/bl_occupations.htm
 

stephpd

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Dec 7, 2007
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191
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Claymont, Delaware, USA
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My guess is that my family name was given to us as well as a land grant for helping out the O'Neil's. My first attempt at doing a name seach showed a coat of arms as a red hand on a white field. Our name came from the word for hand or fist. My guess was that a relative, not having a sword, did some damage in battle with bare hands. Someone noticed and the leader of the clan gave a land grant.

Since then I found a few web pages and ordered the coat of arms and what they have on our family history. Actual coat of arms is a blue shield, with a silver chevron between three silver antelopes.

Most records were kept by the church. Being a conspiracy advocate I found it troubling that the British rounded up these records, put them in a repository that subsequently caught fire. Same thing happened to the immigrant records in Boston. These two incidents make tracing a family history difficult. Most of my family history is in the front pages of the family bible. And it's just the immediate family; birthday, baptism, first communion, as well as when we had the mumps, measles and chicken pox.

Since there was little to no talk of our ancestry my guess was that they were just trying to fit in. All the relatives I new concidered themselves Americans even though they were born elsewhere. Never talked about the old country.
 

BobCav

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Feb 7, 2007
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No longer in Alexandria, Egypt
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Same here, my family lost a LOT of records in that same fire. My paternal family came from Italy and my Grandmother refused to teach me Italian when I was young. She admonished me with"You're an American, you speak only english!" and that's all she spoke in front of us. She was extremely proud of her Italian heritage, but even MORE proud to be an American and embracedeverything American.

THAT'S how it should be.
 

OneShot

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Nov 5, 2007
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83
Location
Dover, Delaware, USA
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Well now I'm confused.....

If many got their name from their trade, the what did

John Handcock's family do?



:what::what::what::what::what:

:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate

GOTCHA!
 

BobCav

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Feb 7, 2007
Messages
2,798
Location
No longer in Alexandria, Egypt
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OneShot wrote:
Well now I'm confused.....

If many got their name from their trade, the what did

John Handcock's family do?



:what::what::what::what::what:

:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate

GOTCHA!


They were obviously master....









Cock handlers!

mark6.jpg



EDIT: Moving to General Discussion...BC
 

swillden

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Dec 9, 2007
Messages
1,189
Location
Firestone, Colorado
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sprat wrote:
the mormons (LDS) also has a good record system, I prefer not to use their records as they are duplicate's
The good thing about the LDS records is that they have duplicated lots of records from all different sources, and even computerized a lot of them. You can go to an LDS Family History Center and get access to all of this information with a single stop. Also, if you're not sure how to go about doing the research, the centers have volunteers there who have lots of experience doing genealogical research and are more than willing to teach you how to go about it.

To find a center, go to www.familysearch.org and look for the "Find a Family History Center near your home" box. Type in your state and then look through the list to find the nearest location and its hours of operation.
 
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