Thomas and Ellen Nolan - getting to know you

Ok lets get down to it.

What do we know. ????? I want to build you a picture of him and his wife  and what led to them leaving their homeland.

Thomas was born around 1833 in Ireland, I have no details as to a county at all, as Ireland is his place of birth listed on all documents from the USA.
He married an Ellen in Ireland approximately around the year of  1859.
Ellen's approximate birth year is said to be 1835.

Thomas and Ellen had a daughter Mary Nolan born 23rd December 1860 in Ireland . Mary's birth has not been verified and once again the variations through out all the US census entries just throws it all out of whack.

The family immigrated to America (USA) or North British America (known now as Canada)  between the years of 1860-1861.



 Mahoney's sketch
of the woman and child in 1847
Fig 1

Lets go back to Ireland though and set the scene. We all have read about the horrific Potato Famine from 1845 -1849. Leading up to this period almost two thirds of the eight million Irish people depended on agriculture and the single crop of the potato for their survival. The year of 1846 bought a devastating disease  called Blight which along with unusually cool moist weather and a strain of Phytophthora,  caused the disease to flourish and decimate full crops causing utter starvation to a high percentage of the population. This continued annually for successive years and it claimed the lives of over one million Irish people from starvation.
After successive crop failures over a period of years a mass exodus of the Irish people began.  It is said that one million Irish immigrated to America alone.


At the time of the beginning of the famine in Ireland, Thomas would of been roughly 12 years of age and Ellen about 10 years old. I could not imagine the grief and desperation that they both would of had to endure during this period of their lives.



Sailing Ship Around The Period Of 1860
Fig 2

Next we jump a few years and I will take you to the 1860's era and give you a little information  on immigration to America. There were two directions that you could of travel through.  One being a transatlantic voyage to the East Coast Ports, mainly Boston and New York and the other  by land or sea to Canada, which was then called British North America.
At this time Ireland was still part of Britain and fares to Canada were a lot cheaper than fares to the USA.


I have only surmised that Thomas and Ellen would of chosen the Canadian route as they eventually settled in Minnesota in the USA and that is a border state with Canada. As Canada was not an independent nation and still a British Territory Irish immigrants did not need  to apply for Naturalisation because they were British subjects already.

Well what have we summarised today.

I feel like I have only provided mainly assumptions in this blog however I have tried to build a picture of what life would of been like for Thomas and Ellen in Ireland and why they felt they had to emigrate to the Americas in search of a better life.

How sad it must have been for them to leave all their extended families behind knowing that they might never see them again.

Note : All information is provided concerning the Potato Famine and the emigration of the Irish people has been summarised from reading through some fabulous sites. I have listed a few here if you would like to do some extra reading.

http://www.irishamericanjourney.com/
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/america.htm
http://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Famine-Irish-history
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/irishfamine.htm

Fig 1 - A sketch completed by the artist James Mahoney who was living in Cork, Ireland. In early 1847 he was asked by the Illustrated London News to tour the surrounding countryside and report on what he saw.
Fig 2 - Picture courtesy of  http://www.irishamericanjourney.com/