Skip to content

Emigration

Emigration records can reveal into the specific experiences of emigrants from Waterford and South East Ireland, and shine a focus on the region’s socio-economic conditions and the profound local impact of emigration patterns that contributed significantly to the shaping of communities in destinations like Newfoundland, Great Britain and New York.

Lismore Castle Estate Emigration Database

This project received funding under the European Union INTERREG IIIA Ireland/Wales Community Initiative Programme. As the name suggests, it was a three-way project between partners Dublin City Archives and Waterford County Archive (Ireland Strand) and Gwynedd County Archives (Wales Strand). The Celtic Trí Project aims to foster cultural connections between Ireland and Wales, exploring links between the two nations, through music, poetry, migration, sport and the spoken word, particularly the extent and use of the two Celtic languages.

Family history was an important component of Celtic Trí, and all three archives services featured this in their scheduled projects, with funding being provided by INTERREG for the appointment of genealogists in each service on a contract basis. In addition, Waterford County Archive was awarded INTERREG funding for the creation of a database of records of genealogical interest and the production of a publication on genealogical sources in the County.

  • [ View database ]

Lismore Estate Papers Emigration Record Database 1815-1905

The Lismore Estate Emigration Record Database was created to facilitate the retrieval of information relating to emigration from Lismore Castle Estate during the period 1815-1905. The Lismore Estate refers to the estates of the Dukes of Devonshire and relates to lands largely situated in the counties of Waterford and Cork. Lismore Castle was and remains the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire in Ireland.

Large families and few employment prospects ensured that a constant stream of applications were made to the agent of the Duke of Devonshire or in some cases to the Duke of Devonshire himself. These were recorded in Tenant Application Books or in the correspondence of the time. If assistance to emigrate was granted the payment was then recorded in the estate Account Books.

The Lismore Estate Emigration Record Database is comprised of four searchable fields. The information contained in these fields is taken directly from the Tenant Application Books, from correspondence with the estate and from Account Books. Each record contains the applicant’s name and address (where provided), the date of the application, the applicant’s destination (where provided) and a transcript of the entry contained in each or all of the aforementioned estate records. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied and in cases where it was not possible to decipher the word in the original records square brackets are given to show that the information is an educated guess rather than a certainty.

Tenant Name : Data in this field is entered in the following manner: Surname [comma] Firstname
The spelling of names has not been standardised. Therefore, when conducting a search it is essential that all spelling variations are entered. For example, if the surname O’Brien is the subject of a query, then the following variants should also be entered: Brien, Brian and Bryan. Note that prefixes, such as, O and Mac are used only sporadically in the records and therefore searches should be conducted both including and excluding them.

Townlands

The spelling of placenames in this field has been standardised. The standard used is that determined by the Lismore Estate itself, where townlands are listed in formal indices. A supplemenatry list, which includes a list of those townlands whose spelling in the Lismore Estate indices differs significantly from the spellings included in the publications Liostaí Logainmneacha Port Láirge (Dublin, 1991), The Place-Names of the Decies, Rev. P. Power (London, 1907) and Townlands in Poor Law Unions, George B. Handron (USA, 1997) is available here.

Irish Emigration to Newfoundland

The Mannion Collection is a collaborative initiative involving Memorial University of Newfoundland, the Government of Ireland, and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, drawing on the record-collecting work of Dr. John Mannion, renowned historical geographer and his wife Maura Mannion.

Its purpose is to document and share the Irish journey to Newfoundland, particularly from Waterford and South East Ireland, providing access to a range of records that explore this migration. The collection includes various search functions to explore records by New and Old World locations, last names, occupations, and events, making it a valuable resource for researchers and anyone interested in the Irish-Newfoundland connection

Other Resources

FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org): FamilySearch provides extensive databases and resources for Ireland emigration and immigration records. This includes various collections that may contain information on Irish emigrants, such as passenger lists, emigration records, and other relevant documents.

The Dunbrody Emigration Database (www.dunbrody.com): This database records Irish, English, Scottish, and Welsh immigrants arriving in US ports on many different ships, including the Dunbrody Famine ship passenger list. It covers arrivals in New York between 1846 and 1890 and also includes records for other ports like Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Philadelphia.

Irish Genealogy Toolkit (www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com): This site offers guidance on US immigration records, including Ellis Island Passenger Arrival Records, which is an online database of 22 million passengers and crew members who went through Ellis Island, America’s official immigration reception center, from 1892 to 1924.

We made this!