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by Niall O'Dowd

Finding a long lost relative in the 1901 Irish census

Posted on Sunday, December 25, 2011 at 04:57 AM
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The 1901 census has recently been put up online, providing an incredible insight into the Ireland so many of our ancestors left.

Find the census here.

The 1911 census, which went up about a year ago, attracted 7 million views and I’m sure this 1901 census will attract as many.

Of the many deeds the Irish government has done to attract interest in Ireland, I firmly believe putting the 1911 and 1901 censuses on line will prove to be the most important.

For millions of Irish Americans it allows a sacred moment, a second to touch the past and to see the ancestors or relatives they have only dimly glimpsed through the mists of time.

Alas, there are no censuses available form the previous century, all were either burned or lost. So 1901 will remain the touchstone.

On the 1901 census, my wife Debbie found her great grandfather Martin McGoldrick living on the family farm in Sligo. For some reason, the 1911 census seemed to miss his little village.

I could tell by her reaction just how deep and significant a moment it was

It is an amazing document that allows us to reach out and touch the past on a given night on a given year in Ireland.

For my own part it was like revisiting a familiar fireside. I had seen the 1911 census count, marveled at the information I had been able to glean, including my first glimpse of my great grandfather and turned to the 1901 census feeling like I was seeing a movie rewound.
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It is the 31st of March 1901, and in the Dowd house in Kilcooley, County Kerry, (there was no O’ used back then) seven miles or so west of Dingle there are 13 people living in the three–roomed residence. (The photograph above is of the view from Kilcooley to the Atlantic.)

It is five years before my father is born there.

There is my great grandfather, Ned, 60, hale and hearty, and his three sons and one daughter, including Daniel Dowd who my father would be called after.

There too is my grandfather, Michael, married to Kate Kennedy, and they have three very young children, John, Maggie, and Mary.

Maggie intrigues me. I had never heard of her and she does not appear in the 1911 census. Clearly she passed away sometimes in the next decade. From what I will never know, but my father never spoke of her.

Suddenly realizing I had an Aunt Maggie who did not live fills me full of curiosity about her. What happened, why was it never spoken about?

It was certainly not unusual for people to pass away back then in the age before antibiotics but it is a sad moment to realize I lost a relative so young.

John Dowd, the oldest son in my father’s family is there. He is called Jack and will later leave for America. He will settle in Detroit and work for the Ford motor Company his whole life.

He will have triplets, so rare an event that they are featured in several national magazines and I will get to know them.

In 1981, I will visit him in Detroit, in the little suburban bungalow he has made his home in. He will press $20 into my hand in an envelope, as all emigrants did for new arrivals back then.

He will ask me what fields are they planting back home but I am no longer from Kerry and am unable to answer. He is the spitting image of my father.

John’s older sister, Mary, also made her way to America and Detroit but I never had the opportunity to meet her. She would die in a traffic accident.

The census has re-wakened all these echoes and made me aware once again of how lucky my generation was with our access to education and life choices, these relatives would only have dreamt of.

And then there’s my dead little aunt Maggie who I will never know. She is a poignant postscript to reading about my father’s family in the 1901 census.

May she rest in peace.

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7 Comments

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joan1954 | Dec 26, 2011, 11:03 PM EST
This story was bittersweet. I wish I could find my Irish side. My great-grandmother, Kate McHugh, immigrated from Cavan around 1852 or so my mother said although her only surviving sibling says Mayo. However in the 1930 US census my grandmother's mother is listed as coming from Northern Ireland which should make it Cavan. Father's name known but her mother's and townland has never been. I am envious.

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Murph46 | Dec 26, 2011, 01:59 PM EST
My sister (a liberal) did the geneology trace of my family back to Co.Offaly-Then she broke my heart by telling me we might be related to O'Bama. Then after finding that we emigrated to Nova Scotia ,she said I could claim land in Murphy's Cove for one peppercorn (the consideration of a contract),plus an oath of loyalty to the Queen. I told her that any good republican would take land for one peppercorn and a promise of fealty.After all look what the Brit's promised us for all those years.

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AprilJean | Dec 25, 2011, 11:45 PM EST
I have made many a great connection in Ireland from looking up family with the census information! I have made connections with cousins in Ireland whom I will meet when I go over there in Feb! Mr Gail, what a heart warming story! That is truly a touching bit of information you shared.

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carrickcourt | Dec 25, 2011, 11:18 PM EST
While my Irish lot had left Ireland in 1885 I have enjoyed finding collateral relations in both the 1901 and 1911 Irish census. One household I found in one is censuses had a father in law in the household which helped in determining the household's heads wife's family name. Of course ages people report in these censuses records are suspect at times as a lot of people, especially older persons, often did not know exactly when they were born. Church registers can help, especially baptisms, with age problems with the census records. Always nice to find kin one knew of or remember in the census records. I met an older distant female cousin in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in the mid 1960's who I found in Dublin in the 1911 Irish census.

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christilcaugh | Dec 25, 2011, 06:09 PM EST
Doing genealogy, I understand your excitement...and that feeling of loss, too. Well said.

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Searlit | Dec 25, 2011, 05:22 PM EST
Nice story. Merry Christmas Mr. O'Dowd.

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Ms.Gail | Dec 25, 2011, 01:20 PM EST
Last St. Patrick's Day I had the opportunity to show my nearly blind mother the computer screen with the handwriting on the 1901 census of her two grandmothers, neither of whom lived 'til she was able to visit in 1946. Tears filled her eyes and she reached out to run her finger over their signatures on the screen. I am so glad she got that glimpse of them in her 91st, and last, year. Unfortunately my father passed in '86 but he, too, would have been touched. My parents were proud to be 1st generation Americans and proud to know they were also Irish citizens. Any bits and snippets that can be added to this treasure will be much appreciated too.

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