{"id":9868,"date":"2015-03-06T16:30:14","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T16:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=9868"},"modified":"2023-05-22T13:53:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T17:53:33","slug":"an-irish-immigrants-obituary-tells-her-coming-to-america-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/an-irish-immigrants-obituary-tells-her-coming-to-america-story.html","title":{"rendered":"An Irish Immigrant’s Obituary Tells Her Coming to America Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellen Canning O\u2019Rourke (1910-2011) was born in Anskert, near Mohill in County Leitrim, Ireland. She died in Hamden, Connecticut, on 16 December 2011 at age 101. As a little girl she lived through the \u201cIrish Troubles\u201d in County Leitrim, and had keen memories of those events \u2013 and her coming to America and finding work here. Her recollections were recorded in her obituary.<\/p>\n

\"obituary<\/a>
New Haven Register (New Haven, Connecticut), 17 December 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She and her family emigrated in 1930 and she went to work as a \u201cdomestic live-in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEllen stated that before her job she had only seen money\u201d \u2013 not actually had any of her own.
\nThink of that.<\/p>\n

She \u201cviewed coming to America to work as a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a ten-year-old, \u201cshe remembered the names of the dead neighbors and the ballads to their memory\u201d from the Battle of Selton Hill<\/a>, 11 March 1921. According to Wikipedia, British troops had \u201csurrounded and then attacked the IRA camp on 11 March. Six IRA volunteers were killed. The RIC suffered no losses. The IRA dead were Connolly, Seamus Wrynne, Joseph O’Beirne (or Beirne), John Reilly, Joseph Reilly, and Capt. ME Baxter.\u201d<\/p>\n

You owe it to yourself and your family to dig through GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a> to find the obituaries and news stories about your family. If you have Irish ancestry, try searching our special Irish American newspaper archives<\/a> first.<\/p>\n

Document them.
\nDon\u2019t let your family\u2019s stories be lost.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/em><\/strong> FamilySearch International (FamilySearch.org<\/a>) and GenealogyBank are partnering to make over a billion records from historical obituaries searchable online. The tremendous undertaking will make a billion records from over 100 million U.S. newspaper obituaries readily searchable online. The newspapers are from all 50 states and cover the period 1730 to the present.\u00a0 Find out more at: https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/family-search\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Related Irish American Articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n