Sources

A brief guide to online research for family historians and others

Here at the Dunbrody Famine Ship Experience we often get requests to help out with family history research. Naturally, these are usually related to Irish emigration to North America - but Geanealogical research, particularly online, can throw up the same road blocks no matter where you are from. Any search: “Emigrant Records”, “Passenger Lists” and so on will throw up a bunch of paid-for sites at the top of the page. But before you start spending, try scrolling down the page and find some of the excellent resources available for free.

Here are just a few of the sites we use most often. These are specific to Ireland and North America and generally related to family history. I will get around to other places and other subjects in later posts. Click on the underlined text to go to the pages discussed.

Irish National Archives: Census Returns 1901/1911

The first Census in Ireland was taken in 1821 and every ten years from that date on. Unfortunately, the returns from 1821-91 were pulped because of a paper shortage during World War 1 and only fragments of those returns survive. However, this is a good jump-off page for Irish genealogy and has links to other sites of interest within the National Archives and elsewhere.

National Library of Ireland: Parish Registers

This holds a fairly comprehensive record - digitized and searchable online - of baptisms and marriages. Depending on the parish - city records go back further, records for parishes on the western seaboard start later - the records run from c1750 to c1880. If, like me, you are unsure of parish names and boundaries, there is an interactive map on the start page. These records are for the Catholic church only. Records for the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterian Congregation can be found on the following pages: Church of Ireland, Presbyterian Church.

US National Archives: Passenger Lists

This is the one-stop-shop for US researchers. All passenger lists from 1820 onwards are held here in some form. Mostly on microfilm for the years we would be interested in, though this is being digitized over time. Short of going to the archives in person, there is an online and postal service for ordering copies and links to these are on this page. Sections of the data that have already been digitized tend to be behind paywalls at sites such as Ancestry.com. One large tranche of passenger data is held by the Ellis Island Foundation here: New York Passenger Records - this too, short of visiting in person, involves payment.

Library and Archive Canada: Passenger Lists

This is a great paywall-free site and a comprehensive record of passengers arriving in Canada. The date-range is 1865-1922 so it may start a little late for many people doing family history research. For people of Irish ancestry there is another, sadder, database held by Canadian Archives. This is the database from the quarantine Island at Grosse Île, which records the names of people who passed through, or died there between 1832 and 1937. LAC: Immigrants at Grosse Île

The Making of the Dunbrody

1845

On the 26th of February 1845, Captain John Baldwin was contracted by William Graves and Company of New Ross to sail from Liverpool on the Boston Mail packet and to travel onwards to Quebec City to oversee the construction of the new three-masted barque, the “Dunbrody.” He received a travel allowance of £30 for the trip out and would receive a weekly living allowance of 17 shillings per week on top of £9 per month wages until the new ship was launched in May 1846. Mr. Thomas Oliver had already begun construction of the new ship at his yard in Cape Cove and William Graves was anxious that his new vessel would “prove in all respects as fine a ship of her size as ever left Quebec.”

Quebec City at the time was on the upward arc of a ship building boom that, beginning around 1830 and peaking around 1860, was to prove the last great flowering of wooden hulled and wind-powered ships for commercial use. By the time of the Dunbrody’s construction there were numerous shipyards, large and small, on Canada’s eastern seaboard. Timber-poor Great Britain and Ireland needed lumber. From St Johns in the Bay of Fundy down to Quebec City on the St. Lawrence River, vast forests largely unused by the French and British colonisers beforehand provided ready materials for export. A shipbuilding industry grew to serve that demand.

At first, small local conglomerates would finance the construction of a ship, sail the ship with its cargo of lumber to London or Liverpool, and sell the lot, ship and cargo, before going home and starting again. In time, as word of the durability and seaworthiness of these Canadian vessels spread, British and Irish merchants began to buy ships either ready-made or built to order from the new shipyards. The Quebec City shipyards made their name in 1831 with the building of the SS “Royal William.” Designed by a 21-year-old Scotsman, James Goudie, she was a 1,370-ton combination of steam and sail power credited as the first steamer to cross the Atlantic and the largest passenger vessel in the world at the time. By 1845, having doubled in population to around 50,000 in less than twenty years, with the majority of its population involved in Lumber or shipbuilding or ancillary trades, Quebec was a boomtown.

Thomas Oliver’s shipyard was one of the biggest in the city at that time and his naval architect was James Goudie of Royal William fame, so Graves were trusting in the best available manufacturers for their new ship. They had a local agent, a Mr Lapley, who had overseen earlier projects, on hand to assist Captain Chapman in his dealings with the shipbuilders and suppliers of rigging and other materials., Robert Graves, William’s son, was due to arrive in Quebec in April 1846 to oversee the final fitting-out and launch of the vessel. A scale model of the hull and mast placements would have been examined and agreed upon by all parties before building commenced.

A large yard of the time would have had platforms for constructing keel and frames, a smithy for forging bolts and braces and other iron components and a steam-powered sawmill producing everything from the massive timbers for the keel and masts and planking for the hull and decks to small “treenails” or dowels for assembling large components from multiple pieces of wood. The majority of the carpenters at the time would have been French Canadians, famed for their skill with the adze, a type of hatchet with an arched blade at right angles to the handle, which was used for shaping large pieces of wood. Salt-water pits were used for pickling the timber in brine to make it more water-resistant and to prevent rot, this was particularly important for timber that would be used below the water line or on deck where it would be regularly inundated. During the building process the exposed timbers would be regularly sprayed with salt water and lumps of rock salt placed on the frame to be dissolved into the wood by rain.

Working from the scale model, the first part of the ship to be built was the keel, the backbone of the ship. This was made with massive timbers of black birch held together with dowels made of locust wood, an immensely hard wood that grows in Canadian swampland. Black birch was also used for floor timbers and planking of the lower part of the hull, as it lasted very well under water.

While the keel of the ship was being assembled on one platform, the ribs – or frame – of the ship would be assembled separately. These pieces were made of a local wood called tamarac, a species of larch native to Canada. Tamarac, tough and buoyant, was an immensely popular component of Canadian ships, so much so that local supplies were almost entirely played out by the mid-1850s. Stems, beams and other load-bearing timbers were made from either black birch or imported American live oak.

When a number of frames had been assembled, they were raised into position on the keel under the close supervision of the foreman shipwright. Once the frames, stem post and stern post were in position, everything was bolted in place to make the structure as strong as possible. The ship was now “in frame” and the work of planking could begin. Starting with the inner or “ceiling” planks and beams and then the outer planks would be fixed.

Planking was done from the keel upwards planks were fixed in place on the frame with iron or copper bolts and pegged end to end with treenails. When the ship was planked, the seams were caulked – made watertight – with oakum, a mixture of tar and old unravelled rope. Water was then pumped into the hull to check for leaks. Once watertight, deck planking was laid and caulked in turn.

The lower mast pieces, cargo hatch framing and components for the upper deck, the deckhouse, companionways and so forth in place – the majority of completed hulls were painted and then sent into the water on the next spring tide. Sparring and rigging were generally completed on the water.

In his instructions to Captain Chapman, William Graves had told him to pay particular attention to the caulking as he thought this had been done in a slapdash manner on previous commissions, and to see that rigging was of the finest quality hemp and the sails of “best double-thread canvas free from cotton.” The Dunbrody was also built with passengers in mind; with extra cabins and lumber for sleeping platforms and eating areas on the lower deck, as well as extra hatches for ventilation. Most of the passenger accommodation in the “tween” deck could be disassembled and stowed below to make way for cargo on the maiden voyage home from Canada.

The total cost of the Dunbrody, filly rigged and including all fittings, including £400 worth of cordage shipped out from Cork, was £3595 and 17 shillings – roughly €250,000 in today’s money. No small investment. But the investment would prove to be well made, as the Dunbrody would be a very busy ship in the coming years and Graves and Company would go on to purchase more and larger ships as their business grew beyond recognition.

The Launch of the Royal William, Quebec City, 1831

Below decks on the present day Dunbrody, ship’s hospital under the Forecastle