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March 17, 2014

Kiss Me, I'm Irish!

Kiss Me, I'm Irish!
Happy St. Patrick's Day to all my Irish "cousins". 

Yep, I'm Irish. With a maiden name of McGinnis there's no doubt. I'm happy to say that my DNA tests also confirm my heritage. 

It's not too late for you to search for your Irish ancestors for free today. Ancestry.com is offering Open access to the Irish Heritage Collection from March 13 to March 17, 2014

This collection features all things Irish: census records, births and baptisms, WWI casualties, marriage records, passenger lists just to name a few. Offer is only good until tonight at 11:59pm ET so better hurry.

Who are my Irish ancestors and when did they come to Canada?

My 2nd great-grandparents Joseph McGinnis and his wife Fanny Downey sailed from Ireland to Canada with their 1 year old daughter Delia in 1847. They are my only known Potato Famine ancestors.

My 3rd great-grandparents John Greenlees and his wife Elizabeth Johnston came from Ireland with their 2 young boys, George and Thomas and my 2nd great grandmother Jane. They were well ahead of the Potato Famine and I've always been curious about what brought them here. 

So I have researched and verified 5 Irish ancestors but of course their lineage may go quite far back in Ireland and I'm sure I have many more! 

3 comments:

Celia Lewis said...

Sending an Irish shamrock your way from BC, Lorine.
My Irish ancestors [Gillespie] left County Tyrone in 1879ish to work in Barrow in Furness England for a decade or three. Then my grandparents emigrated from England to Canada. Research past my grandparents is exciting and challenging, for sure.
Happy St. Patrick's Day to you indeed.

Virginia Allain said...

I was surprised by my recent research to find that my Kennedy ancestors were not Irish, but came to Ireland from Scotland in the 1500s and across to America in the 1700s.

I knew my McGhee ancestors were Scotch-Irish from that same area of northern Ireland.

I should get that DNA test, I guess.

Megthered said...

My mother was born in Ireland and her family came over in the 1930's. My father's family came here from Galway in 1790. We thought my husband's fsmily was from Cork but they were also from Scotland and settled in Ireland in the early 1800's.