THE BERLIN AIRLIFT - VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE'S SUGGESTION to AID UKRAINE'S CITIZENS

Today is Saint Patrick's Day in the United States, a celebration of Irishness.  More specifically Catholic Irish and the wearing of the Green.  (Protestant Irish is the wearing of the Orange.) Though it's said everyone has a wee bit of Irish, and I tend to think of that meaning in spirit, I'm actually one of those Americans who has no Irish roots at all. (Several of my extended family members married Irish roots people and so the wee bit of Irish trope holds true in their children and grand children.) Never the less, it doesn't take personally having roots in a certain ethnicity or country to do the research or to understand the contributions of Irish Americans to the United States of America.

This morning as I prepared to post about Irish genealogy, I was listening to the latest war news.  Having spent the last 22 days listening and reading about the war perpetrated by Russia against Ukraine, I've wondered what I could possibly say or do that would be appropriate. I have cried. I'm frustrated. I'm confused.  I'm scared - in particular that more people on this earth are going to starve.

You see, I live in a city that already has thousands of "refugees" native to this land, the homeless. I do not think that we can absorb more refugees from any nation locally.  Of course if a person is coming in from Ukraine to be supported by relatives, I would never object to that. The situation is tricky because there is most certainly a huge population of illegal immigrants here and large zones of the city have been taken over by certain ethnic groups, not because they were - as happened in the past - unable to live anywhere else and ghettoized. Rather there is an attitude that this is not the United States while accepting and relying upon every government program and benefit that we as a whole finance.

There is not enough affordable housing and people with long waits for Section 8 housing (a government program that pays some or most of the rent) have difficulty finding a landlord to rent to them. People who are working two jobs cannot afford to rent a one bedroom apartment and are in a room. The problem has been in the works for decades and our politicians and officials are part of the problem.

The other day I heard a British man - I think this was the House of Commons - talking about the $350 a month thank you that the British government is willing to pay people who will take in Ukrainian refugees. He mentioned the thousands in that country who are in "bed-sits" already.  It's the same situation.

Canada's offer to take all who come is the most realistic frankly.  There is plenty of room in Canada. 80% of the population there lives within 100 miles of the Unites States border. Already a huge Ukrainian roots based population is in Canada.

As I watch apartment buildings being blown up in Ukraine, I realize it is going to cost millions to rebuild apartments to rehouse the Ukrainians. Ukraine is where Ukrainians need to live.

It has been said by various persons in recent days that the West forgot World War II.  I think that may be possible in the United States since The Greatest Generation is dying out and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren only have them to tell about that experience in Europe, in Japan, and domestically. (If this is your family be sure to interview and record your World War II era members about their lives before they pass.  Many have to be prompted.)

However, I do not think Europe has forgotten because the war was carried out on their land and their cities. I  think that memory, that HISTORY, is a factor in the overall ability to understand what the threat of Russia to Ukraine and to Europe is.

Things have changed since World War II.  Now there is a much higher threat of using nuclear bombs that devastate whole cities and regions.  There is greater variety of lethal weapons, including the potential of germ warfare, and surveillance and communication have changed our lives and how warfare is conducted.

I hate war, I hate violence, and it concerns me that there are so many humans on this earth who seem to be filled with hatred and do not create, cure, improve or enhance life, but destruct. 

Ex Vice President Mike Pence made the statement that he thought the Berlin Airlift was an inspiration.  He thought we should be taking Humanitarian aid into Ukraine.  I would love it if something like this could be done, if those participating could be assured of their safety.

The evidence is that civilians are being targeted. Russia, Russian Military, and Russian soldiers who use civilians as target practice should be ashamed but apparently are not ashamed and also apparently are lacking any spirituality.  Well, this is where I, as someone partial to reincarnation, and various Christian groups that talk about redemption (the deathbed confession or conversion at the last minute) differ.  While any one of us can theoretically hit the restart button and be Born Again, I do not believe all that one did before is slate whipped clean, as if a person filed bankruptcy.  There is a price to pay for harming others.  And if it is not paid for on this corrupt earth in life, then there is still payment due.

I feel certain that those committing war crimes, upon their own death, will feel every bit of pain they have caused not just to the individual but their entire family. I am not God and do not know exactly how it works, but the testimonials of those who have had Near Death Experiences is rather consistent.  These people report reviewing their lives, being told they need to go back, and often totally transform their lives with much less emphasis on materialism and ego, and a greater care and concern for other human beings.

I found this mini documentary on the BERLIN AIR LIFT. 

IRELAND - IRISH GENEALOGY OFFICIAL SITE : EXPLORE YOUR WEE BIT OF IRISH

IRISH GENEALOGY : IRELAND : DEPARTMENT OF GALLIC CULTURE  (Culture, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht)

This site is being added to slowly and the focus currently is to adding to already existing records on the site such as Births, Marriages, and Deaths from the General Register (Civil records) office.  It also include church parish records. Some census. 

SAINT PATRICK'S DAY - A DINNER WITH ONE ONE HALF IRISH PERSON : IRISH GENEALOGY

Since American genealogy often includes Irish ancestry, because we supposedly all have "a wee bit" of Irish in us, I asked at the Saint Patty's dinner I attended who actually had some Irish.  

As it turned out, only one person in 25 there had some.  He was half Irish and Catholic and half English Protestant. We elected the one "Irishman" there to do a jig for us.  He camped it but said actually he was first an American and second an Angeleno (from Los Angeles).

Still, everyone enthusiastically ate their corned beef and cabbage, which included some perfectly uniformly round potatoes and perfectly uniformly sized baby carrots; I suspect these days big potatoes and carrots are put into machines to create these shapes and sizes.  


How attached to ethnicity any American is is up to debate but I generally see that immigrant Americans define themselves by the country or ethnicity they left behind, first generation refers to this also, but by the second or third generation memories of old country and old ways have diminished significantly. Recipes and eating habits are brought forward.

As for Irish-American genealogy, the practice follows the usual paths until one can jump across the ocean and deal with the archives of Europe, in particular church records. Common surnames confound as usual.

I was able to tell one Native American person at the dinner about the "grass eaters," the Irish starving because of the Potato famine who ate grass until their mouth area was tinted green. I told about the exploitation Irish immigrants experienced on the ships where conditions could be filthy. The immigrants were expected to scrub the ship and clean up before coming into port. Many of the "grass eaters" were skeletal when they boarded and some died before they got to America. From the potato famine immigration generation, came the ancestors of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

If you're doing Irish-American genealogy, you may go back before steamships. I feel that finding Naturalization papers should come before finding ship information as it should mention the name of the ship and possibly place of birth or place left in Ireland. This sometimes helps when dealing with common surnames. Be aware that some Irish left their homes and first found work closer to ports in order to buy their tickets - or eat enough to be healthy when they boarded. The place they lived temporarily may not be their place of origin but is listed on the ship manifest.  Sometimes a World War I draft registration can be a better informational source for villages of birth or origin.

C 2019 Ancestry Worship Genealogy
This post has been edited with more information given July 2019.

IRISH - AMERICANS - THE ORANGE AND THE GREEN - DIFFICULT GENEALOGY SEARCHES

Be it Catholic (Green) or Protestant (Orange) Irish,  a resource for finding out exactly where in Ireland ancestors once lived in Ireland is SHIP RECORDS.   But Irish immigrants were coming to the US before Steam Ships, and you may find that the pre-steam ship or early steam ship era ship records are not as good as the ones you see on databases such as Ellis Island where more information was taken.  On some of these ship lists there is only a surname and a headcount of family members under the surname.

I've personally run into some trouble with using ship records because of common surnames and the descendants lack of knowledge about things such as height or coloring of their ggg grandpa or ggg grandma.  I also question how accurate some of those height measurements are as I found more than one ship that had hoards of men all the same height - 5 foot 6"!  As for coloring, words like "fair" could mean White, Blonde, or simply lighter than other passengers on the ship from a certain country (i.e. If you're Italian you can't be "Fair!"

In one case I had over 16 possibilities.  The client was upset because I was able to find one grandparent with a less common surname and a sure immigration year and village in less than an hour and the other could not be verified though I spent several hours. 

So many people are "sure" they know the year of immigration but in the end they are off by a year or three.  As this client was.

As a result a multitude of resources must be used.

The U.S. Census is still the backbone of American genealogy but "Ireland" is what most people reported, though sometimes - rarely - there will be a county or other commentary.

How to narrow it down?  Try the World War I draft registration cards for birth dates and the name of the birth place.

Try for death records - cemetery records.  The person who reported the information may not always be accurate either.  I've seen "another country" as the information given, but the place the person was born should be there.

Try finding people on the census and, based on religion, search for the cemetery they were likely buried in during that era in that town, such as a church graveyard and CALL THAT CHURCH IF ITS STILL IN SERVICE to ask where they archive membership records.

Another thing that's come up is that on the ship they asked where a person was living before they got on the ship, which is not the exactly same thing as a home town village. 

Many Irish immigrants went from a village to a port city and lived there a while before they got on the ship to leave the country.  So it's not unusual to see "Liverpool" or "South Hampton" as the place they left or were living at before they got on the ship when the village or town they left family is different.  The reason they did so was usually economic.  They needed to make some money first to afford the trip.  Imagine this in more modern times.  These days we are supposed to change our address with the DMV within 10 days of moving but how many people manage that?  So a person leaves their village, pretty sure they will never see their family again, they go to what is the Big City and work for a few months, then board the ship, make it to a town that has promises of work with other Irish immigrants, and find they have to move again and again before they "Settle."

I've heard horror stories of immigrants coming from Ireland on ships that let them starve and let them stay in filthy conditions - until the ship was close to port when people were expected to help clean the ship.

Irish came to the early Americas as servants with contracts that were almost as good as slavery.  After many years - seven - twenty!  They were "free" to go work somewhere else.

As a result of the conditions of immigration and living in the country, many early Irish immigrants married late or not at all and did not leave descendants. 

But today, a great many Americans have that "wee bit of Irish" in them... and have made up for these deprivations for sure!

HAPPY SAINT PATRICKS DAY TO YOU IRISH-AMERICANS!