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The following is the introductory material to An Index of Irish Families of Dorchester County, Quebec (Frampton and Vicinity): I had been brought up to have pride in my Irish American heritage. My family often talked of our Irish origins and I always thought us to be Irish Americans. When I began researching my family's history, I was quite surprised to find out that my Irish grandfather was actually born in Quebec, and that my true heritage was Irish Canadian. My research led me to a small village called Frampton about 30 miles South of Quebec City. My first venture into the records was searching through the St. Edouard de Frampton parish register looking for the names of my ancestral families. It was also my first encounter with record entries made in the French language. What really struck me was that most of the entries involved families with Irish surnames. Soon I was able to visualize a nineteenth century village full of Irish settlers in the middle of French Quebec. It wasn't long before I was hooked by the intrigue of this unique (unique in America at least!) heritage. I began to gather and collect many sources related to the Irish community of Dorchester County. Being just six hours from Salt Lake City allowed me to visit the LDS Family History Library frequently to read through the Quebec sources and find my ancestors in the microfilmed Quebec parish registers for Frampton and Ste. Marguerite. I soon learned that there were significant numbers of Irish families from the Frampton area that had eventually found their way to the United States. I finished putting together a family history book for my own family that was somewhat illustrative of their lives in nineteenth century Quebec. But I still had many questions in my head about the community's Irish origins. I also wondered when did they arrive? How did the community function? Where were their farms located? I began to collect and read as many local history books as I could find. This eventually resulted in making a research trip to Frampton and several significant Quebec libraries. Not only did I have a distance barrier to contend with, but the language barrier was an obstacle as well. I took the time to take a beginning French course at my local University. While I am not in any way fluent in speaking French, I gained enough knowledge to be able to somewhat comprehend what I was reading in French texts. What puzzled me was that many of the local history books seem to offer very little about the Irish community. Although, most of these sources mentioned the Irish community, few went into much detail. It dawned on me that many of these sources were written by French Canadian authors in the twentieth century. Also, these texts were mostly based on oral history taken in the twentieth century. I did find one source written in English, Irish Life in Rural Quebec, A History of Frampton that had an illustration showing that the Irish population of the area peaked in 1861. Then it dawned on me that any history written in the twentieth century based upon oral histories may tend to inadvertently fail to place much emphasis on the Irish community. Needless to say, after a few years, I had amassed a rather large collection of books and papers related to the Frampton community. I thought to myself, wouldn't it be a good idea to extract information and events related to the Irish families for these diverse sources and develop an index of Irish families. My cursory examination of some of the sources seemed to indicate that the Irish community was not very large and it seemed to be a worthwhile endeavor. I had tremendously underestimated the size of the community. When I had finished my research, I had developed an index of about 530 pages containing 380 Irish surnames and over 9,500 individuals. This turned out to be a sizable community and obviously there are tens of thousands of descendants of these families spread across North America. So my primary purpose in providing such an index was to make searching for Irish ancestors in Dorchester County much easier, especially for the English speaker. This index must, of course, be considered a secondary source. In reality, it functions as a finding aid by pointing to places where a primary source may be found. But the individual researcher may not have to waste as much time looking through records that might not contain any relevant information about their ancestors. The individual researcher is advised to always seek the primary sources in developing their own genealogies. In some cases, the researcher will find my data to be quite accurate. However, I fully realize that further research in primary sources may also determine that my projections may not be accurate. Especially in those cases where only census data was used to predict birth year. My secondary purpose in developing this index is to use it as a comparative study of the Irish community. For example, several sources identified the location of Irish origins for some of the families. Comparing this information to families of the same surname or families that arrived in Dorchester County at about the same time period may result in providing an important clue to a family with unknown Irish origins. Also, this index contains a great deal of data about precisely where the Irish family farms were located in relation to other Irish families, understanding that many of the neighboring families may either be relatives or those that emigrated together can provide further clues. Lastly, this Irish community includes many individuals that have the same surname and given name. The geographic information about places of residence and location of farms and the maiden names of spouses becomes crucial in determining which individual is which. My determination of whether a family was an Irish family was made first by extracting those families that had Irish as their ethic origin in the 1861 Quebec Census for Dorchester County. I also included any families that were referenced to be from Ireland in other sources. I also used various Irish name dictionaries to determine if a surname was of Irish origins. Spelling variations of the Irish surnames was problematic. For example, my own surname is spelled as McLane, but my ancestors are found in the various records as McLean, even though in several records they signed by spelling the name as McLane. The names were mostly spelled by the record keeper such as the parish priest or census taker. If the record keeper was an Irish person, the spelling seemed to be more correct than if the record keeper was a French speaker. Notaires also seemed to be more careful in the spelling of the names. In order to determine what spelling variation to use for families in this index, I would usually select the spelling that was most frequently found. I also had a preference for the spelling found on recent gravestones in the Frampton area cemeteries understanding this to be the variation used by descendants. I also would select the variations used in the several Irish surname dictionaries in my collection. As this system is not perfect, I fully realize that I may have used the wrong spelling for any given family and for that I offer my apologies to the reader. I have displayed in parentheses the spelling variations I have found for a particular surname so that the reader will be certain to search primary sources under those variations. The geographic scope of this index is basically those townships and parishes that at one time or another were included in the boundaries of Dorchester County in the nineteenth century. This index includes Irish persons who lived in the following locations: St. Joseph, Ste. Marie, St. Bernard, St. Maxime, St. Henri, Ste. Marguerite, Ste. Henedine, St. Francois, St. Elzear, Ste. Claire, St. Isidore, St. Anselme, Cranbourne, Frampton, Watford, Buckland, Standon, and Ware. The index contains all Irish families that could be found in the sources in these locations regardless of whether they were Catholic or Protestant. The following are the surnames that are included in An Index of Irish Families of Dorchester County, Quebec (Frampton and Vicinity): Adams Allen Ambrose Anderson Armstrong (Amstrong) Ash Bagley Bagnall Bardon Barr Barry Bartholomew Bearny (Bearney, Burney, Burnie, Bernie, Binnie, Birnie, Barny) Beatty Berrigan Bird Bishop Black Blakiston Booner Boyce Boyle (O'Boyle) Bradley Bready Breen (Brean) Brennan (Brannan) Brothers (Bruthers) Brown Brun Bulger Burke Burns (Byrne, Byrnes) Butler Byrnes (Byrne, Burns) Cafferty Caffrey (McCaffrey) Cahill Calvin Carroll Cassidy Chapman Clarke Cleary (Clary) Clasby Codd Cody Colby Colgan (Colligan) Collins Comber Condron Connaghty (Conaty) Connell (O'Connell) Connery Connolly (Connally, Connelly) Connors (O'Connor, Connor) Conroy Conway Cooper Corby Corkeson Corkoran Corrigan Courtney Coyle Craig Crawford Cronacher Crough Cuddy Culhane Cullen (Collins) Culleton Cunningham Curran Curtin (Curtain) Daly (Daily) Daniel Davidson Dawson Delany Dempsey Develin Devereux (Daverick, Deverix) Dickson (Dixon) Dillon Doherty (Dougherty) Dollard Donahue (Donohue, Donohoe, Donaughue) Donnelly (Donelly) Donovan Doody Doran Dowd Dowling Doyle Duff Duggan Duncan Dunlevy (Dunleary) Dunn Dwyer (O'Dwyer) Edmond Edmonton (Edmonsen) English Enright Erwin Evans Evoy (McEvoy) Fall Falls Farlin Finegan Finerty Fitzgerald Fitzhenry (Fitzharris) Fitzmorris (Fitzmaurice) Fitzpatrick Fitzsimmons Flack Flanagan Fogarty Foley Ford Foster Franklin Free Fulton Furlong Garvin Giles Glenahan (Glennan) Glynn Godfrey Golden Good Goodwin Gorman Gormly Griffin Guilty Gunn Hall Halligan Hamilton Hanna Hanley Hannon Harbisson Harper Harrington Hartford Harvey Haslet (Hazlett, Heslett) Hayes (Hays) Healy (Healey) Hennessy (Hennessey) Henry Hickey Hines (Hinds, Hynes) Hodgson Hogan Holmes Holt Hookes Hopkins Horan Horton Houston Hughes Humphreys (Humphries, Humphrey, Humphrie) Hurley Hurst Husband Johnson (Johnston) Jones Jordan (Jordon, Jourdain) Joynt Kavanagh (Cavanagh) Keagan (Keegan) Keenan Kell (Kells) Keily Kelly Kennedy Kenny Kerr Killcullen (Kilcullen) Kilgannon Kingston Kinsella Kinsley (Kinsella) Kirwin (Kirwan) Knowlin Knowles Lamer Lanry Landrigan Lanigan Laughfy Laughry Lawley Lawlor (Lawler) Lennox Lillis Lilly Logan Loonan Loughlin Lynch Lyons Mackay Madden Madigan (Maddigan, Haddigan) Magher (Meagher, Maher) Maguire Mahoney Maloney Manes (Maines, Means) Marrigan (Marigan, Maragan, Harigan) Marshall Martin Matson Matthews May McAuliffe McBean McBriarty (Briarty) McCake McCann McCarthy McCaughry (McCurry) McCaulky McClelland McClintock McConckey McCowan McDonald McDonnell McDonough McElgan (McElgin, McIlgan) McEvey McGill McGrath McHugh (McCue) McKeenan McKeown McKibbin (McKibben) McLane (McLean) McLarity McLaughlin McLean McMahon (Mahon) McManus McMonigle (McMonigal) McNaughton (Naughton) McNeilly (McNeely) McNulty McQuid McQuitty McRuaid McSweeny McVeagh (McVay, McVey, McVeigh) McWade Meagher (Magher, Maher) Melady Meyer Micklegun Mihan Miles (Mayles. Moyles) Miller Mills Mitchell Modest Molloy Moran Morgan (Mangan) Mority Morrow Mulholland Mullaly Mulligan Murphy Mury Nash Nelligan Neville (Navel, Navil, Naville, Nevil, Nevell, Nevelle) Nevin Nevins Noonan Nowland Nugent O'Brien O'Connor (Connors, Connor, Conner) O'Donovan O'Farrell (Farrell) Ogle O'Grady O'Hara O'Leary O'Neil (O'Neill) O'Reilly (Reilly) O'Rourke O'Shaughnessy (Shaughnessy) O'Toole (Toole) Paisley Parker Patton Peel Phillips Pickford Pidgeon Quigley (Coughly, Cogley) Quilty Quinn Redmond (Redman) Reed (Reid, Read) Reynolds (Raynald) Riley (Reilly) Roach (Roche) Robinson Rockford Rogers Rooney Ross Ruff Ruth (Rooth) Rutherford Ryan Sample Sargeant (Sergeant) Scallion Scott Shannon Shaw Shea (Shay) Sheehan Sheehy Sheen (Shean, Shyne) Sheerin (Sharin, Sharon, Shearen) Sheridan Sinnott (Synnott) Slevin Sloane (Slone) Smith (Smyth) Stafford Staples Stynes (Stines) Sullivan Sutherland Sutton Tackney Taylor Temple Thimothy Thomas Thorton Tormy Travers Tucker Turner Tyrnay Walker Wall (Walls) Waller Walsh Ward Watson Weeks Welsh West Whelan (Whalen, Whealan) Wheeler White (Whyte) Wickens Wilson Wilts Woods Wren Wright (Right) |
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