The Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread

I love Irish soda bread, or at least the kind I have made in the past and that is readily available in our local grocery stores this time of year.  It is so easy to make that I never buy it.  I was looking for a recipe for this year and ran across this site: The Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread!  Even though I love caraway seeds and currants, I decided to experiment this time by following the guidelines for real soda bread and just using flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk.  I have a really hard time following recipes, but the only change I made to this one was to use 1/2 white flour and 1/2 whole wheat flour.  I did not knead it on a floured board but just pulled it all together with my hands.  I did put a cake pan cover over the bread while it was baking, and I did not put any butter in it.  The temptation was great to add the beloved caraway and currants, but I resisted, and thankfully so.  The bread is wonderful.  I have been cutting pieces off all afternoon, and at this rate there will not be much left for St. Patrick's day tomorrow.  But I still have enough pastry flour and buttermilk for a second loaf... maybe I will put some currants and caraway in that one, for variety! 

Sneem, Ireland - It's a Small World

In October at The Genealogy Event, a lady, Patricia, came up to my exhibit table.  After hearing that I was located in Rochester, NY, she told me her ancestor lived in Rochester briefly before going back home to Ireland, and that he worked on the trolleys.  My great-grandfather also worked on the trolleys, and we both followed up with details to see if they might have been colleagues.  Unfortunately, her ancestor was there while mine were still in Amsterdam, NY.  But I did mention to her that my great-great grandmother was Irish and born in Sneem.  Although I had been in Kerry and on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland, I did not know I had roots there at that time, and I was not in Sneem.  Patricia was, and she sent me this picture:

The boxer is not John L. Sullivan, but it does reinforce the legacy of the sport in Ireland.  Patricia also told me that Charles de Gaulle's wife's governess was from Sneem and was a McCarthy, as was my great-great-grandmother.  I have to do further research to see if they are indeed related.  And to see if Patricia and I are related...

Irish Roots

Many people in this area (Upstate New York) have Irish ancestry.  Family Sherlock even has a little, but never thought much of it except on St. Patrick's Day.  It turns out she was very close to her ancestor's hometown in 1989 but did not know it!  The following is a good example of a research report you could hire Family Sherlock to write for you.

Although most of my heritage is German, with a little British and Sicilian, there is some Irish blood in my veins. My great-grandma (who I remember calling Big Grandma) Ida Glossner's mother was Margaret (Margret) McCarthey Goodman, and she was born in Ireland¹ in August, 1865².

Family lore told us two things- she immigrated to the US on the "Bremen" from Cork to Baltimore, and she was a cousin of the boxer, John L. Sullivan. I was not able to find immigration records as many from Ireland to Baltimore were lost.  Cork was a main port for Ireland, and it did not necessarily mean that the McCarthey's lived there.  The information about the ship they sailed on was passed on to me by my paternal grandmother, Ida's daughter-in-law.   I was not successful searching for Margaret's birth records in Cork, as there were many McCartheys, but then I changed my tactic.

John L. Sullivan's father was Michael Sullivan of Abbeydorney, County Kerry³. When I search in Kerry for Margaret McCarthey, with a mother named Sullivan, I found her birth record from Sneem, County Kerry. Her parents were Charles McCarthey and Mary Sullivan, and her birth date was August 19, 1865.⁴

I was able to confirm this is my great-great-grandmother because I also found her death certificate which gave her parents' names as Charles Mccarthy and Margaret Sullivan and her birth date as August 18, 1865⁵. I was originally confused by this because she died in Illinois, but one of her children lived there. Otherwise the matches are very close.

Areas of further research are to trace the McCarthey and Sullivan lines back further, and to make a more definitive connection between Mary Sullivan and John L. Sullivan.  Also, further documentation into Margaret's relocation from Rochester to Chicago should be researched.

1"New York, County Marriages, 1908-1935," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XVGG-MHV : accessed 17 Mar 2013), August C. Glossner and Ida M. Goodman, 1910.

2"United States Census, 1900," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MSJH-JZN : accessed 17 Mar 2013), Margret Goodman in entry for Frank Goodman, 1900.

3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L_Sullivan#cite_note-1, accessed 3/17/2013.

4"Ireland, Births and Baptisms, 1620-1881," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F557-4ZQ : accessed 17 Mar 2013), Margret Mc Carthy, 19 Aug 1865.

5"Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/N3HZ-GXZ : accessed 17 Mar 2013), Margaret Goodman, 25 Feb 1941.