Irish roots: How my grandfather was hidden at Ellis Island

My Aunt Kathleen is the family genealogist. She literally wrote the book on our Irish American family. Yet, she hadn't been able to find any record of my grandfather's entry from Ireland into the U.S.

No one knew when he entered or where, but we had a good idea that he'd first come to America in 1916 and we were pretty sure he'd come to New York. He had brothers and a sister already there, so it had to be New York.

That meant he had to have come through Ellis Island - but there was no sign of him in their records. There was no difficulty finding my grandfather's brother, Rodger, who passed through Ellis Island in May 1913. That only added to the frustration. We knew my grandfather's name, obviously, we knew what year he was born, where he was from (sort of – more on that later) and we had a pretty good idea what year he immigrated.

So why didn't he turn up on the Ellis Island records ( www.ellisisland.org)?

The Ellis Island search facility is very flexible. You can search by a range of years by birth or by entry to the United States. You can even search by a partial last name. Yet not one of those bore fruit.

My grandfather's name was John Fahy when he left New Quay, County Clare and he, along with his immigrant siblings, changed his name to Fay at some point. Today we can only guess as to why they did this.

I searched for Fahy, Fay, Fa*, but nothing. I searched for people from New Quay whose last name began with Fa, but no luck.

I talked to my father about it and he concluded that his father had probably entered through Boston or Philadelphia and traveled on to New York. Given there was a war on at the time, it made sense that he might not have had the same number of options for traveling to America as those who traveled in peacetime. He might well have sailed to one of those cities.

Then one afternoon I had a brainwave. I'm not much of a genealogist, but I've used computers for nearly 30 years and I know how things can go wrong. And one adage that all heavy computer users know is, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

It occurred to me that the computerized records I was searching weren't always computerized. Someone had to key them in. So I started searching for misspellings for the name Fahy.

And I found him.

Ellis Island has him listed as John Tahy, who arrived in November 1915. The Ellis Island Web site not only lets you search the records, but when you find the record you want, you can view an image of the actual immigration record. Everything was there.

His U.S. address was his brother Pat's place in Palisades Park, N.J. He paid for his own passage and, although it's tough to make out, it looks like he had £20 on him.

He had traveled on the SS Saint Louis and, happily, he was neither a polygamist nor an anarchist. He was presumably in good health as no mention is made of it in the appropriate area. He is listed as being 5'10” with hazel eyes, fair hair, fair complexion and no marks of identification.

He was a British subject – it was 1915 – and a member of the Irish race. He came from Finvara, Ireland. Yep, Finvara (Finivara or Finavarra), not New Quay.

His brother had arrived two years earlier and listed his hometown as New Quay. The address (today, anyway) would be Finavarra, New Quay, County Clare.

The combination of the misspelled last name and the variations in hometown name had made my grandfather all but invisible. All because someone misread a capital F as a capital T.

Just about anyone familiar with Irish names would have known that Tahy is not an Irish name. If the person who entered the data from the Saint Louis's manifest of November 11, 1915 had known that Fahy was more likely than Tahy they might well have looked twice at the legible, cursive entry for my grandfather.

Handwriting styles change and I can see how someone who is not of Irish descent might have thought the name was Tahy. I would wager that most of the other 34 listed Tahys – many of whom seem to have come from the same part of Ireland as my grandfather – should also be Fahys.

The moral of the story is, if you're searching computerized records and you can't find a relative who you know should be there, remember that the person who typed the data in could have made a simple error – one that no one would notice, but one that will certainly frustrate you.

Think about handwriting, think about the drudgery of entering data from handwritten records and start searching for simple erroneous versions of the name you are searching for.

To Ypres

Bought tickets to fly to Belgium in July. The whole family is going. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Island of Ireland Peace Park near Ypres in Flanders. Not sure if there will be much more than Ypres in this tour, but I'm sure we'll find other things of interest, etc.

Comments:

dublin37 wrote:

ooooh, you must hit Bruges if at all possible. So beautiful and quaint, with lovely lace at good prices.

5/20/2009 10:57 AM EDT

TheYank wrote:

Dublin37

I'd love to, but that will be another trip. We can only fit so much in during our 36 hour visit. Brugges is on my list.

5/20/2009 11:33 AM EDT

View from the DART

On my way into Dublin yesterday I was noticing - again - how great the DART line is. Can there be a more beautiful commuter rail line on Earth? No, not the trains, the scenery along the line - particularly between Bray & Dalkey. I snapped this from the train, which explains the vaguely murky haze - the windows were slightly less than clean.

This (below) is the view you see when you emerge from the tunnel just beyond Dalkey on the way out of town.

Soaking up the rays

Was in Dublin yesterday. It was sunny and warm - ish. Warm for late March, but not really warm as such. Maybe in the high 50s, but there was a pretty sharp breeze. The wind chill doesn't put Irish people off, however. There they were in Merrion Square in the center of Dublin yesterday, sunbathing. Only men yesterday.

Are men hardier or simply more stupid, I'm not sure. I think some people are just driven nuts by sun deprivation.

Whatever the psychological explanation, I saw a number of guys who had peeled off their shirts to lie out in the grass. Me? I just buttoned up the jacket and walked on.

Chip & Pin costs sales

The visitors went into Dublin to do a bit of shopping today. Helping the economy, right? Can't be any issue with a few Yanks spending a buck or two in Dublin, right? Well, not quite. A few stores apparently weren't interested enough to take the American credit cards. No chip in the card means that the old signature has to do where we all use a PIN nowadays. For some stores that was too much trouble. No, we don't take those cards. Sales lost.

I can't help wondering how often this happens here now. Does this make tourists feel welcome? I would say not.

Bonus time on-board

Visitors from America arrived this morning. At 6:15! Wasn't expecting that, but it seems that there was little taxi-ing needed at Kennedy Airport. So EI104 arrived nearly an hour early at 4:30 or so. Fortunately for me, the airport wasn't ready for them and the lucky passengers - including my visitors - were treated to an extra 40 minutes sitting on the plane. Now, tell me, who doesn't want that between 4 and 5 in the morning after flying through the night?

The rusty gate

The Irish Times says that The Gateway may never return to Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin. It was removed in order to "facilitate a new walkways scheme." Yeah, whatever works for you. I don't pretend to be an art connoisseur, but my son summed up the sculpture pretty well: "They're just two hunks of rusty metal."

Living horse in early May

So it's a Bank Holiday and, of course, it's pretty miserable. But our weather forecasters have said that we should have a long, hot, dry summer. Yeah, well, as my father-in-law used to say, live horse and you'll get grass. No, I don't really know what it means either, but I always liked it.

Let's get going

It's a holiday weekend - a "bank holiday weekend" - and the weather's not all that bad. Seems like a good time to start this.

Right now the sun is just peaking above the hills to the east and there's hardly a cloud in the sky.

Irish anti-Americanism

{First published in the Irish Voice in January 2003.}

"Bush is mad," someone told me last week. And, when an Irish person uses the word "mad" about President Bush, they don't mean he's angry, they mean he is "out of his mind". That opinion seems to be a fair reflection of the attitude of the population as a whole. As Mike Farragher discovered (last week's Voice) nearly everyone in Ireland is opposed to war with Iraq.

Obviously a large section of the American population is also uneasy about the possibility of war. Americans are weighing up a threat that's difficult to assess combined with the memories of September 11. They are balancing these with the risk to the lives of those who serve in the armed forces and all the other uncertainties that war can bring. And, yes, Americans are also loath to wage war if it means wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians. This is a difficult decision and one that all Americans hope the President gets right.

Most of this does not seem to feature in any of the calculations here. For the most part Irish people simply do not believe that Saddam Hussein could possibly pose a threat to the US and that any American led war would be "immoral". The reason this is important is that for any American living here – or even just visiting – it is very easy to become dismayed when confronted by such attitudes.

Obviously, there are no views being expressed in Ireland that are not also being expressed in the US, but the universality of the anti-war and, often anti-American sentiment would get any American's back up. Many of the views that are popular and mainstream here are only espoused by people on the fringes of American opinion.

Anti-Americanism is in the air here, but most Irish people reject the notion that they're anti-American. Yet, they feel comfortable expressing views that can only be described as such.

Anti-Americanism can be difficult to define and it is often difficult to separate it from legitimate difference of opinion. However, I've developed some rules of thumb that help me sift the anti-Americanism from the various arguments regarding a possible war with Iraq.

There are only a few basic arguments that Irish people make regarding the US and Iraq and, with some gentle probing, the extent to which the speaker is anti-American or not can generally be deduced.

It's all about oil.

This is very common here. When people make this claim, I generally give them an opportunity to explain what they mean. If they tell me that the west's insatiable demand for oil is at the root of the problems with the Middle East, including Iraq, I see that as a valid viewpoint.

If, however, they say, "America only wants Iraq's oil", that is baldly anti-American. There are many factors that have led us to the brink of war, but a grubby resource grab is not one of them. It would obviously be far cheaper to strike a deal with Saddam for Iraq's oil than to fight a war. This statement reflects a stereotype of Americans as distinctly selfish and war mongering.

I'm not anti-American, but I'm anti-Bush.

As far as I'm concerned, this view is anti-American. President Bush is the President of the United States, and his administration governs on behalf of all Americans. Nobody in Ireland is concerned with the President's domestic policies (tax, healthcare, etc.). Although there are some minor differences of opinion regarding tactics, when it comes to Iraq he has the support of all the major leaders in both political parties and the American people. That is not acknowledged in Ireland.

Many people here speak of President Bush as if he is no more legitimate a leader than Saddam Hussein. For some reason, many Irish people believe you can separate the President and his government from the people who put him there and support him now.

When I read Cormac MacConnell's recent articles, I believed him when he said he is almost "blindly pro-American". Some of his arguments are more a questioning of US tactics than anti-American. Yet, I also thought to myself how contradictory, defeatist and almost hysterical he sounds.

He worries that war with Iraq will lead to terrorist attacks on Shannon Airport. Doesn't his fear indicate that he agrees with President Bush when he says that Saddam is connected to international terror? Isn't he also agreeing that Saddam possesses the wherewithal to inflict serious damage through terrorism? And, importantly, doesn't he realize that the many, many soft targets inside the US would be more appealing to Saddam than Shannon Airport?

If fear of attack is the reason for not going to war with Iraq, then we are already beaten and have been deterred by Saddam and the threat he poses. What reason is there to believe that this threat will not increase if we were to leave Saddam alone for the next five, or more, years?

Ireland is a neutral country.

Although I do wonder about this business of neutrality (neutral between the US and Iraq?), I don't believe it to be an anti-American position. As far as I'm concerned, neutrality is an inability to choose your friends or at least those with whom you share a basic worldview. It can be simply cowardly.

I often hear people state that they don't want to join any U.S. led defense pacts or participate in what they call "America's wars". Such views are anti-American because they are founded on the belief that the United States is unreasonably belligerent, willing to wage war with only the flimsiest of excuses.

War solves nothing or civilians will do most of the suffering.

Neither of these statements is anti-American. Many Irish people feel a sincere empathy with the victims of warfare and there will certainly be a strong reaction here to the images of killed or injured civilians.

However, when someone says, as Labour Party T.D. Michael D. Higgins was quoted in last week's Irish Voice, that the US is about to "wage war on a civilian population" that is anti-American. I know that the United States armed forces will do all they can to minimize civilian suffering. In fact, reducing civilian casualties is one of the primary design features of modern weapons development.

Ultimate responsibility for Iraqi civilians lies with Saddam and the choices he makes in the next few weeks. I too hope that civilian casualties can be kept to an absolute minimum. But, when I think of Iraqi civilians, I think of a nation of slaves ruled by a ruthless tyrant and his band of cronies. Faced with similar circumstances, I would prefer to take my chances in a war and the uncertain future beyond rather than remain living as a slave without hope. I believe most Irish people would too.

As an American, I accept that Irish people have the right to decide what nations they side with as they see fit. However, for many Irish-Americans, the fact that many in Ireland would choose not to support the US is stunning, if only because most Irish-Americans have always supported Ireland and wished Irish people well.

Official American attitudes towards Ireland should be based on the extent of mutual commitment. The Irish Government has recognized this aspect to international relations.

Acting out of naked self-interest, the government is permitting U.S. forces to land at Shannon on their way to the Middle East despite almost (seemingly) universal opposition to this policy. Therefore, state-to-state relations between the US and Ireland are apparently not going to be affected by any war with Iraq.

However, the relationship between Irish-America and the people of Ireland may be affected. Irish-Americans may want to consider Irish attitudes before they make that extra effort to "buy Irish" or plan that next trip to Ireland.