Beara's Children

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Mystery Woman from Beara

Jean Clemons of the Beara rootsweb reading list provided this image of someone who once lived in Beara. Here's the caption that goes with it:

This picture was taken in the 1920's. People have said I reached the age of 110 when I died. I don't know my name, when or where I was born, or when and where I died. I do believe I came from Beara. I could be a Regan, Sullivan, McCarthy, or an O'Leary or I married into any one of those families.

Can anyone tell me who I am?

Please reply here if you have any ideas of who this person may have been.

Friday, February 22, 2013

What do we mean by "first and second cousins" when we use that term?

Back last month we had a post about distinguishing degrees of kindred. Since then, I've learned that while the terms I provided in that post are the standard terms in use today in genealogical circles, they're not the terms our families and friends in Beara always use. Instead, there's a system of distinguishing cousins as x-and-y cousins, where the x and y values are as shown in this chart.

Beara (West Cork) Irish version of degrees of kindred

Common Ancestor	Child	Grandchild	Great Grandchild	2^nd Great-Grandchild	3^rd Great- Grandchild	4^th Great-Grandchild	5^th Great-Grandchild
Child	Sibling	N(iece or nephew)	Grand-N	2^nd Great Grand-N	3^rd GGN	4^th GGN	5^th GGN
Grandchild	N(iece or nephew)	1^st Cousin	1^st and 2^nd Cousin	1^st and 3^rd Cousin	1^st and 4^th Cousin	1^st and 5^th Cousin	1^st and 6^th Cousin
Great Grandchild	Grand-N	1^st and 2^nd Cousin	2^nd Cousin	2^nd and 3^rd Cousin	2^nd and 4^th Cousin	2^nd and 5^th Cousin	2^nd and 6^th Cousin
2^nd Great-Grandchild	2^nd GGN	1^st and 3^rd Cousin	2^nd and 3^rd Cousin	3^rd Cousin	3^rd and 4^th Cousin	3^rd and 5^th Cousin	3^rd and 6^th Cousin
3^rd Great-Grandchild	3^rd GGN	1^st and 4^th Cousin	2^nd and 4^th Cousin	3^rd and 4^th Cousin	4^th Cousin	4^th and 5^th Cousin	4^th and 6^th Cousin
4^th Great-Grandchild	4^th GGN	1^st and 5^th Cousin	2^nd and 5^th Cousin	3^rd and 5^th Cousin	4^th and 5^th Cousin	5^th Cousin	5^th and 6^th Cousin
5^th Great-Grandchild	5^th GGN	1^st and 6^th Cousin	2^nd and 6^th Cousin	3^rd and 6^th Cousin	4^th and 6^th Cousin	5^th and 6^th Cousin	6^th Cousin

My thanks to Ken Mason for making me aware of this alternate usage, and to Riobard O'Dwyer for explaining the details of how it works. Any errors in this chart are entirely my own.

Bill Gawne

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Pictures of Beara

Our friend John Crowley shared these pictures from a recent trip to Beara. Click the link to view the entire album. Here are a few samples to whet your appetite.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Beara Millennium Reminiscence Book

Philip Murphy's book,Things I Have Seen, also known as the Beara Millennium Reminiscence Book has been converted to e-text format and generously made available. You can get your own copy here. Just click the link.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Books about Beara available online

There are several historical books, many long out of print, about the Beara peninsula and its people. Here are links to a few of these available online:

Bantry, Berehaven and the O'Sullivan Sept by Timothy Daniel Sullivan, published by Sealy, Bryers & Walker, 1908

Irish Names and Surnames by Patrick Woulfe, published by M.H. Gill and son, 1906

Irish Pedigrees, or The Origin and Stem of the Irish Race by John O'Hart, published by J. Duffy and Company, 1892

Also, for those interested in something a bit more up to date, there's At the Edge of Ireland, Seasons on the Beara Peninsula by David Yeadon, published 2009. It will cost you $9.78 (USD). Here's a bit about it:

On the Beara Peninsula of southwest Ireland, the Yeadons discovered their own "little lost world," an enticing Brigadoon of soaring mountain ranges and spectacular coastal scenery, far removed from the touristic hullabaloo of Dublin, Killarney, and the Ring of Kerry. Here is the fabled "Old Ireland," alive and well with music seisuins, hooley dances, and seanachai storytellers—a haven for searchers, healers, artists, and poets hardy enough to have braved the same narrow and winding mountain roads that keep the package-tour coaches out.

Bursting with color and life, At the Edge of Ireland is an intrepid wanderer's celebration of a magical, unspoiled, and unforgettable Éire.

You can get all of these on your web enabled computer, pad, smartphone, e-reader, etc... Just the thing to read on those long flights when you don't want to look at the overpriced things in the airline's magazine.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Keeping track of degrees of kindred

Our friend Ann Chilton sent this handy chart, useful for remembering how many degrees of kindred someone may be "removed" from you.

If that's not enough, you can also refer to this, even more expanded, chart. Note there's an error in row 10, column 5. It should read "Third cousin five times removed."

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Color Images of Ireland from 1913

Claddagh, Co. Galway, Ireland

The entirety of this post is taken from Turtle Bunbury's Wistorical page in Facebook. You can see the original here.

In May 1913, Marguerite Mespoulet and Madeleine Mignon, two French women in their early 30s, arrived in Co. Galway, armed with heavy cameras and, more importantly the Autochrome Lumière plates, which enabled them to produce the first colour images of Ireland.

Their assignment to photograph the people of Galway was part of a massive project entitled ‘The Archives of the Planet’ sponsored by a wealthy French banker and philanthropist called Albert Kahn.

These photographs show that old Ireland was by no means as austere as traditional black and white photographs imply. As well as the brown bogs, yellowing gorse and grey skies, the two French ladies captured the people of Claddagh and Spiddal wearing costumes so colourful they would not be out of place in the Himalayas.

In her journal, Mespoulet wrote: ‘The young men leave for North America, the young women too and when the old die the house is abandoned and falls into ruin. There is hardly a village where one doesn't find forlorn skeletons of small grey houses invaded by nettles.’

Kahn went on to lose his fortune with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, but his immense Archive amassed some 72,000 color photographs between 1909-1931, including 73 of Ireland by Mespoulet and Mignon.

You can see a slide show of these early Irish photographs here

The photographs, recognized as one of the finest collections in the world, now reside at the site of Kahn’s garden in the Musee Albert Kahn at 14, Rue du Port, Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris.

Columbia's Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds a collection of Mespoulet's papers. As far as I can tell, there's still masses to learn from Kahn's exceptional project, so if anyone out there is seeking a new line of hobby ...