Tag: GenealogyBank

Irish Genealogy: John J Reidy 1906

Irish Genealogy: John J Reidy 1906

Posted on by Jack

I’ve enjoyed my membership in the Genealogy Bank. I am now in my second year.

It allows searches in a wide variety of older newspapers and they are adding more newspaper every month. When I got my monthly newsletter today, I was pleased to see they added more issues of the Gaelic American. This is a New York news papers publishing thing of interest to Irish-Americans, including news from Ireland.

Since I am interested in Irish Genealogy including the name REIDY, I was pleased to see an obituary of John J. Reidy who died July 17, 1906. This was in the August 11, 1906 issue. Among many other things the article says he was from Ballyelan, Ballingarry, Limerick and was active in the Fenian movement, and an uncle of James Reidy of New York.

There were also quite a few articles in the Gaelic American of this time on James Reidy of the Brooklyn Gaelic society and other Irish-American organizations. I suspect this is may be the nephew mentioned above but I do not know this.

Since Ballingarry is just down the road from Rathkeale where my REIDYs were from, I found this especially interesting.

William Mulcahy of Riddlestown evicted twice

William Mulcahy of Riddlestown evicted twice

Posted on by Jack

The Irish American Weekly of October 9, 1886 (published in New York City) had a short article about the case of William Mulcahy of Riddlestown, Rathkeale, Co Limerick, Ireland who was evicted twice from the family farm. The first eviction was soon after he inherited the leased farm in 1881 and the second time in 1886.

The article was relatively short but gave an interesting description of the eviction cases and his living conditions after being evicted the second time. I found the article on GenealogyBank.

I decided to renew GenealogyBank for a year

I decided to renew GenealogyBank for a year

Posted on by Jack

I’m impressed with GenealogyBank. I took a trial for a month and impressed with the number of old newspapers on the website and the ease of finding information.

I like the newspaper search but I’m still learning. Continue reading “I decided to renew GenealogyBank for a year”

Trying GenealogyBank

Trying GenealogyBank

Posted on by Jack

I am still trying GenealogyBank. See my earlier post for more (or maybe less) on my initial impressions.

I’m about half-way through the trial and I’m very impressed with the old newspapers aspect of the website. So far I haven’t had much luck searching the historical documents and books in their collection but given time I may get better at that. The GenealogyBank search box to the right is free to use and gives you an idea of the site but you do need to pay to actually view the documents.

I find the newspaper search much better than the one at Ancestry. I think the search function works better and there is quite a collection of newspapers to search. I’ve not had much luck with my New York City ancestors. Part of the problem is common names such as Greer and Tracey.

Reidy is not so common but in most of the records my great grandfather’s name was spelled Ready. So a search for William Ready pulls up articles with headlines such as “William ready to do this or that”.

But I have found quite a bit on other lines, especially those in Maryland and Delaware. And despite all the difficulties I have found some things in New York City. Despite my ancestors being mostly obscure, they got into the papers at times.

Some of the findings are the types of things I expected. Some are total surprises. So far I’m impressed with GenealogyBank.