Ancestry.co.uk have informed me about their records of Irish Emigration to New England, through the Port of Saint John, New Brunswick, 1841-1849.
More than 7,000 names, fully indexed with original images, are included in this exciting collection, which was assembled by Daniel F. Johnson, a keen genealogist and historian based in New Brunswick, Canada. The Irish Potato Famine of the late 1840s saw droves of Irish fleeing to North America in search of a better life.
The Canadian Port of Saint John, New Brunswick became a stopping point for those en route to the United States. Many, however, arrived destitute or in ill health and so took what they thought would only be temporary refuge before making their way on to New England to be reunited with their families.
During this time, the government in Saint John built a quarantine station and a hospital to protect residents from the sick new arrivals, many of whom actually stayed in Canada, with their strong Irish-Catholic presence changing the dynamic in Saint John, which until then had a strong Loyalist-Protestant heritage.
Prior to 1865, there were no comprehensive nominal lists of immigrants to Canada so the records kept by the hospital, work houses and asylums are the sole evidence of their arrival to North America. These records, assembled by Mr Johnson, help to piece together the mass movement of the Irish to North America during this time.
Reprinted with the kind permission of Ancestry.co.uk
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