WITH KARLEE TWINER
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Each month, we choose a member’s request for research help, and our genealogy expert Karlee Twiner offers insight that might help dismantle their brick wall.
This month, we’ll highlight a question from member Sandra Heenan, who hit a block trying to locate her ancestor, Sarah McCann, before she left Ireland under the Earl Grey Scheme.
QUESTION:
My direct ancestor Sarah McCann was born 1835 in Portadown, Co. Armagh, Ireland.
December 31, 1849, at age 14 emigration records to Australia show she left Ireland under the Earl Grey Famine Orphan Scheme on board the Eliza Caroline. She sailed from Ireland to Liverpool then arrived in Melbourne after three mohths, arriving March 31, 1850. There were 251 orphan girls on board. She c0ould not read or write and spoke only (Irish) and Latin. She was indentured and became a servant girl in Geelong, Victoria, soon after absconding, taking refuge in the Catholic Church in Melbourne. She went on to live a very colourful life.
My question is, I’ve come to a block when trying to trace her history prior to leaving Ireland. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Best,
Sandra
ANSWER:
The Earl Grey scheme is relatively well documented. Not everyone who was sent has been found, but the vast majority have. If you haven’t checked out publications on this scheme, I highly recommend you do.
Now to the fun part. The girls that were sent to Australia during this Earl Grey scheme were from workhouses all over Ireland. This scheme was to help alleviate the vast numbers in the workhouses after the famine. Workhouse records are notoriously hard to come by, especially admission and discharge records. The majority of records that do survive are Board of Guardian records. These can be helpful sometimes but often do not mention names. Available workhouse records are accessible via findmypast.ie, the National Archives of Ireland, the National Library of Ireland, and some local archives as well.
Another resource that can be extremely helpful with the lack of actual workhouse records are newspapers. I am doing a project following girls sent to Canada under similar circumstances to the Earl Grey scheme, and I use newspapers so much. They can tell you a lot about a community and even individuals. They would often print information from Board of Guardian meetings, and they would sometimes even mention inmates by name.
The sad part of your ancestor’s story is that she won’t have many records made for her in Ireland. She was a poor, young woman, which means she wouldn’t have turned up in any tax records, such as Griffith’s Valuation. The only by-name mention you may find would be in baptism records if they were created and survived. If you would like professional help to do a project on this, please reach out to me. I love working with hard-to-find people, especially poor women.
Good luck!
Karlee
Do you have a tough question for Karlee? Send your request with the subject line Ask the Heritage Help Desk to stories@byancestry.com, and yours could be chosen for next month’s column.
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