Krista Luttrell

Researching Ancestors. Creating Things.

recent posts

  • A Small Update Changed Everything: My mtDNA Genetic Genealogy Journey

    A Small Update Changed Everything: My mtDNA Genetic Genealogy Journey

    I’ve been involved in DNA testing for genealogical purposes since early 2012,1 and over the years, I’ve tested both autosomal DNA (aDNA) and Full mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) through a testing company called FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA). Before I share this story, I want to be upfront. I have no affiliation with FTDNA and receive nothing for mentioning them. I’m simply a Family Historian sharing an experience I hope might be encouraging for others who are curious about their family history.

    Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only through the maternal line. A person inherits it from their mother, who passes it down to all her children, but only the daughters will pass it down. It’s a singular straight line of inheritance. Last year, FTDNA updated its mitochondrial family tree, and with the update came a small change. My haplogroup designation shifted from J1c3g to J1c3g22. It was a minor tweak, but it revealed a match buried among dozens of others. With the new designation came my first-ever potentially viable full mtDNA match, and so far, a lone one at J1c3g22. According to FTDNA, this person and I share a common motherline ancestor who lived approximately 500 years ago, give or take a few centuries. That’s a long time ago, but little did I know the story would get closer to home.

    Digging into the match, I found that their most distantly known maternal ancestor lived in the parish of Belclare, County Galway, Ireland, which is the same parish of origin as my most distantly known maternal ancestor. They lived only a few miles apart. My maternal ancestor left Ireland in the 1850s and settled in Portland, Maine. The maternal ancestor of my match emigrated to Lowell, Massachusetts, some decades later. It’s only about an hour’s drive from Portland to Lowell.

    The townlands where our ancestors lived were fairly close. It is possible they may have met or known each other, and yet been totally unaware of their ancestral connection. It may not be documented proof of a shared family, but knowing that our ancestral mothers were living only a few miles apart in north County Galway is still meaningful.


    I emailed the match twice, several months apart, and haven’t heard back. That’s not at all unusual in genetic genealogy. People test, get their results, and then move on. In the meantime, I decided to build out their female tree line using the information provided in the match’s account profile and available historical information and records, which only deepened my sense that this connection is real, even if it remains just out of reach. I didn’t advance my family tree, but I am okay with that. This update provided valuable new information.

    As if that weren’t exciting enough, there’s one more detail to this mitochondrial journey that I find amazing. FTDNA also connects one’s mtDNA results to ancient DNA samples from archaeological burial sites. My mtDNA links to tested samples from two prehistoric men from Ireland, one of whom is known as “Carrowkeel Man 532,” who was buried in County Sligo thousands of years ago.2 The location is only about 82 miles north of Belclare, about a 2-hour car drive away. This bit of information suggests that my maternal line ancestors may have lived in the west of Ireland for a very, very long time, and it links genealogy to the sphere of deep human history. How fascinating and fun!

    If you haven’t yet explored your aDNA or mtDNA, why not? If you tested a while ago and haven’t revisited your results since last year’s mitotree update, I’d encourage you to take a peek at the updated results. You, too, may find an interesting match just waiting for you to pick it up. If you’ve been on the fence about DNA testing because of the cost, FTDNA often runs holiday sales. St. Patrick’s Day is just a few weeks away, and Mother’s Day is coming soon after it. Maybe there will be a sale. Either holiday would be a wonderful occasion to give the gift of DNA testing to learn more about your heritage and your ancestral mothers. Treat your mother, treat yourself, or do testing together!

    Here’s the link to their site: FamilyTreeDNA

    Thank you for reading.

    ♥︎ Krista

    Feature Photo: FTDNA website

    —

    Footnotes

    1. I purchased some DNA kits in late 2011, and the results were populated in early 2012. The processing time was about three months. ↩︎
    2. Carrowkeel Man 532 lived during the Late Neolithic Age. His burial site was in the passage tomb of Cairn K, located at the top of Carrowkeel Mountain, near the N4 highway south of Sligo town, in County Sligo, Ireland. The other prehistoric mtDNA sample match was with Millin Bay 6 man, who lived in the Early Neolithic period. His remains were found in a Cairn at Millin Bay, on the southern tip of the Ards Peninsula in County Down. This archaeological site is on the shore of the Irish Sea. Check out the YT video “A Game of Bones” presented by Pádraig Meehan and posted by the Office of Public Works, Ireland, to learn a little about the connections between Carrowkeel Man 532 and Millin Bay 6 man. As more ancient Irish remains are tested, the prehistoric human story of Ireland becomes clearer. ↩︎
  • An Honest Day’s Work for an Honest Day’s Pay: Irish supporting Irish in 19th Century Portland, Maine

    An Honest Day’s Work for an Honest Day’s Pay: Irish supporting Irish in 19th Century Portland, Maine

    If you stand on Munjoy Hill in Portland, Maine, and look towards the Casco Bay waterfront, you’ll see the brick and stone remnants of the old Portland Company rising up from Fore Street. In the 1800s, this was the city’s biggest employer, a large factory that made locomotives, steam engines, and other heavy machinery. Most of its workers were Irish immigrants who had crossed the Atlantic, hoping for a better life than one filled with famine, oppression, and extreme poverty, as in what they left behind.

    While Portland had two major Irish neighborhoods, these immigrants settled in the one on the lower portion of Munjoy Hill, and in its base around the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Here they were close to the busy factories where they worked and to one another. Their neighborhood became a replica of the various communities in Ireland they came from, filled with familiar faces, a shared mother tongue and dialect of English, and a shared memory of where they had come from and why they had left.

    Ireland is an island country about the same geographical size as the state of Maine. And, like Ireland, Maine was and still is predominantly rural. The majority of Irish refugees left agricultural work in quiet, green landscapes to settle in noisy, rapidly growing cities, like Portland, during the era of the Industrial Revolution. In the 1850s, my ancestor, Michael J. Burke, was one of them. He joined several older siblings and his mother, who had arrived in America a few years before him, and it was they who likely paid for his ocean passage.

    The Portland Company logo

    Work at The Portland Company was tough and exhausting. Irishmen toiled long hours, often with little waking time off to do anything else. Their meager earnings were enough to support their families and living costs. They didn’t have much, but when they could, they shared the little extra they had. And, they were proud to do so. Charitable organizations, such as the Irish American Relief Association, established by the Irish community, also sprang up. Organizations like this helped collect remittances to aid struggling fellow members of the Maine Irish community and to send funds to loved ones across the Atlantic. 

    Most of these workers didn’t come to America alone in spirit, even if they traveled by themselves. They kept their families close in their hearts and minds, and they felt the hardships of those remaining in Ireland. For the families, friends, and neighbors back home who received the remittances, that money could mean the difference between going hungry and having a meal, or between losing their small leased cottage and keeping a roof over their head.

    Photo of TPC Boilermen c1880. TST

    If remittances went toward a ship’s passage, a paper ticket to America may have offered the greatest chance of survival for some loved ones, such as a brother, a sister, a parent, a cousin, a friend, or a neighbor. They, too, made the same ocean passage and embarked on a new life journey of their own. One person would arrive, find work at The Portland Company, the Railroad, a factory or mill, or elsewhere, oftentimes settling down into the same neighborhood on Munjoy Hill, and then begin the same cycle of saving and sending until another loved one could follow. And then another. And then another still.

    Portland Company Mechanics at Work, c1910. Digital Photo Collections at MHS MMN

    Chain migration to Portland, this was. In this way, the Irish community on Munjoy Hill grew steadily over the decades, knit together not just by proximity but by the extraordinary lengths its people went to support one another. They understood, from their own experiences, exactly what it meant to arrive in a strange city in a foreign land with little more than desire in their hearts and a belief they too would make it. And so they reached back, again and again across the Atlantic, to bring others forward with them. Chain migration across generations, and, in some families, as in Michael’s, lasted well into the next century, and it was fully supported by an honestly earned day’s pay from a job at the Portland Company.

    Thank you for reading.

    ♥︎ Krista

    Feature Photo: Remnants of The Portland Company. © 2024 K. Luttrell

  • Announcement: Major New Brunswick Museum Renovation Underway

    Announcement: Major New Brunswick Museum Renovation Underway

    An ambitious project is underway in our next-door neighbor’s largest community. The Province of New Brunswick, Canada, is building a new museum of history and culture on Douglas Street in the city of Saint John. According to their website, they expect to complete in 2028. Although it’s been a few years since I visited this museum, I was delighted to learn it’s getting a refresh. It is already a fine establishment and offers much to its patrons.

    I’d like to draw the attention of fellow Mainers and other New Englanders, especially those who are family historians or local history researchers. There are probably many more of us than not who have at least one ancestor from or a close relative living in Canada, and in one or more of the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, including New Brunswick. Many Irish left Ireland and made Canada their home; countless others stepped off a boat in a Canadian port and made their way into the United States. Some Irish and Irish Canadians served in the U.S. Civil War, the War of 1812, and Americans who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War fled to Atlantic Canadian provinces, including New Brunswick. Regardless of one’s ethnic, racial, or cultural background, Atlantic Canada, including New Brunswick, was home to the ancestors of many Maine and New Englanders. For this reason alone, I believe Mainers and New Englanders should be interested in this project and support our neighbors’ efforts to preserve this culture and history.

    If you are unfamiliar with the NB Museum or have heard of it but never visited, you may be wondering what types of records are housed in its archival collections. For the purpose of providing an example for this story, I visited their website’s collections page and conducted a keyword search for “famine.” The search results generated a list, including “St. John County Alms and Work House fonds, 1843-1884.” Its scope and content description state it “…consists of registers and accounts of the St. John County Alms and Workhouse…consists of three series: Admittance Registers, Emigrant Register, and Accounts.” Lastly, its Administrative History and Bibliographic Sketch provided the following, and I am sharing in its full description, because of its richness:

    “I. In 1800, the first Saint John Alms House was opened on King Square South. This building was a converted grist windmill, which was destroyed by fire in 1819. A brick building was then erected on the corner of King Street East and Carmarthen Street. As the number of immigrants arriving in Saint John requiring assistance increased, both the provincial and local authorities realized the need for a larger, central facility. In 1839, pursuant to the Alms House act of Legislature in 1838, tenders were called for a new county alms house to be erected in Simonds Parish, St. John County. The St. John County Alms and Work House, located on Little River Road on the east side of Courtenay Bay, opened in 1842. It was a substantial building with a solid rock foundation, brick walls, and a large timbered frame

    II. A Board of six commissioners was appointed to supervise the operation of the Alms and Work House, replacing the Overseers of the Poor appointed by each parish; however, most authority was delegated to the Keeper and Matron. The first keeper was William Craig who was employed for seven years. William Craig was followed by Robert Reed who, in 1851, was succeeded by William Cunningham who was employed as keeper for 33 years until his death in 1884. Edward C. Wood then became keeper with Mrs. Cunningham remaining on as matron until her retirement in 1891.

    III. During the “famine years” (1845-1847), 30,000 Irish emigrants arrived at the port of Saint John and many of the destitute and ill were cared for at the St. John County Alms and Work House which included an infirmary. In 1847, due to the increase in immigrants with typhus, an Emigrant Hospital was erected near the Alms House. It consisted of several buildings – one which contained 128 beds, another building that accommodated 110 beds, and there were a number of narrow sheds. The buildings were very cramped with blocked passageways. There were no coverings on the outside wall of some of the buildings which resulted in patients suffering from exposure. In the fall of 1847 there were five to six hundred patients in the Emigrant Hospital on a daily basis. The Emigrant Hospital was destroyed by fire in 1853

    IV. In the 1890’s, improvements were made to the St. John County Alms and Work House including an overhaul of the interior, removal of the outbuildings, construction of a brick ell and new barn, and cultivation of 45 acres of land. In 1908 the name of the institution changed to the St. John Municipal Home. It closed ca. 1965.”

    Having now read the above description, in what ways do you think a resource like this would be helpful for local and family history researchers? How does it fit in a greater historical context?

    So many Irish arrived in the New World via the port of Saint John in the 19th century, especially during Famine times. It is hard to imagine “30,000 Irish emigrants arrived at the port of Saint John” during the first two years of Ireland’s calamity. A portion of these recent arrivals, some perhaps as the last living survivors of their immediate family, and friendless, were in a state of destitution and terrible disease or illness, and ended up in this institution. Some stayed briefly, some stayed a while, and some took their last breath in it. Individuals with surviving families may have had relatives who were not institutionalized and who lived in the city, or who had relocated elsewhere in the province or beyond its borders. What, if anything, could this record set share about the personal lives of the inmates? I hope to explore this record set in the new museum.

    Here is the link to my “Famine” search result: website.nbm-mnb.ca/ics-wpd/exec/icswppro.dll

    The renovation of the New Brunswick Museum is a significant undertaking, and its reopening is already much anticipated with all it aims to offer its patrons. And, Saint John is an old yet vibrant little city located on the beautiful provincial coast. Worth a visit!

    New Brunswick Museum
    website:nbm-mnb.ca

    Thank you for reading.

    ♥︎ Krista

  • Machias, Margaretta and O’Brien DNA

    Machias, Margaretta and O’Brien DNA

    The United States of America turns 250 years old this July 4th, and even though 1776 seems like ancient history, it’s not that long ago. Maine was part of Massachusetts at the time and played a part in the American Revolutionary War. One of the most notable events in Maine was the Battle of Machias, a naval battle that made heroes out of a band of brothers: Jeremiah, Gideon, John, William, Dennis, and Joseph O’Brien.

    The brothers were members of a large Maine Irish family. Historical records indicate that their father, Maurice “Morris,” was an immigrant from Cork or Dublin, Ireland, or that he was born in Dublin and sailed to America from Cork. The origin stories are conflicting; however, Y-DNA testing should be informative in this context. Maurice first lived in Kittery, where he married Mary Cain. In 1750, the family first moved to Scarborough, near Falmouth Neck (Portland). About 15 years later, they joined a migration of Scarborough families who resettled farther up the coast in the newly formed community of Machias, where they worked in the lumber industry and engaged in some marshland farming. In relation to Kittery, Machias sits on the opposite end of Maine’s jagged coastline, right along the present-day boundary of Canada, at New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The O’Briens were counted among the names of original settlers of the town and were involved in the erection of a double saw mill that they named “Dublin Mill” in the southerly part of Machias, which was colloquially known as little “Dublin.”

    At this time, grievances had grown among the Colonists towards Great Britain, and it seemed big changes were about to take place. A wonderful little description of what was ensuing is found on the history webpage for the Burnham Tavern in Machias. It states the following:

    “In early June 1775, the settlement of Machias faced a critical decision amid escalating tensions. News of the conflict at Lexington and Concord reached them swiftly, followed by an ultimatum: supply lumber to Boston for British barracks or face hunger and reprisal from Midshipman James Moore and his ship, the Margaretta. “

    When British ships arrived in the harbor near Machias to seize that lumber for their troops, the O’Brien brothers, led by the eldest, Jeremiah, along with several dozen local men, decided to take matters into their own hands. They rushed aboard the sloop Unity and captured the British schooner Margaretta. This event occurred around the same time as the historic attacks on Falmouth Neck and the Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston.

    “Scene on Deck of the Margaretta.”
    ©1904 Drisko, Narrative of the Town of Machias, p 44

    After that victory, Jeremiah commanded the Machias Liberty and became both the first captain and the first Irish American captain of the Massachusetts Navy. He and his brother, John, would go on to command several ships during this important war, and they would capture several enemy vessels. The British eventually seized Jeremiah and put him in a hulk, which is a prison ship, in New York Harbor, then carried him off to England. He was detained altogether for about two years. Fortunately, he managed to escape and get back home. In 1811, U.S. President James Madison appointed him as the customs collector in Machias, a position he proudly held right up until his end. He was buried with his family in the O’Brien cemetery, overlooking the water.

    The Machias Liberty. USNI

    The Job Burnham Tavern, presented as the feature photo for this story, was built in 1770, only a few years before the war began. As can be seen, it still stands proudly in Machias as the place where the O’Brien brothers and other local patriots planned the strategic attack on the Margaretta. The Tavern is now a museum run by a local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and houses many interesting, historically relevant artifacts, including items belonging to the O’Brien family that were used in that first naval battle.

    In modern times, a bridge, a military fort, a school, a train, and several U.S. Navy battleships have been named in honor of Jeremiah O’Brien, the most recent of which was built in the mid-1970s and operated until 2004.

    There is much that could be added to this story about the Battle of Machias, the Margaretta, and the O’Brien family, and their collective contributions to the fight for America’s Independence. Yet there is already so much material published that I don’t feel I’d offer anything new. If you’d like to learn more, please check out the resources I shared below or do a search online. I do, however, suggest that living descendants consider DNA testing if it has not yet been done. FamilyTreeDNA company offers three main types of tests: Y-DNA, mtDNA, and autosomal DNA. Y-DNA testing should establish Maurice O’Brien’s surname line’s place of origin, if testing hasn’t already been done by his male-line descendants. Regarding Mary Cain’s origins, Full mtDNA testing by direct-line daughter descendants may also provide insight. FamilyTreeDNA allows its testers to join projects, at no additional cost, tailored to their specific research interests, such as haplogroups, SNPs, geographical locations, family lineages, and surnames. Irish DNA, including Y-DNA testing, is very well represented in Ireland.

    Disclosure: I am not a paid affiliate or paid promoter of FamilyTreeDNA or any other DNA testing company. I do, however, as a person whose DNA has been tested and who appreciates its extraordinary value, support and promote DNA testing as a powerful genealogical tool, especially for solving ancestral mysteries!

    In the next short story of this series, I will share a bit about a Maine Irish Sullivan family. Stay tuned!

    Thank you for reading.

    ♥︎ Krista

    —

    Sources/Further Reading

    Sherman, Rev. Andrew M., Life of Captain Jeremiah O’Brien, Machias, Maine, Commander of the First American Naval Flying Squadron of the War of the Revolution. George W Sherman, 1902. archive.org/details/cu31924032737656. Last accessed January 28, 2026

    Drisko, George W., Narrative of The Town of Machias, The Old And The New, The Early and Late. Press of the Republican, 1904. archive.org/details/narrativeoftowno00dris. Last accessed January 28, 2026.

    Ahlin, John Howard, Maine Rubicon: Downeast Settlers during the American Revolution. Picton Press, 1966.

    Official Town of Machias, Maine: machiasme.gov

    Porter Memorial Library, Machias, Maine: porter.lib.me.us

    Machias Historical Society, Machias, Maine and information regarding activities for celebrating the 250th: machiashistoricalsociety.com

    Feature Photo: Job Burnham Tavern, est. 1770. Machias, Maine. ©2026 A. Herrman, photographer.

  • America’s 250th and the Maine Irish

    America’s 250th and the Maine Irish

    Happy New Year! As the United States of America celebrates its 250th birthday, I’ll be sharing 12 bite-sized stories, one per month, throughout this year to explore how Maine’s Irish community helped shape the incredible experiment in democracy we know as the United States of America.

    Picture Revolutionary-era Maine with its dense, dark, primordial forests, biting Atlantic winds, and long, rugged, rocky coast. In the 1700s, Maine was still part of Massachusetts, and it bordered what would become Canada. Indigenous communities have called these lands home for thousands of years, and the tribes such as the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot still do. English settlements began dotting along the coast and rivers starting in the previous century, and some Irish were found among them.

    The British Isles and Ireland experienced much unrest during the 17th century. Oliver Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland reshaped the island, and any Irish who were perceived as a threat to the British authorities may have been killed, imprisoned, or shipped off to America and sold into indenture contracts, typically for a period of seven to ten years. Some, however, arrived in the new world of their own free will, and some of them may have agreed to a contract to pay for their ship passage. In New England, including Maine communities, especially in southwestern York County, they worked in mills and on farms and as servants in the homes of local families. Once a contract was up, they could truly begin their lives.

    Maine attained statehood in 1820. Until then, Maine was considered the frontier territory of the state of Massachusetts. The O’Brien and Sullivan families are among the better-known Irish families in the Maine frontier during this period. They exemplify what it means to be an American pioneer with a patriotic spirit. Maurice O’Brien left Ireland, in 1737 and joined a small but growing number of Irish settlers on the coast. He first lived in Kittery, married Mary Cain, and together they raised a large family, including several sons. The O’Brien family ultimately settled down on the opposite end of Maine, in the community of Machias, where he ran a mill. His sons, Jeremiah and John, became American Revolutionary War heroes when they captured a British ship during the Battle of Machias. Their family story will be the focus of one of my first posts in this series. James Sullivan’s family lived in the town of Berwick, Maine. His father hailed from Limerick, Ireland, and became a schoolmaster after completing his indenture. This family would throw a nod to their ancestral homeland when they named the town of Limerick, in Maine. James would go on to become a Governor and the first Irish American Governor of the state of Massachusetts.

    I hope you’ll join me on this journey as I share stories about some Maine Irish Patriots who helped shape our country and state during this important time in our nation’s history.

    Thank you for reading.

    ♥︎ Krista

    Photo: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Amos Doolittle (1754-1832), engraver. Library of Congress website.

  • Do We Learn Anything from the Past? Lessons from An Gorta Mór

    Do We Learn Anything from the Past? Lessons from An Gorta Mór

    “Surplus People.” A chilling label applied to Ireland’s poor peasantry in the mid-19th century, their numbers in the millions, during the years of the Great Hunger, a.k.a. the Famine, a.k.a. An Gorta Mór.

    In several centuries past, England colonized Ireland after a hostile takeover. The Anglo-Irish landlords were the recipients of the stolen land, and they, in turn, leased it to the very people they had stolen it from, making them their tenants who now paid rent to them. Penal Laws were enacted to keep the Irish in subjection. They prohibited Catholics, the faith of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people, from owning land, holding public office, and even educating their children. They were forbidden to practice their faith and faced severe consequences for noncompliance, including fines, imprisonment, or even banishment from Ireland. Though some of these Penal Laws had relaxed or were eliminated by the eve of An Gorta Mór.

    An Gorta Mór snatched the lives of countless millions, and millions more fled Ireland, ultimately halving the island’s population. Instead of providing healthy food, helpful resources, or any other truly beneficial scheme to assist desperate people, the British government and the Anglo-Irish landlords basically blamed the people for their own misery and suffering (today we refer to this kind of manipulative tactic as “gaslighting” and “projection”), and they orchestrated propaganda campaigns, including by posting up flyers and placing advertisements in the newspapers, encouraging voluntary emigration. This rhetoric stated that their departure from Ireland, the island home they’ve inhabited for many thousands of years, would serve their best interests.

    “Importance of Emigration,”
    Wexford Independent Newspaper. FMP

    The historical irony of this horrific situation cuts deep. Perhaps, yes, this was a necessary evil in a highly complex problem; however, the government authorities and landlords had, at the same time, determined that it would be far more profitable for them to raise grazing animals, like sheep, on their properties, which require minimal maintenance, than to support tenant farmers and laborers. At the same time, in Irish ports, ships were loaded up with a variety of food for export to England, including sheep. This export business actually increased during these awful years. Indeed, leaving Ireland proved beneficial for people, though perhaps not in the way the people in power had imagined. Ireland’s demographic transformation following An Gorta Mór, through the mass exodus and then via a steady stream of emigration, ultimately contributed to Ireland’s long struggle towards Freedom. It was greatly achieved in 1922, in the formation of the Republic of Ireland. Yet even today, the island of Ireland remains divided. Ireland, an island roughly the geographical size of the State of Maine in the United States, continues to have a portion of its land held under English colonial rule. This part of Ireland is known today as Northern Ireland. It is a complicated story and a sensitive topic. And this partition is staunchly supported by some people to this day.

    This history reminds us of uncomfortable questions, and the questions seem appropriate even for our time:

    Are we, the people, gullible and so easily led?

    Do we love our shackles?

    The outcome of this Irish experience suggests that the propaganda worked. This tactic was not carried out by brute force but rather by manipulating the minds of desperate people, convincing them that emigration was in their best interest. All the people had to do was look around them. Oh, the despair. So, like a domino effect, it worked. Once some people got on board with it, it seemed that it was much easier to get others on board. Those already abroad would encourage others to do the same. The people who held a belief in a “surplus population” successfully persuaded those deemed as surplus to voluntarily depart their homeland, the home and lands their ancestors inhabited for many thousands of years.

    Yet this is only one aspect of a complex situation. To my point, though, it demonstrates that even successful mind-bending manipulation, in this case by influential and powerful people and governments, can and does produce unintended consequences. In the example of what happened during An Gorta Mór, the tide of emigration was followed by great fanaticism grown out of generations of chronic societal abuse trauma, a complex post-traumatic stress disorder, of those at home and in the diaspora, where some were becoming financially successful and organizers of charities and liberation campaigns. Though there existed a vast ocean between them, a powerful, uniformed resistance emerged, including the Fenian movement of the 1860s, the Land League revolutionaries in the latter 19th century, the UIL, and others, leading up to the 1922 Liberation Day in Ireland. Freedom!

    So it seems Ireland’s Freedom was realized in part as an unintended consequence of that propaganda espoused by the British government and their landlords. Freedom, yes, from one of the most devastating of human circumstances, An Gorta Mór, and from centuries of unbearable abuse, marginalization, and oppression, and the generational trauma that emerged from it. And, some argue the trauma persists to this day, that it altered and it lives within our DNA, more than a century and a half later.

    The questions I’ve posed in this post, I feel, are incredibly relevant as we navigate our own information landscapes and power structures in current times.

    “People love their shackles.” ~ John Fowles

    “It is difficult to free people from the chains they revere.” ~ Voltaire.

    I don’t know all of the facts and nuances of Ireland’s history or its ongoing story. I don’t even live there. However, I do feel that I know enough to ask questions about what I have learned. And to ask how certain behaviors, decisions, and events back then may relate to those occurring now.

    Oh, before closing this out, I have one more bit to share. Ireland, more than a century and a half later, still hasn’t recovered from the population loss of An Gorta Mór.

    Thank you for reading.

    ♥︎ Krista

    ——————

    ——————

    Further Reading:

    Donnelly Jr., James S.. The Great Irish Potato Famine. Sutton Publishing, 2001.

    Foster, R. F.. Modern Ireland, 1600–1972. London: Penguin Books, 1988.

    Gray, Peter. “Ideology and the Famine,” in The Great Irish Famine. Mercier Press, 1995.

    Hennessey, Thomas. A History of Northern Ireland, 1920–1996. Gill & Macmillan, 1997.

    Miller, Kirby. Emigrants and Exiles, Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America. Oxford University Press, 1985.

    Mulvihill, Jerry. The Truth Behind The Irish Famine, 1845-1852. Jerry Mulvihill, 2021.

    Ó Gráda, Cormac. The Great Irish Famine. Cambridge University Press, 1989.

    Image source:

    “Importance of Emigration,” Wexford Independent Newspaper.” Findmypast.com. Findmypast.com. last accessed January 10, 2026. https://tinyurl.com/2p85eak2

  • Iron Roads and Irish Labor: Building Maine’s Railroad, Part II

    Iron Roads and Irish Labor: Building Maine’s Railroad, Part II

    In the last story web post, Iron Roads and Irish Labor: Building Maine’s Railroad, I shared information about some of the accidents and deaths of Irish immigrant laborers who built Maine’s growing railroad system. This story adds to it by following the lives of some other men who labored on Maine’s Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad. Their stories are of exploitation and longing, and of their will to persevere in the face of hardship.

    In the mid-1840s, the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad began its push through the forested hills of western Maine, laying down the miles and miles of iron roads that would connect Portland to Montreal. This ambitious project was but one of many railroad developments occurring in America at the time.1 Yet for the countless thousands of Irish immigrant men who helped build America’s railroad infrastructure, the experience was often marked by hardship, injustice, and tragedy.

    The timing of construction could not have been more opportune. Across the Atlantic, Ireland was gripped by the Great Hunger. Between 1845 and 1852, famine and disease devastated the island, forcing millions of people to emigrate. 2 Many sought refuge and work in America, where they contributed to the country’s impressive transportation infrastructure boom by digging canals, building granite rail bridges, and laying down the iron rail tracks.

    Railroad companies needed workers. Prominent businessmen and contractors, such as John M. Wood, placed newspaper advertisements seeking to recruit 500 to 1,000 laborers at a time with the promise of a dollar a day to work on the railroad. The destitute and unskilled Irish immigrants, fresh off the boat from a starving homeland, eagerly took up the offer. But the promise was not all that it had seemed. Laborers’ wages were sometimes withheld or delayed. Laborers on the Atlantic and St Lawrence Railroad jobs would soon learn they would receive only 75 cents a day, a quarter less than promised. The workers lived in makeshift shanties at the job sites, exposed to illness and harsh weather, including rain, snow, and freezing temperatures. At this time, it was a bit cooler than it is today because the northern hemisphere was still emerging from a mini ice age! In the winter months, temperatures plunged, and snow piled up to several feet deep. 3 Laborers endured hazardous work conditions where accidents and fatalities were the norm, including from falling rocks and collapsing embankments.

    The contractors overseeing the early sections of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence line, “John G. Mires” and “Mager Hall,” became known for their exploitation. A news report published in the Boston Pilot on May 15, 1847, under the title “Injustice to Laborers,” exposed their abuse, stating that these businessmen “seduced and enticed a great number of Irishmen from the city of New York to come out here at a dollar a day, and at the end of the month, to deduct $7.33 from their miserable wages.” When the Maine Irish immigrant railroad laborers demanded the pay they were owed, contractors threatened to replace them with “three hundred starving Irish now landing in New York and Boston, that would be glad to get their grub.”4

    “Coos,” built in 1850 by The Portland Company, on the route of the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railroad, Wikipedia.

    Yet even amid such injustice, these men kept working, and they sought to build a sense of community. Some Irish immigrant men employed on the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad placed “Information Wanted” advertisements in the Boston Pilot, a Boston, Massachusetts-based newspaper, seeking their lost relatives who had also crossed the Atlantic. These notices spoke of loneliness and longing, but also the belief that their family ties could make a difference in their daily lives, in this strange, new world. Brothers James and Peter Mulvy, who were at the Mechanic Falls, Maine, railroad site, were in search of their brother, Michael.5 Their advertisement was published on May 5, 1849. Michael Donnelly, working on the Danville, Maine, section of the railroad, placed an ad on April 22, 1848, seeking his brother, Thomas, whom he had last seen in Pictou, Nova Scotia. The Donnelly brothers had emigrated from the townland of Ballyfeeny, in Brumlin, County Roscommon, Ireland.6 Their pleas for news of family reflect the experiences of countless others whose journeys scattered kin across the continent and the longing for closeness.

    This story offers further examples of the Irish immigrant railroad laborer experience in mid-19th-century Maine and elsewhere in America. They arrived in this new land with little to nothing, and they were often met with exploitation and hardship. So, let us remember their contributions and sacrifices that helped lay the foundations of communities, industries, and connections that endure in America to this day. The rails they built in this great country were their pathway toward a better life than what was left behind in the old country. The iron roads were built with a spirit that refused to let hardship have the final say in their lives.

    Thank you for reading this story.

    ♥︎ Krista

    – – – – – – – – –

    Notes

    1. Kenny, Bill. A History of Maine Railroads. History Press, 2020. 66-68. ↩︎
    2. Miller, Kerby A, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America. Oxford University Press, 1985. ↩︎
    3. Smith College. “The Effects of the Little Ice Age.” Accessed October 26, 2025. https://www.science.smith.edu/climatelit/the-effects-of-the-little-ice-age. ↩︎
    4. “Injustice to Laborers.” Boston Pilot. May 15, 1847. Vol. 10, no. 20. Accessed June 11, 2025. https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=bpilott18470515-01.2.21&srpos=1&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN-%22Injustice+to+laborers%22—— ↩︎
    5. “Information Wanted: Of Michael Mulvy.” Boston Pilot, May 5, 1849, vol. 12, no. 18. Accessed October 20, 2025. https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=bpilott18490505-01.2.17.3&srpos=4&e=——184-en-20–1–txt-txIN-mechanic+falls——. ↩︎
    6. “Information Wanted: Of Thomas Donnelly.” Boston Pilot, April 22, 1848. Vol. XI, no. 17. Accessed October 20, 2025. https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=bpilott18480422-01.2.14.4&srpos=5&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN-Michael+donnelly%2C+pictou——. ↩︎

  • Art: Yellow Tulips

    Art: Yellow Tulips

    Painting on small tile-sized composite boards is fun. A painting project can be done relatively quick, perhaps in less than an hour or two. Once dried, it can be hung, framed, or unframed, in smaller spaces, such as over a desk, beside a kitchen window, or on any narrow wall, making them perfect for adding a personal touch. Little art makes a special gift, too.

    “Yellow Tulips” KL
    5’x5′ oil paint on composite board

    ♥︎ Krista

  • Iron Roads and Irish Labor: Building Maine’s Railroad

    Iron Roads and Irish Labor: Building Maine’s Railroad

    In the 1840s, echoes of a new sound emerged from Maine’s forests: the rhythmic bang of hammers striking upon granite and iron. Within a few years, the promise of progress had reached the northernmost corner of Maine and other northern New England States. Portland’s merchants dreamed of an economic lifeline tethering their city to the Canadian interior, a rail artery stretching from their Atlantic port to Montreal. Out of that ambition came the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad, a venture that would carve through forests, mountains, crossing rivers, and, most enduringly, be made in the blood, sweat, and lives of immigrant labor.

    When construction began in 1846, Maine’s labor market was unprepared for the scale of the task at hand. It was said that local men, such as the farm laborers and tradesmen, were seemingly unwilling to endure the brutal, backbreaking manual labor required by the work. The company’s leaders, however, quickly identified where to look to fill the much-needed labor force.

    Across the Atlantic, the tragedy of the Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór) was unfolding. Beginning in 1845, a devastating potato disease swept through Ireland, destroying the staple food crop for the vast majority of the people. Governmental response was delayed, inefficient, and substandard, thereby intensifying the people’s suffering and deaths. Over one million people died of starvation and disease, and millions more were forced to flee their country to survive.1 The Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad actively capitalized on this desperation. Ships arrived in ports like Boston, Portland, and Saint John carrying the poor, half-starved, and weakened masses of Irish souls escaping the calamity in their homeland.

    “Notice to Laborers” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine), Friday, June 25, 1847, p. 3. Link

    Old newspapers, including ones published in Ireland, carried recruitment advertisements, calling for hundreds of laborers to work on the American railroad. For those advertisements in Ireland’s papers, a promise of a dollar a day and sponsored ship passage in exchange for a year’s employment commitment was enticing. Destitute, desperate, and determined, Irishmen answered this call, picking up the shovels and picks to earn a meager wage and with a dream of a better life in a new land. The terms of their employment were exploitative. Irish immigrants dug, blasted, and pushed their way northward from Portland to Montreal. The average daily wage for this dangerous labor was often less than a dollar, with most rates falling between 75 and 90 cents. Company deductions for the cost of food, clothing, and rudimentary lodging in company-owned shanties may have further reduced their meager compensation. The work was considered so dangerous that a grim saying about railroad construction emerged, something like, “There’s an Irishman buried under every railroad tie.”

    The laborers cut deep into Maine’s forests, granite hills and ridges, and bridged the rivers. Diseases, such as cholera, spread easily in their work camps, where sanitation was minimal or nonexistent. Accidents, however, were the most immediate and looming threat. Black powder explosions were unpredictable; a single mis-timed fuse or loose stone sent deadly fragments flying about and in unexpected directions, maiming or killing workers. Workers fell from or were smothered by collapsing embankments. They were crushed by the cars and wagons hauling loads or fill. They sometimes lost a leg, an arm, fingers, a foot, or their eyesight. The human cost of this “progress” may never be fully understood, as records of accidents and fatalities are scant. Company records and local newspapers rarely included the names of the dead and injured. Irish laborers’ families may have received no official notice of their fate. The danger was not confined to the remote wilderness; tragedy struck within the city of Portland, too, demonstrating that the constant, lethal peril faced by these workers was real and it was everywhere.

    Here is a small list of accidents and deaths and their locations, as mentioned in local newspapers, to illustrate the dangers faced by Irish railroad laborers, named and unnamed, working in the state of Maine:

    • Bath: In 1849, Thomas Caron, an Irish railroad laborer, was run over by a gravel train. 2
    • Bethel: In 1851, an Irish railroad laborer slipped off a gravel train, jamming both of his legs, killing him.3
    • Cumberland: On August 25th, 1850, a railroad incident killed several laborers and mangled several more.4 While the news account did not provide their identities or ethnicities, a quick search for city and state death records for the accident date, which includes a cause of death as a casualty, produced names of three possible victims: Matthew Haley5, Jeremiah O’Brien6, and Jerry Breslin7.
    • Danville: In 1847, Patrick Conley, an Irish railroad laborer, froze to death.8 In 1847, Patrick Masterson, an Irish railroad laborer, was killed by the collapse of an earthen embankment.9
    • Falmouth: In 1847, John Barrett, an Irish railroad laborer, was killed almost instantly in an accident at the railroad bridge on the Presumpscot River.10
    • Gardiner: In 1850, James Cahill, an Irish railroad laborer, was killed by the collapse of an earthen embankment.11
    • Gorham: In 1852, Patrick Ryan, an Irish railroad laborer, fell off the top of a moving train, falling onto the rails, and then the train ran over his leg, killing him.12
    • Orono: 1853, Timothy Crowley, 28, killed instantly by the collapse of an earthen embankment while working on the railroad.13
    • Paris: In 1850, Thomas Foley, an Irish railroad laborer, died as a result of blasting rock about eight miles above the town.14
    • Portland: In 1847, some Irishmen excavating dirt on the city’s railroad track were injured. One, named Smith, broke several ribs.15 In 1847, Patrick Tumy, an Irish railroad laborer, broke his leg while loading stone on a wagon.16 In 1853, an Irish railroad laborer was killed by being jammed between two gravel cars.17

    By the end of 1853, the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad line was complete, and it eventually became part of the Grand Trunk Railway system. The line connected Portland to Montreal, creating a vital link between New England’s seaports and Canada’s trade routes, transforming Portland into a bustling port city and driving even more economic growth across industries that benefited from or supported this new line.

    Yet thousands of Irish laborers who built the tracks are nameless, and some of the names recorded in the 1850 Maine US census, for example, seem to have vanished. Their sacrifices, found in their broken bodies, lost lives, and shattered families, were rarely recorded with the same care as the company’s accomplishments and its profits. Some of the surviving laborers may have moved on to other railroad sites, while others may have secured different employment, such as in the mills. In some cases, laborers who were permanently disabled by their injuries were unable to work, leaving them financially dependent on their families or friends, or they might have ended up in the city’s almshouse. Few of their identities were preserved; fewer still remembered. But remnants of their hard work, the iron rail bridges and their stone foundations, and the miles and miles of rail track still stretching along the old route to Canada, endure as a testament to their existence and the incredible sacrifices they made to tie our two countries and economies together.

    Do you have an Irish immigrant ancestor who helped build the Maine railroad system in the mid-19th century? Do share their story in a comment, or send a pm.

    Thank you for reading this story.

    ♥︎ Krista

    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

    Notes

    1. Miller, Kerby A, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America. Oxford University Press, 1985. ↩︎
    2. “Railroad Accident” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Mon, July 16, 1849. ↩︎
    3. “Portland, 7th” The Weekly Mercury (Bangor, Me), Tue, October 14, 1851. ↩︎
    4. “Shocking Railroad Accident” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Mon, August 26, 1850. ↩︎
    5. “Maine, U.S., Death Records, 1761-1922,” death certificate for Matthew Haley, August 25, 1850, Cumberland County, Maine, Maine State Archives, Augusta; digital image, Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com (accessed July 2, 2025). ↩︎
    6. Maine, U.S., Death Records, 1761–1922,” entry for Jeremiah O’Brien, died August 25, 1850, Cumberland County, Maine; Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed July 2, 2025). ↩︎
    7. Maine, U.S., Death Records, 1761–1922,” entry for Jeremiah O’Brien, died August 25, 1850, Cumberland County, Maine; Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed July 2, 2025). ↩︎
    8. “Froze to Death” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Thur, February 25, 1847. ↩︎
    9. “Fatal Accident” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Tue, February 16, 1847. ↩︎
    10. “Fatal Accident” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Sat, December 18, 1847. ↩︎
    11. “Fatal Accident” Portland, Press Herald (Portland, Me), Fri, February 8, 1850. ↩︎
    12. “Accident” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Fri, December 24, 1852. ↩︎
    13. “Fatal” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Mon, March 14, 1853. ↩︎
    14. “Accidental Death” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Sat, August 10, 1850. ↩︎
    15. “Accident” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Thur, February 11, 1847. ↩︎
    16. “Accident” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Thur, July 8, 1847. ↩︎
    17. “Accident” Portland Press Herald (Portland, Me), Tue, November 29, 1853. ↩︎

  • Are Your Ancestors For Sale on eBay?

    Are Your Ancestors For Sale on eBay?

    Every day on marketplace websites like eBay, Etsy, Craigslist, and Facebook, fragments of family history quietly change hands. Among them are old photographs, personal letters, postcards, diaries, scrapbooks, school yearbooks, and so much more. These items, once much cherished by a deceased relative, are sold off to strangers. How do these family treasures end up on the online marketplace?

    Too often, it seems, when an older relative passes away, surviving family members may be left feeling overwhelmed by the task of going through the deceased’s lifelong accumulation of “things.” These ‘things’ were stuffed into boxes, cabinets, and drawers, and surviving relatives, without the resources of assistance, energy, time, or willingness to sort through them, offload them at a yard or estate sale, or simply toss them in a recycling or trash bin. A wedding photo or diary that could have told stories of one’s great-grandparents’ lives may instead end up in a stranger’s hand and then sold for a few dollars to another stranger.

    These objects are family memory keepers. Every faded photograph and handwritten letter tells a unique story and serves as a link to unlocking the lives and relationships that help shape a family’s present. Pause and make the effort to go through great grandma’s boxes, no matter how overwhelming it seems or how long it may take. The effort can mean rescuing irreplaceable family history before it is lost forever. And, if you do not want to take on the task, offer it to another family member who does.

    Frances Craven, the pretty young woman in the above photograph1, was born in 1888 in Portland, Maine, to Irish immigrants, Patrick Craven of Annaghdown, County Galway, and Margaret Colleran, of Donaghpatrick, County Galway. Her parents married at St. Dominic’s Church in Portland in 18742, and, according to information provided in the 1900 U.S. census3, the couple had eight of twelve surviving children, including Frances, then called Bridget. She went on to marry a man named William Harvey, and they had a son, William, Jr., who, too, married and 4had children. This bit of information suggests Frances likely has living relatives. Are you one? If so, and as of today’s date, her photograph is selling on eBay for $24.75 or best offer.

    ♥︎ Krista

    – – – – – – – – – –

    Notes:

    1. eBay. “Frances Craven Harvey photo #1, eBay ID:313084315431.” Last accessed August 15, 2025. https://ebay.us/m/4MOPnx. ↩︎
    2. Ancestry.com, “Maine, U.S., Birth, Marriage and Death Records,” accessed August 2, 2025, https://www.ancestry.com. ↩︎
    3. Ancestry.com. “1900-1950 U.S. census population schedules,” Last accessed August 2, 2025. https://www.ancestry.com. ↩︎
    4. Maine, U.S. Department of Human Services. “Marriage Record for Frances Craven and William J Harvey, 6 October 1923.” Maine, U.S., Marriage Index, 1892–1996. Ancestry.com. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6904/records/1110640. ↩︎