Wednesday, August 26, 2015

NEW LOWELL IRISH GENEALOGY INFORMATION NOW ONLINE

After months of preparation LowellIrish is very proud to announce that thousands of new pieces of information on 19th century deaths and burials can now be found online at LowellIrish.com .  Previous to the LowellIrish website this information could only be found by going to the cemetery office and obtaining the several large binders to search through.  Now technology allows you to search at home.  Follow the tab on the website to the Genealogy page.  There you will find a drop down menu which will give you 3 different data files. 

The first choice is the inscription list from the old marble and slates from Yards 1, 2, & 3.  These are Lowell's earliest Irish pioneers and often tell place of birth, other relatives, or cause of death, fascinating reading on its own.

The next listings are the Hanavor books.  These are the only internment records that exist from the mid to late 19th century and are not part of the regular cemetery database.  Be very careful trying to read this file since the original spelling has been maintained and can be quite confusing.  Very often a simple name such as Mary could be recorded as Marry, Mari, Mery, etc.

The last listings are the burials from St Peter's Cemetery.  This private cemetery once ran along Spencer Ave and Boston Road.  Eventually it was encompassed into St Patrick's Cemetery.

Please be respectful that this information is for personal use only and cannot be published in any form or used on other websites.  

A giant note of thanks has to go to Ruth Evans who volunteered to make the data fit the parameters of the website.  I met Ruth on one of Dick Howe's summer walks and she has really given of her time and effort to work on our site.  Another note of thanks must go out to all the volunteers who have cleaned stones and recorded data since we started this project back in 1995.  I wish I could recall all your names.  A giant thanks must go to Walter and Karen Hickey who have been part of this project and included their own research over time.

Today is just the beginning.  There are many more files that will be uploaded in the future.  Next will be our over 1200 Civil War veterans interred at St. Pat's. 

2 comments:

  1. This truly is "Wicked Awesome" for us Irish family researchers!!! Thanks to ALL for your hard work!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amazing ! I actually found someone in the Hanavor books! Thank you for this important work!

    ReplyDelete