Christmas Ornaments VI

Join me in this journey, researching family history, tracing back to my early 20th-century Irish ancestors who emigrated to Canada.

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The past summer, the first of my retirement, my early morning hours were spent on Ancestry.com researching our family histories to bring this process, started 2013 in preparation for our tour of Ireland, to a point where I can start to consolidate it into a document shared with other family members.

Pam, at the Cobh Heritage Center

It is a wonderful feeling when the pieces come together. For example, the passenger manifest when Grandfather Peter McArdle brought Grandmother Mary Catherine McArdle (nee MIlls) and then three-year-old Mom, Catherine Ann McArdle to Quebec, Canada from the port of Belfast April 1926. Their belongings were gathered together in just such a manner.

Outside the exhibits there was this collection of authentic emigration trunks on a hand cart.

My father’s trunk from the war was stenciled with his name. A. Lett. took such care marking this suitcase, blocking out the black ground for the carefully hand written white letters.

My parents marked all my belongings that left our home with my name and address in just this way.

Our thoughts were on these memories when we selected this blown glass suitcase ornament marked with the shamrock from a “Christmas Store” along the streets of the Pennsylvania town of Jim Thorpe, as the memory of our ancestors and our travels around Ireland.

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved http://www.MichaelStephenWills.com

22 thoughts on “Christmas Ornaments VI”

  1. History is so interesting. Did not appreciate history when in school as much as I do now.
    That was such a fun time that Thanksgiving when you and Pam visited and we went to Jim Thorpe ❤️❤️

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  2. The cases piled up on the cart are highly evocative and just imagine all your belongings in them. I always think of the incredible courage and hope in life of all setting out on a new life in the unknown.

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  3. Must have been overwhelming to encounter that trunk on display! Thankfully your camera was ready …
    Did the emigrants leave their trunks after arrival? Too bulky/heavy to transport? (I’m envisioning lesser bags stuffed inside the trunk.) If you know the “story” behind abandoned trunks, I’d love to hear it. Though I don’t have the genealogy details to recognize a specific name, I do know I’m from Scotch-Irish ancestors – who somehow made it across the ocean, and found their way into Texas.

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  4. Such courage it must have taken, and takes, for those venturing off to places unknown; the beginning of a new life.
    Delving into ‘ancestry’ matters must be quite interesting, Michael. My eldest brother has our history going back ten generations; from then, apparently, the leads run dry.
    The suitcases (pictured) conjure up many imaginings!

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    1. I can track back 10 generations, as well, to pre-colonial USA on the Wills line and am grateful for that. During our trip to Ireland we discussed leave takings with cousins, getting on a ship was an act of courage, desperation and hope.

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