Finding my Ancestors from County Down Ireland
This is a follow up to Chapter 17 (Looking across the Pond, Nolan(d) and Magennis (var.) families of
County Down) written by me in the
2014 published book (ISBN 9780993918803) Irish Roots in County Down, Stories of Family
& Place, edited by Stanley R. Megraw. In that book I write about my
struggle doing research on my father’s mother’s side of
the family. My grandmother, Sarah J
Steele (Sadie Vaundell) was born on 6 April 1893 in Clinton, Worcester Co.,
Massachusetts , to Alexander Steele, born in Scotland, and Sarah Noland, born in
Ireland, both residing in Worcester.[1]
Later when I found the Massachusetts marriage record for my
great grandparents, [2]
I was surprised to find that Sarah (Sadie’s) mother was born in Ireland. See
growing up I only remember hearing about the Scottish roots, but nothing about
the Irish and do not remember them celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. After doing
more research especially when I went to the Family History Library in 2013 I
understand why. I was able to confirm Sarah Noland and her family were from
County Down, Northern Ireland. While at the library doing research on my
ancestors I was talking to someone and stating how I had just confirmed that I had
Irish ancestors and when I told him they were from County Down he said in a voice which was very condemning “THAT IS
NORTHERN IRELAND.” To me it was a good thing to be Irish and he was making me
feel like it was a bad thing.
At the end of Chapter 17, I presented some questions to
further my research on this side of the family, one of the assumptions I had
made is that Sarah Noland had come to America without any of her family leaving
them all behind in Ireland and Scotland.
My thinking was that since Sarah (Nolan) Steele[3]
had died young when my grandmother Sarah (Sadie) Steele was only fourteen years
old and if my grandmother was only surrounded by the her father’s family (the
Steele’s) which I knew had immigrated
and settled in North Grafton where I grew up, she would most likely only heard
stories about life in Scotland. I
couldn’t have been further from the truth and so close at the same time, but
more on that in my next post.
