Irish Affairs

They came to north coast California in late 1870s and late 1880s respectively.

My great grandfather had abandoned his family and my grandfather came to California to find his father.

I visited "cousins" for 5 days in 1981 at the family farm and birth place of my ancestors near Hilltown and found out 3 things:

1. The story of my great grandfather's abandonment. My Dad didn't even know about his grandfather being in California. I found his grave in Siskiyou county afterwards.

2. That part of the family was Irish-Catholic. My Dad also did not know this about his heritage.

3. About the "troubles" in general. Bobby Sands died of the hunger strike in the Maze the day I arrived in Hilltown.

My paternal great grandmother was Scotch Irish but I do not know about where in Ireland but would assume the north. My paternal great great grandparents came to Virginia from Ireland, moved to Missouri, and then moved to what was then Klamath county, California (Klamath county is the one California county that no longer exists and is now parts of Humboldt, Siskiyou, Del Norte, and Trinity counties). They had 5 children, some born in Virginia and some in Missouri. That great great grandfather passed on in Missouri and one brother was killed by Native Americans near Tonapah, NV. The other three sisters (one my great grandmother) and their mother came to Klamath county in 1860s (that turned to Humboldt county for my great grandmother and Siskiyou county for her sisters) to join the remaining brother who had come West in the 1850s. My great great grandmother is the oldest woman in the pioneer cemetery at Forks of Salmon, Siskiyou county.

So I am 3/8s Irish and Scotch-Irish and my Dad was 3/4s Irish and Scotch Irish. He was nicknamed "Irish" as a youth. His non-Irish grandfather was a young Swede who jumped ship in San Francisco in the late 1850s and went to the gold fields.