Re: Looking for Kelley leaving and arriving dates
-
In reply to:
Looking for Kelley leaving and arriving dates
cassie brewer 6/23/08
Hi, Cassie.
Start with what you know, beginning with your own birth certificate.Work back from there.Look at the birth certificate of the parent who's descended from the Kelley who came over.Find marriage records for that person.And keep on going back.It's almost impossible to begin in 1835 and work forward.You have to work back from yourself.
Where was your relevant parent born?Where were his/her parents born?When?When and where did they die?All of those kinds of certificates add information to the search.
Many public libraries have free access to commercial genealogy sites, so once you know what state to look in, you can almost certainly find census records for your family.Most censuses asked immigrants when they came over and when and if they became citizens.The 1900 US census asks people their year and month of birth.The 1930 census asks Irish born people if they came from the Irish Free State or from Northern Ireland.If indeed your Kelleys were from Belfast, they'd have said they were from Northern Ireland.
There are a number of online sites for immigration to the States.The biggest is probably the Ellis Island site,
http://ellisislandrecords.orghttp://ellisislandrecords.org
It's free, it's easily accessible, and contains a wealth of information...but just for those who came through Ellis Island.There were many other ports though.Boston and Philadelphia were ports through which many Irish came.
Good luck!