The Whites of our I's - Whites from Ireland

My husband and I have just returned from Ireland, a beautiful country and the land of my White ancestors. I had been hoping to discover a little more about exactly where they left from, and while I didn't have much time to spend on research, I did learn some things I had not known before.

I had four names to check on, Jeffrey White and his wife, Mary McCarthy, and Jeffery's parents: Nicholas White and his wife Johanna Brown. Jeffrey, his wife and oldest daughter, Mary Ann, immigrated from County Wexford to Nova Scotia about 1825.  Although I have not located a passenger list with his name on it, I have found Canadian Census records indicating that their first child, and my gr-gr-gr-grandmother, Mary Ann White (Mary Ann McDonald, wife of Roderick) was born in Ireland in 1824.

Their second child, Michael, was born in 1826 in Nova Scotia according to all of the Census reports, so apparently they made the journey shortly after Mary Ann was born.

I did make some time to speak with the Genealogist at the Heritage Center in Cobh (Queenstown) in County Cork and learned a few interesting things. The names White and Brown are typically English names, and those families probably arrived in Ireland as a result of the Norman Invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century. And since they were Catholic, it stands to reason that they arrived before Henry VIII decided to take control. Today, people with the name of White are usually considered "Waterford men".

Learning that helped to clear up a question I had about Jeffrey White.  He married a second time, at the age of 79. (To a young woman who was only 22!!) On the marriage record, Jeffrey indicated that he was born in Co. Wford, Ireland.  Since there are only two counties that could possible be "Wford", either Waterford or Wexford, I thought I would concentrate my search for Nicolas White in Waterford.

However, when I returned home I began searching the internet for Nicolas White and found at http://www.from-ireland.net, a listing of graveyard records at  St. Peter's Church at Ballymitty, Co. Wexford with six White graves listed, including those Nicolas and Johanna White.  Could this be the burial site of Jeffrey's parents, Nicolas White and Johanna Brown?  Wexford and Waterford are adjacent to each other. More research is needed to verify this!

Meanwhile, I learned that McCarthy is a very well known name in Cork, and actually the name of the Kings of Desmond in Munster,  who held control from the 12th to 16th Centuries. The Kings of Desmond controlled most of Southern Ireland before the Norman Invasion and one of their stalwart fortifications was the Blarney Castle!  Since Co. Cork is adjacent to Co. Waterford, Mary McCarthy and Jeffrey White were neighbors of some sort in their youth. One wonders how and where they met, and what persuaded them decide to make a perilous journey of probably 6 to 8 weeks across the Atlantic in 1825?

My Genealogist friend in Cobh indicated that since their departure occurred before the Potato Famine in 1842, they must have had some money to pay for their passage and for their needs once they arrived in Nova Scotia. Jeffrey did purchase land in Whiteside, Richmond County, Nova Scotia in 1856.

http://www.novascotia.ca/nsarm/virtual/places/page.asp?ID=733

So, what did Jeffrey and Mary do between 1825 and 1856? We know they had seven children, and all but Mary Ann were born in Nova Scotia

The first census record of Jeffrey White appears in 1871, although his name also appears along with three of his sons on page 477 of Hutchinson’s Nova Scotia Directory, for 1864/65.

The Family of Jeffery White and Mary McCarthy:

1. Mary Ann White b. August 29, 1824  m. Roderick McDonald
2. Michael F White b. October 10, 1826  m. Mary Doyle
3. Elizabeth White  b. 1833 
4. Jerome White b. 1835
5. Timothy White b. November 1, 1836  m. Mary Jane MacDonald
6. William Peter White b. September 12, 1838  m. Sarah Elizabeth Lafford
7. Patrick White b. 1840  m. Caroline Agnus Cullerton