How do I trace an ancestor who came through Canada?
Plenty of the poorest Famine emigrants did, because the fare to Quebec was cheaper than the fare to New York. Their landing place was the quarantine station at Grosse Île, in the St Lawrence River below Quebec City, which operated from 1832 to 1937. In 1847 alone, nearly 100,000 people, most of them Irish fleeing the Famine, sailed for Canada; more than 5,400 of those buried on the island died that year, of typhus and dysentery as much as hunger. Parks Canada keeps the island's records and its memorial. Many arrivals did not stay in Canada: they crossed into the United States within months or years, so an ancestor who 'came from Ireland' in family memory may appear first in a Canadian arrival or quarantine record, and only afterwards in an American census or border crossing.
Useful pages: Irish in USA · The Irish surnames map · Trace your Irish roots · Coming home · Irish around the world
Sources
- Parks Canada: Grosse Ile and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site, pc.gc.ca
- FamilySearch: record guidance for the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia, familysearch.org
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