Step by Step: Discovering Michael Gilbride's Immigration Journey

 

Last week, I outlined the steps I took to find Martin Gilbride's immigration and naturalization story. This week, I'm looking at Martin's brother Michael Gilbride's journey. 

Readers may recall past posts about Michael, who I discovered was a Civil War veteran. This revelation led to me uncovering a whole story about him leaving his family in Pennsylvania, possibly living in Idaho, and ending up in Sacramento. Meanwhile, his family relocated to Lowell, Massachusetts. To catch up on Michael's story, begin here to read the 4-part series.

Here is the research path I followed to discover Michael's immigration story:

• Clue: Michael arrived in the U.S. before 1850. Immigration was between 1840-1850.¹
• Clue: Michael registered to vote in Sacramento, California, in 1884, in the record collection "California, U.S., Voter Registers, 1866-1898." Here, he documented that he was naturalized in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, on 2 July 1854. This was a terrific find, as it immediately pointed me to Luzerne County records.²
• I found Michael's petition to naturalize the very same day I found Martin's in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, records. In this case, Michael's document includes both a witnessed declaration of his intention to become a citizen, as well as his petition to naturalize, all in one packet, filed 3 October 1854. Who was the witness to his declaration? His brother Martin!³
  
• The declaration portion included important details such as Michael's birth date, immigration year, and port of entry. His birth date was noted as "...the month of September 1831." He arrived in the port of New York on 17 June 1847, at which time he was under the age of eighteen."⁴
  
• There is also a clue that Michael resided elsewhere for a short time prior to coming to Pennsylvania. While his date of arrival in the U.S. was noted as "...the Seventeenth Day of June AD 1847," his petition states that "from the 7th day of September 1847 up to the present time he has resided within the United States and in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania..." Future research may reveal where Michael was living during the summer of 1847.⁵

Naturalization packet cover.

 

Michael's declaration of intention, and the beginning of Martin's witness statement.

Page two of the witness statement and Michael's petition to naturalize.

• Turning to the "United States Famine Irish Passenger Index, 1846-1851" as I did for Martin, I found "Michl. Kilbride," a laborer from Ireland, arriving in New York on 22 June 1847 from Liverpool, aboard the Spartan.⁶
• I then located the ship manifest in "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891," where Michael was noted as a laborer from Ireland, though his age is not listed.⁷

Michael's entry did not note his age, but listed his sex, occupation, and country of origin as Ireland.

 

• Lastly, a jumped over to Newspapers.com to see if I could locate a notice of the Spartan's arrival. Under a banner of "Maritime Herald" in The New York Herald, the Spartan's details were listed: 

The Spartan arrived in NY harbor after a 39-day voyage from Liverpool.⁸

 

I found a few conflicting dates in the records during this process. When Michael registered to vote in California, he said he naturalized in July of 1854, but this event was in October. There is also a 5-day discrepancy between when he said his ship arrived in New York and when it did. Both are minor conflicts which can be attributed to faulty memory. Like Martin, Michael was illiterate and signed his petitions by mark. It's unlikely that he had any dates written down and was relying on his own memory of events—which turned out to be surprisingly accurate to within a few days or months.

There were also several surname variations present in both Martin and Michael's records: Gilbride, Kilbride, Gilbright, and Gilbridge are all interchangeable and frequently found. Gs and Ks were often interchanged in Irish surnames; eventually the G stuck as did the Gilbride spelling.⁹

It was fun to have such success in finding Martin and Michael's immigration and naturalization records. I still have two more members of the family unit to find: younger brother Patrick and mother Mary. I'll report on those once I find them.

Until next time...

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© Nancy Gilbride Casey, 2024. All rights reserved.

IMAGE: "Emigration vessel -- between decks; Departure of the "Nimrod" and "Athlone" steamers, with emigrants on board, for Liverpool," 1851; image, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library, accessed at The New York Public Library Digital Collections (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-3797-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 : accessed 29 July 2024).

 

NOTES

¹ 1850 U.S. Federal Census, Wayne, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Texas Twp., p. 231B (stamped), line 30, dwelling 345, family 375, Michael Kilbrider, age 30; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/5519046:8054 : accessed 1 November 2022).

² Great Register of the County of Sacramento For the Year 1884, p. 48, #3262, Michael Gilbride, age 53; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2221/images/32421_230587-00188 : accessed 10 November 2022); citing Great Registers, 1866-1898, Collection Number: 4-2A, CSL Roll 35, California State Library, Sacramento.

³ Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Petition for Naturalization, No. 88, Michael Gilbride, admitted 3 October 1854; images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS9C-9WCN-P : accessed 20 July 2024); citing Prothonotary Office, Wilkes-Barre; FHL film 007795910, images 1067-1069.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ "United States Famine Irish Passenger Index, 1846-1851," entry for Mich'l Kilbride, arrival New York from Liverpool, 22 June 1847, ship Spartan; database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:27GG-S46 : accessed 29 July 2024); citing "Famine Irish Passenger Record Data File (FIPAS), 1/12/1846 - 12/31/1851," database, The National Archives: Access to Archival Databases (http://aad.archives.gov); citing Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies. Center for Immigration Research 1976-2002.

⁷ Capt. Rich'd Haus, Ship Manifest, Spartan, arriving 22 June 1847, New York, New York, Mich'l Kilbride; images, "New York Passenger Lists, 1829-1891," FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939V-R39P-CP : accessed 29 July 2024); citing National Archives and Records Administration, microfilm publication M237, roll 67, image 794, Washington, D.C.

⁸ "Maritime Herald, Arrived," The New York Herald, p. 4, col. 3, British ship Spartan; images, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/466575406/ : accessed 29 July 2024).

⁹ Robert E. Matheson, Varieties and Synonymes of Surnames and Christian Names in Ireland for the Guidance of Registration Officials and The Public In Searching the Indexes of Births, Deaths, and Marriages (Dublin: Alex. Thom & Co. (Limited), 1901), 13; digital image, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/varietiessynonym00math/page/n6/mode/1up?view=theater : accessed 2 December 2022), citing Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, Fort Wayne, Indiana.