Tracing James Kinsella has been a great experience for our family, from County Wicklow and the famine ship to Antietam to Gettysburg to Belle Isle to Baltimore. But the search goes on…
From Ireland
A cottage left behind in Co. Wicklow
In his application to the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Pension, dated March 26, 1915, James Kinsella indicated that he was born March 15, 1839, in County Wicklow, Ireland.
Blessington Lake, Co. Wicklow
We have not yet found his birthplace, but the pictures here were taken in the beautiful county of his birth, in the fall of 2001 and 2003.
Wicklow Town, on the Irish Sea.
A million or more men, women and children sailed to America between 1846 and 1851 to escape the Famine and survive.
Replica of the “Famine Ship” Dunbrody, Co. New Ross.
“Were those voyagers alive today, what stories they could tell of the agonizing decision to leave their beloved Isle of Erin, of the lamentations on their last night at home, of the arduous journey to the port and the search for a ship, of the misery they endured on the voyage!
— From The Famine Ships: The Irish Exodus to America by Edward Laxton, published by Henry Holt and Company, 1996.
Passengers lived in cramped quarters for many weeks. Photos by S. Ingram
Although we have no family records indicating what ship brought the Kinsella family to America, we know from family recollections that James was 11 years old when he arrived.
We found the manifest below on the Kinsella Homepage and believe it may be the ship that brought them from Ireland.
Shipping Record “Atlanta,” 12 October 1850, Dublin
Searching for James Kinsella: Irish Yankee 