John Irish, The Immigrant

(~1617-1676/77)

Always Constant and Faithful

From:  W. L Irish:

b. about 1600, a son of Jonathan and Elizabeth (Kirby) Irish of the Parish of Clevedon (also spelled Clisdon) County of Somerset, England.  He came to America in 1629 and is considered as the founder of the IRISH family here in the United States.  John Irish came to Plymouth, Massachusetts with John Bradford, the son of Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony.  John Irish was living in Duxbury, Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts in 1629, where he was of considerable note as a surveyor of lands.  He left much property in Seaconnet, Rhode Island.  He was a volunteer for the Pequot War in 1633-1637.

The IRISH Family seemed to have residence in Somersetshire, England as seen from an "Indenture" of said John Irish, dated April 20, 1629 and recorded July 12, 1697 at Taunton, Massachusetts.  By the terms thereof: "John Irish, of the Parish of Clisdon County of Somerset, laborer, agreed with Timothy Hatherly, feltmaker, of the Parish of St. Gloves, in Southwark, County of Surrey, to abide with him five years at Plymouth, New England, having meat, drink and lodging and five pounds per year, and at the end of that time, 12 bushels of that country wheat, corn and 25 acres of land".  Quite likely, John Irish came from England on "The Talbot", which arrived at Cape Ann, Salem, Massachusetts on June 27, 1629.  "The Talbot" is the ship that brought Higginson in 1629, with Thomas Beecher as the Master.

I don't want to duplicate another's work unnecessarily.  There is a long-standing Web site on the Irish family by Paul Randall.  I'm extremely grateful to Mr. Randall for making so much information on the Irish family available.  He offers information on the Irish Family: Early History.  The link is:

http://www.interlog.com/~prandall/irish/irish.html

Here you will learn that the name 'Irish' has nothing to do with Ireland or the Irish people, but is of Norman (French) origin - dating to the time of the Norman invasion of England in 1066.  At Mr. Randall's site you will find:

Sir Adam de Ireys;

"...was the earliest known ancestor.  He accompanied Godfrey of Bouillon to the Holy Land on the First Crusade, and had an active part in the taking of Jerusalem in 1099.  During the Crusade, he slew a Saracen leader of high rank, severing his head from his body by one blow of his sword.  For his service in the Crusade, he was knighted and given the right to a Coat of Arms.  Sir Adam was a member of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, which was organized about 1100, to care for the wounded soldiers at Jerusalem...."

He also provides a separate page with information on the Irish Coat of Arms as seen above:

http://www.interlog.com/~prandall/irish/irisharms.html

One of his original sources is the same as my own:

Descendants of John Irish The Immigrant 1629 - 1963 and Allied Families by Willis Luther Irish and Stella Bertha (Putnam) Irish 1964, The Dingley Press, Freeport, Maine.

A few years ago, I was able to find a 'new' reprint of the book for sale.  Actually, the term 'reprint' was misleading.  Turns out is was actually a two-tone (black-and-white) printing rendered from photographs of pages in a used copy of the book (hand-written underlines and comments within the used book reproduced along with the original text).  The result is a book with quite readable text (with readable comments, underlines, etc.), but one with no 'color' and grotesque approximations of the photographs from the original work [there was no attempt to reproduce photos in color or even gray-scale - but two-tone black and white only].  Paid just over $100 for a hard-bound copy.  None of the reproduced pages include a copyright notice - and no such notice is added by the new 'publisher'.

I say this again; I have nothing to indicate that the work was copyrighted.

The preface includes a portion written by the children of Willis and Stella.  It speaks of the 25 years spent researching the book and 50,000 miles traveled, but includes no suggestion that the work was intended to be a commercial venture.  Considering the description provided by their children, it appears unlikely that Mr. & Mrs. Irish would have considered a copyright necessary or desirable.

In the last couple of years, I have spent hundreds of 'spare time' hours trying to transfer the information into a format that can be exported to GedCom and have been making it available as a 'work-in-progress'.  It is not my intent to 'steal' their work, but to celebrate it.  It does not appear that the authors intended to profit financially from their effort - nor do I.  As I have made this information available, I have received countless contacts from people who recognize their own family members.  They have offered new information (and occasional corrections).

I hope that Willis and Stella Irish would have been pleased to see their work available to all members of the 'Irish Family'.

As you view 'Joe's Genes' at WorldConnect:

I have not counted the total number of individual entries, but the highest reference number I find is 15,344.  At best, I have entered perhaps a third of the names.  To reduce the chance of errors, I have been adding the reference number given in the book to the names of the individuals; as in 'Elias 7807 Irish'.

The number is also entered in the 'notes' section on each individual as 'From:  W.L Irish #7807'.  I plan to remove the number from the name when the work is complete.  Reference numbers in the 'notes' will remain so that those with a copy of the book can make direct reference.  Please note that some individuals were assigned more than one 'reference number'.  This is the result of 'dual relationships' - as when cousins marry.

Eureka!

An important 'Irish' Web Site

Another 'Irish' descendant is Linc Haymaker.  He has scanned the entire book, run the scans through OCR software and has those pages available for view at his site.  The OCR'd pages are currently imperfect, but can be compared to scanned images of the original pages!

We will be attempting to work cooperatively in completing the work of transferring the book's data into GedCom format, cleaning up the OCR'd pages, etc., etc.  The possibilities are exciting!

Check out his site at:

http://lthome.com/john-irish/

My descent

I am the 9^th great-grandson of John Irish.  As of 2/15/2001, I show 9,322 descendants and add more weekly [this number may include duplicate individuals, the result of cross relationships].

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