Martin Scahill - Missing Friends 1831 To 1920

Extracted from a page on the website of New England Historical Society:

Beginning in 1831 and over the course of the next eighty-five years, the nationally distributed, Boston Pilot newspaper printed some 45,000 �Missing Friends� advertisements placed by friends and relatives. No one knows how many of these families found each other as a result of the ads, but these nineteenth-century notices continue to help families today find their ancestors.

These advertisements typically referred to the exact place of origin of the seeker and/or the sought. Many of the ads also describe the process and route of immigration, and even the name of the passenger ship. Many advertisements refer to women, for whom determining exact origin is even more difficult, due to the lack of naturalization records. So the Missing Friends advertisements help fill a great gap in nineteenth-century records for a mobile, impoverished, immigrant population.

Date: 22 February 1851

Name: Martin Scahill

Record: OF MARTIN SCAHILL, parish of Anadown, Castlecraven, County Galway, who came to this country eight years ago; he resided in Amesbury, Mass., two years, and went from there to New Mexico. Information of him will be received by his nephew, John Macnamara, Amesbury, Mass., or to Patrick Pendergast.

Published Volume: Vol VII, 1871 to 1876

Allan Scahill