Possible Holmes family origins

Origins of the Holmes Surname in Ireland

Tracing the origins of our branch of the Holmes family in Ireland points most strongly toward an English origin rather than either a Scottish one or a Gaelic surname (Mac Thomáis) that later became Anglicised, both of which are found elsewhere in Ireland. In our case, the family can be traced to north-east Laois and the adjoining areas of Kildare and Offaly, with a long-standing Church of Ireland (and more recently Methodist) background. That combination fits well with the history of English settlement in the Midlands during the Tudor and early Stuart plantation periods.

The Laois connection is especially interesting. Formerly known as Queen’s County, Laois was one of the earliest plantation areas established by the Tudor government in the sixteenth century after the suppression of the O’Mores. English settlers — including soldiers, tenant farmers and estate workers — were introduced into the region in significant numbers, and many Protestant farming families in the Midlands ultimately trace their roots to those plantation-era communities or to later Cromwellian and Williamite settlement.

Coolbanagher Old Church

Coolbanagher Church, designed by Gandon

Family Traditions

I have also heard of a long-standing family tradition that “the first Holmes came to Ireland with Baron Arlington,” the founder of Portarlington. While such stories are often simplified over generations, the tradition is not implausible. Sir Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, was granted extensive lands in Queen’s County in the seventeenth century and promoted Protestant settlement around Portarlington. The story may not necessarily mean that an ancestor personally arrived in Arlington’s immediate retinue. Still, it could well preserve a genuine memory that the family became established in the area during the Arlington plantation era.

Interestingly, there is also a tradition of a sword handed down from a Williamite — or possibly Cromwellian — soldier. Whether literally accurate or not, that tradition fits naturally with the broader history of military settlement and land redistribution in the Midlands during the seventeenth century.

Estate Connections

Emo Court, designed by Gandon

From at least the late eighteenth century, our branch of the Holmes family also appears to have been closely associated with Emo Court and the surrounding estate, where family members are said to have worked as gamekeepers. These included my 3rd great-grandfather, John Holmes and his father Benjamin. That detail fits very naturally into the social world of the Protestant rural Midlands. Estate employment — as gamekeepers, stewards, craftsmen or tenant farmers — was a common path for long-established Church of Ireland families of modest but respectable standing who were connected to the great landed houses of the region. More recently, my great-great-grandfather John Holmes worked as a Clerk-of-Works on Moore Abbey demesne, continuing that tradition.

A Family with Deep Historical Roots

The surname Holmes itself is especially associated with Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and the wider East Midlands/South Yorkshire region — areas shaped by strong Norse and Danelaw influence, where “holm” originally referred to a river meadow or raised ground in marshland. Interestingly, some of my Ancestry DNA results also appear to point toward that same part of England, which aligns closely with the historical distribution of the surname.

At the same time, families like this did not always come directly from England into Laois in a single movement. By the seventeenth century, there were already long-established English-descended Protestant communities in Dublin, Kildare and the wider Pale. Many families moved gradually westward into newly opened plantation lands. It is therefore entirely possible that the Holmes family originally came from England — perhaps from the East Midlands or Yorkshire region — but had already spent one or more generations elsewhere in Ireland before settling in Laois and Offaly.

The family’s Church of Ireland identity over many generations is also suggestive. While religion alone never proves ancestry, it does make it more likely that the family belonged to the long-established Protestant farming and tenant class that emerged from these settlement patterns. Many such families were not major landowners, but ordinary rural families who nevertheless maintained a distinct religious and cultural identity over centuries.

One subtle but important point is that even if the original surname source was English, the family may still have been established in Ireland for many centuries. Some families became thoroughly woven into Irish life over generations, moving within the Pale and Midlands long before modern records began. So while the surname may ultimately have English roots, the family’s Irish identity could still be very deep chronologically.

Finding Albertina

I wrote a post a while back where I located all my ancestors who were alive at the time in the 1901 census. The only thing was I couldn't find my great-grandmother Albertina Zimber. I found her brothers, step-mother, uncles and an aunt but she was nowhere to be found.

Well, I finally tracked her down to Dungarvan,  Co Waterford where she was living over a shop where she worked as a Drapers Assistant. The thing was her surname was significantly misspelt (I submitted a correction and it has now been changed) and her first name was given as Bertha so no wonder she proved elusive.

It might prove useful to note how I did locate her. I used the advanced search options and searched using her age and religion (Methodist) and tried a number of variations on her first name which finally came up trumps.

The Death of Joseph Zimber

I recently found out how Joseph Zimber my great-grand-uncle died. I knew he died in an accident in Montreal on 1st February 1905 only a few months after arriving in Canada (see here).

I have just found the reports below in the Montreal paper "Le Canada". The first report from the 2nd February edition does not name him but the second report from the following day's paper does.

For the benefit of those who cannot read French, he died in an explosion at the Gohier Tannery alongside a Russian Jewish immigrant named Lewis Schoff (or Schoss). The report also indicates that the explosion may have been caused by a barrel of gasoline left too close to the furnace.

Fred Zimber Photo

I recently got a copy of this photo of Fred Zimber my great-grand-uncle from the National Library.

Fred died in the First World War and you can read more of his story here.

Richard Quinn - Gold Rush Miner

Some time ago I became intrigued by an entry in the registration of the marriage of my great great grandparents Tom Reale and Mary Ann Quinn in Waterford in 1867.

In it, Mary Ann's father Richard's occupation is given as 'gold digger'. Initially, I thought it might be 'gold dipper' relating to some role in an electroplating factory. But I could find no reference to that type of factory in the Waterford area and a close inspection of the entry indicates that it more than likely reads 'digger'.

It then occurred to me that the California Gold Rush took place in the years between Mary Ann's birth in 1846 and her marriage in 1867. So I looked in US censuses for California in those years and found a number of references to a Richard Quinn a miner living in the Gold Rush town of Poker Flat in Sierra County, California. This Richard Quinn was Irish and married though not living with a family.

Further references have Richard Quinn buying the "Waterford Tunnel" claim in Poker Flat in 1867 and selling it again in 1884 with a store and half a cabin for $1,500 to Thomas Roach. In the period he was there he also was a Delivery Man delivering meat and other supplies to nearby mining camps and ran a General Merchandise Store in Poker Flat. He became a US citizen in 1867.

Co-incidence? Possibly..... but I think not. I think it entirely probable that either the aftermath of the famine or news of the Gold Rush prompted him to leave Waterford for California. Possibly his wife had died and he left his young family with relatives. Indeed the fact that Mary Ann was aware in 1867 that her father was a 'Gold Digger' would indicate that he remained in contact with Waterford maybe even sending money home.

Poker Flat is now one of many Gold Rush era Ghost Towns in Sierra County, California.  The abandoned house in the picture is all that remains of the settlement.

These links here and here give some more info on the place.

I know that this Richard Quinn lived in Poker Flat from  1860 until at least 1886 though I don't know either when he arrived or when he died.

I hope someday to fill in the gaps on his story.