Finding Women in the Census

On doing hard things, including finding an agent for my book

National Famine Memorial at Croag Patrick, Northern Ireland

This past week I’ve been digging back into the research I collected while in Ireland, looking for ways into several different projects that I see coming out of the materials. I thought I’d begin with something that seemed relatively easy, if there is such a thing, and that’s with the 25 women who applied for and received land grants from Mexico between 1829 and 1834 in what would become the state of Texas.

It’s easy to identify who these women were and even that they were emigrants from Ireland BUT it is much, much harder to track them down in government documents like census records. Why? Because women, especially average women who didn’t do anything shocking, tend to not make it into official records or if they do, they’ve often changed their surnames and can’t be found.

Let’s take Ann (Anne, Anna) Burk (Burke) for example. As you can see, she’s already recorded by several different names so some variation for those spellings must be considered. We know she left Tipperary County, Ireland, in early spring 1834, pregnant and with her husband, sailing to New Orleans where they caught a smaller ship to the Texas coast. By the time she arrived, she was a widow (cholera was rampant). She gave birth to a boy soon after arriving.

Burk went on and laid claim to the land they were promised, receiving one league and one labor, which included 26,000,000 square varas (approximately 4,605 acres) of land, classified as mostly pasture land, with one labor (approximately 177 acres) suitable for planting. I know a bit more about Burk because part of her land grant later became the site of Beeville, Texas. In 1858, when Bee County was organized, a 150-acre donation from Ann Burk's land grant became the permanent county seat. Burk's generous land donation for the county seat has been recognized with a marker that was erected on the courthouse square acknowledging her contribution to the town's establishment.

But is she in the census? Not that I can find. She would go on and marry one of the passengers on the ship from Ireland, whose wife had died in the same cholera epidemic as Ann’s husband. I’ve tried to find him, or her under his name, but no luck. She is in the tax rolls for these years (1840s, 1850s, 1860s), but oddly, I can’t find her in the census records. I’ll keep digging and trying different variations.

And now an update on my book proposal . . . Nothing. Not a word. This isn’t that unusual, especially given the election last week that has likely put a pause on starting any new projects, especially with a nobody like me, but still, I’d like to be “chosen,” to get an agent for this project who will champion my many other book ideas, too.

I’ll do some tweaking on the proposal today and send it out to the next ten agents on my list. Maybe the energy will be better this go around and something will shift. Such is the nature of the publishing world.

Speaking of, if you have questions about writing or publishing, stick them in the comments. I’d love to get a good exchange of ideas happening around non-fiction writing.

Cong, County Mayo, Ireland (sound on for the wildlife!)

I’ll leave you with this brief video of the river through the village of Cong. I’d most definitely have had a hard time leaving this village, if I lived there.

If you are looking to travel to Ireland and want some advice, especially geared toward historical sites, leave a comment.