The Beginner's Guide to Using Tax Lists

The Canadian port of St. John, New Brunswick was a magnet for Irish immigration during the decade that culminated in the Great Famine. A majority of these destitute Irish immigrants were required to take temporary refuge in the alms and work houses, hospitals, and asylums of St. John, before relocating to Boston or elsewhere in New England in order to rejoin their family members. Mr. Johnson has compiled this surrogate "passenger list" of 7,000 persons of Irish birth from the records of alms houses, hospitals, parish houses, etc. This is a major contribution to the literature of Irish immigration to North America.