Since the Lawder family lived in England before coming to the US, we had always thought that they were English, but it turns out that they were Irish Catholics. Edward Augustine Lawder was born in Ireland in 1821. He was in Manchester, England by the time he married Mary Farrall in 1841. Mary was also born in Ireland. 1841 is before the time of the Great Hunger(Potato Famine), so I am not sure why they moved to England. It does seem that many Irish families moved to that area of England, possibly to find work. I don’t know if their parents or any siblings also moved to England. I got official copies of their marriage license, their son James’ marriage license, and James’ son Edward’s birth certificate from England.
Edward Augustine Lawder signed the petition to free William Smith O’Brien and other prisoners in 1848. The petition was signed by 70,000 people in Ireland and 10,000 people in England. You can read about the story of William Smith O’Brien here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Smith_O%27Brien.
The fact that the family was living in England instead of Ireland makes doing research so much easier. The family shows up on English census records in 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1881. James and his wife Emma (Burke) and their children were in the US by the 1870 US Census, but his parents were still in England. Most Irish census records from that time period were destroyed so I would never have been able to find out all this info if they had stayed in Ireland.
James and Emma settled in Middletown, New York. According to the 1910 US Census they had 15 children, 5 of whom were still living. I am not sure if that is really accurate. It is possible that the census taker accidently put an extra 1 in front of the 5 in that column.
In 1904, James, Emma, and their daughter Mary (listed as Mamie on the ship’s manifest) returned to England for a visit. I don’t know if there was any particular reason why they went or if it was just a vacation.
I have a lot of information about occupations and where people lived from the Middletown directories from 1905 through 1959 listed in the family tree which can be seen here https://myfamgen.com/lawder-family/. Several members of the family worked for the railroads. Some at the O and W (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York,_Ontario_and_Western_Railway) and some at the CNERR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_New_England_Railway). I really enjoy learning about the history of the places where mine and my husband’s families lived.