The Irish Family History Forum will present "Finding Ancestors in Irish Workhouses," with guest speaker Natalie Bodle, on this Saturday morning, May 16, at the Freeport Memorial Library, 144 West Merrick Road, Freeport, NY 11520. The speaker, who is based in Ballymena, Co. Antrim, is the author of “Tracing Your Family History Using Irish Newspapers and Other Printed Material.”
The Poor Law Act of 1838 established workhouses in Ireland to provide relief to the destitute. But to keep people from seeking admission, the workhouses were specifically designed to be harsh. Inmates were separated from family members, forced to do hard labor, and fed scant rations. As a result, the workhouses were greatly feared, especially during the Famine years when overcrowding, starvation and disease led to a massive increase in the number of deaths.
For more details about the morning’s program, which begins at 10, go to ifhf.org.
