This is the birth certificate for Joseph Francis Higgins, my great-grandfather. The significance of the document is that it establishes that it was Joseph's parents, Patrick Higgins and Margaret Kelly, who came to America. I don't know if they came together after they were married or if they came to America as younger people before they were married.The certificate is from January 1895 and indicates that my great-great-grandmother was 37 at that time. So she would have been born in 1857 or 1858 which is interesting because by that time the Potato Famine had already ended, but there was lasting pressure to Ireland for a future in America.The birth certificate also states that my great-great-grandmother had had seven previous children, of which six were still living. Today we take for granted that if a woman has had a certain number of children they will typically all be living, but that wasn't not the norm in the late nineteenth century.My family has extensive records on what Joseph did in the United States and of the family since then, but we have absolutely no records going back farther than this for his part of the family, because Irish people were typically desperately for that time so just wouldn't have had the luxury of collecting and maintaining family history.

– Holden Higgins

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more