Epilogue

In the spring of 1844, on the eve of the Great Famine, Asenath Nicholson, of New York, sailed to Ireland. Her goal was to determine the conditions of the Irish poor and to discover why so many of them were emigrating from their native Ireland to America.

Nicholson, chose to do most of her traveling in Ireland on foot. She also rested many nights in the cabins of the Irish peasantry. Her observations, made during her 1844 and 1845 travels have allowed us a unique opportunity to view not only the traditions of our Irish ancestors, but to learn first-hand of their suffering. Her first-hand observations recorded in her book entitled Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger, was first published in 1847, by Baker and Scribner, New York.

As Asenath Nicholson, wrote on June 10, 1847, in the preface of her book: "Remember, my children," said my father, "that the Irish are a suffering people; and when they come to your doors, never send them away." She also noted in her preface, "It was in the garrets and cellars of New York that I first became acquainted with the Irish peasantry, and it was there I saw they were a suffering people."

After just one year of writing this family history we realized how often we made reference to the Catholic religion of our Irish ancestors. Their suffering at the hands of the Anglo-Irish ruling class in Ireland as well as the continued discrimination they were subject to in America was the price they paid to practice their religion. Both their suffering and their faith defined them.

When Timothy Lawton, married Dawn Giel in Montana in October of 2022, another family historical window was opened to us. Dawn's maternal ancestors - the Hawkes family, were known to have left England in 1630 during The Puritan Great Migration. That English diaspora to America, led by John Winthrop, was also spawned and defined by religious discrimination.

Each one of our past migrations have not only defined us, but they have defined America, and then the world.