Series 1 - Williamson family letters

4 sub-series

Photocopies of 17 Williamson letters are located in PRONI (T2680/2/1-17), Belfast. Photocopies and/or typed transcripts of, or extracts from, the remaining 24 documents, plus vital data, maps, photographs, etc., were provided directly to Miller by Williamson descendants: Dr. Arthur P. Williamson, University of Ulster, Coleraine, County Derry; by Muriel T. Reynolds of Merced, California; and by Lorene (Mrs. Richard J.) Gurnee of Watsonville, California.

The Williamson family collection is based on 43 documents, dated 1843-1918, which are primarily typed transcripts and photocopies of transatlantic correspondence between brothers William and James Williamson in New York, Illinois, and northern California, and their parents and siblings in Ahory townland, near Richhill, County Armagh, and Manchester, England. The series also includes: Kerby A. Miller's research correspondence, especially with the Williamson emigrants' descendants who provided extensive materials and information; Miller's research notes, mostly from Irish primary sources; and photocopied pages from old histories of the Illinois and California locales where William and James Williamson resided.
Per Miller, the Williamson letters illuminate:
-society, landlord-tenant relations, religion, and culture among middle-class north Armagh Protestants;
-emigration for opportunity, ambition, ""independence,"" but also via family networks;
-return migration by unsuccessful emigrants to America (John Williamson);
-farming on the Illinois prairie in the 1840s;
-gold mining and miners' society, religion, etc., in mid-19th-century northern California;
-blacksmithing and engineering in mid-19th-century northern California;
-farming, ranching, and lumbering in late 19th-century northern California;
-transatlantic travel by sail, Liverpool-New York, 1843;
-travel between the eastern US and California in 1850 (wagon), 1853-54 (ship, via Panama), and 1874 (rail).