From the Rockville Charitable Loans, 1840

Ancestry. Rockville Charitable Loans. Ireland. 1840.

The image above comes from the Ireland, Sustainability Loan Fund, 1812-1868 file (Rockville Security Notebook 1838-1842). Either this shows my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget Gannon, borrowing 3 pounds in September 1840, or her aunt Bridget Hanley Gannon. The first security is Daniel Dominic Gannon, Bridget's father (or if this is for Bridget Hanley Gannon, her brother-in-law). Bridget would have been 16 then. A young, unmarried woman could borrow in her name during this time, but the loan needed to be for an income generating purpose, such as buying a spinning wheel, flax, wool, or hens or a pig to raise for market.

If the borrower was Bridget Hanley Gannon, she was a sister of Maria Hanley (my 4th-great-grandmother), who married Daniel's brother Michael Gannon in Roscommon on 25 February 1824.

The Rockville Charitable Loans was one of many Irish loan funds established to provide micro-credit loans. Roscommon is one of the key counties covered by the fund. 

According to the Internet, £3 in 1840 could have bought the following:

• A milk cow
• A pig
• A few sheep
• Raw wool, flax for spinning and weaving to sell
• Rent on a small plot of land
• Passage to North America

Daniel appears in the Rockville loan notebook as a security grantor throughout this 1837-1845 period, and received several loans himself.

I do not know which year Bridget arrived in America, or her port of entry. This advertisement from 1841 shows a £3 fare for steerage from Liverpool to New York.

Drogehda Argus, 3 Apr 1841.