Monday, March 24, 2014

The Road to Ireland


Though the date for the much-anticipated trip to Ireland will soon be upon us, the way leading up to that point still seems to be long and winding.

The plan is for my daughter, now a junior in college—at the only undergraduate School of International Studies on the west coast—to spend her upcoming fall semester studying abroad in Ireland. Her hoped-for study-abroad university assignment is University College Cork.

For anyone who has followed A Family Tapestry for any length of time, Cork is the city that is conveniently located just down the road from some of my husband’s Irish forebears. How could we not take advantage of such serendipitous situation?!

Yet, as much as I intended to stay on task and dutifully complete all the prerequisite research in preparation for arrival in our target cities, there have been many roadblocks to its completion. Admittedly, some of them were unavoidable—like serious injury and even death in the family—but nonetheless, it appears I’ve got to quickly get back to the business of preliminary research in order to be sufficiently prepared for the task ahead of us.

Yes, it was informative and entertaining, even, to take the detours in the past few months that led me to the Ukraine on behalf of my godmother’s Melnitchenko family, and to the old south of my mother’s maternal ancestors, but for the most part, the road ahead will be filled with all the details I can find on the Irish heritage claimed by my husband and his family.

Step one will be to review what I’ve already written on each branch of that family. So far, I’ve blogged about the Tully family and their roots in Ballina, County Tipperary. I’ve made some mention of the Malloy family—especially the mysterious Stephen Malloy whose disappearance to Boston led to the family’s ultimate immigration to Chicago—and the related Flanagan family of County Limerick (they who were just up the road from Cork). I’ve bemoaned my research fate in having to find the Kelly family from County Kerry, and even my discovery that the Falvey family from that county had a more common surname than I at first had suspected.

Following that, step two will be to see where the trail ends for each of the Irish family names I’m tracing—where, exactly, I’m stuck in retracing the family’s steps from the New World back to their ancestral home in Ireland.

Step three, of course, will be to work feverishly to connect the dots from where the trail goes dark in Chicago or New Orleans or even Ontario to where it began in the old country.

My hope is that this several-months’ hiatus from researching the Irish story will have not only provided a respite for the researcher (and, by proxy, the researcher’s followers) but a period of renewal for all those much-appreciated online services which are, daily, adding to their collections of digitized records.


Above: photograph of the Long Hall and Clock Tower of University College Cork by Bjorn Christian Torrissen via Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

11 comments:

  1. Hope you have a super trip to Ireland that leads to many family discoveries. I was there two years ago with one of my daughters and would love to return!

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    1. Colleen, everyone we talk to about traveling to Ireland gives rave reviews! We are so looking forward to this--but not only because of the beauty, but in hopes of connecting with those hundred sixty five year old, long-lost roots.

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  2. Best of luck with your Irish research, Jacqi. Hope you get plenty of blue skies in Cork!

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    1. Thank you, Dara! The blue skies will be for walking through the cities and villages. For the many rainy days, well, we'll be spending lots of time in libraries and the archives!

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  3. Ah, Cork is a beautiful part of Ireland (actually I don't think there are any parts that aren't beautiful!) - I hope you uncover (I hate to say "dig up") something about your relatives from the ol' sod!

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    1. P.s., we "don't need no stinkin' respite" from reading your efforts to publish your family tapestry!

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    2. :)

      (My husband provided the audio for your postscript...thought you would appreciate knowing the delivery of that line was professionally handled!)

      From what I've seen of photographs, you are spot on with your assessment of Cork and vicinity, Iggy. That will likely be our home base. But we will also need to make it to the other regions I've mentioned--as well as County Mayo if I can figure out more about the origin of our Stevens surname.

      As far as respites go, I've got a plan for making a way to bring you all along with us as we tour the countryside of Ireland...as long as it isn't foiled by lack of Internet cafes or wifi access...

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    1. I wish I could take you with me, Wendy. By any chance, would you fit in a suitcase?

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  5. I am anxious for your trip, I know you will share some of that adventure! :)

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    1. I'll try my best to share as much as possible, Far Side!

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