Reading My Way to Research Success

It will be a mere two months—no, even less than that now—until I'll be in Ireland, pursuing those elusive Irish ancestors in person. I've done as much research as can be found, online, for now—though of course, I'll continue working on each line, searching for links to allow me to push back further in time in whatever family line I can.

In the meantime, it's to the books and other resources for history and background information I go. I'm even tempted to thumb through those coffee table picture books of Ireland, feasting my eyes on the summer greenery which will undoubtedly be long gone before I arrive there in October.

One resource I'm working my way through—okay, true confessions: I've only just started—is the book by John Grenham, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors. More reference book than how-to dispensary, it's a book I still feel the compulsion to read, cover to cover. Over-analysing, over-compensating: that's me. I can research a topic to death. That need to know can sometimes be paralysing.

I'll have the time this week to indulge that handicap. As if I don't have enough travel planned for the near future, I chose to accompany my husband to a conference he's attending in Southern California this week. While he's away during the day, working hard, I'll be whiling away the hours either online in hot pursuit of those Flannerys, Kellys, Tullys, and Malloys, or sitting outside on the hotel's beautiful landscaped grounds with my nose doggedly stuck in a book. I might take a breather to go for a walk or catch some lunch, but otherwise, I'll be as driven as a Fortune 500 CEO as our research travel date draws closer.

In other news, like mother, like daughter. Now that our indomitable foreign student has arrived in Cork, Ireland—and caught up on her sleep!—she has taken to blogging, herself. If you are so inclined to check out the Emerald Isle from her point of view, you are welcome to click on over to her blog here. Perhaps you'll enjoy that little bird's eye view—her nickname is Wren—of student life in Ireland. While she's five thousand miles from home, she is literally living down the street from the home of her third great grandparents. I wonder what resonance she might find in that experience.