Thursday, September 4, 2014

Connecting Those Loose Strands


In researching our family's Flannery roots as I prepare for our trip to Ireland, one of those long-awaited phenomena began to descend upon me. Having looked here and there, to the left and to the right, up and down, and all around, I’ve amassed quite a collection of disparate documents.

Now that I’m buried in the data, the trick is to find a shovel big enough to help me dig myself out of this mess and assemble the heaps into some sort of logical order.

It was in mulling over the Flannery surname that it dawned on me: I’ve actually come full circle. I’ve been this way before. All I have to do is match up the similar data.

Take those baptismal verifications our family has privately received and kept from the early years after the Tully family immigrated to Canada. If it weren’t for those, I wouldn’t have known the names of my husband’s second great grandfather, Denis Tully. More important, I wouldn’t have had the maiden name of Denis Tully’s wife: Flannery.

When I began researching the Flannery line, thanks to a Google search, I ran across a website for the Flannery Clan. Having by now discovered Margaret Flannery’s name and the family’s church parish in County Tipperary—Ballina—I was able to use the Flannery Clan’s search tool to uncover transcribed records of parish baptisms. The serendipity was that a member of the Flannery Clan had chosen to transcribe those records—but only the ones mentioning the surname Flannery or its variants—and post them on the website.

From that site, I had been able to find the baptismal record for my husband’s great grandfather, John Tully. I felt pretty good about myself for having located that confirmation, but I had left it at that.

Fast forward to this fall, as I’m preparing to leave on our research trip to Ireland. Prompted by the genealogist who will shepherd a small group of us researchers through the libraries and archival repositories of Dublin, I went back and checked the Griffith’s Valuation for Tully and Flannery.

When I did so, I have to admit it was with a heavy sigh and one of those eye-rolling, “Oh, all right” attitudes. You see, I had already gone through the Griffith’s Valuation route. Years ago. With no results.

Well, I do have to admit: at the time, I had no idea where the Tully family originated. Worse, I had no idea the name I should be seeking was Denis Tully. Even worse than that, I didn’t know about Flannery then. So I was long overdue for another visit to Griffith’s Valuation. It always pays to retrace our research steps.

And lo, there it was. Angel choir time. One Denis Tully in Griffith’s Valuation for “Fountinna”—which, as I later found out, was actually a typo for the townland named Tountinna.

What I hadn’t bothered to do at that juncture was return to the Flannery Clan website, where I had first found the transcription confirming John Tully’s baptismal record. I paid the site another visit yesterday and what should I notice, as I scrolled through the many Flannery listings in that parish of Ballina? Where they were provided in the original document, the townlands were included in the transcription as well. And what should appear next to John Tully’s baptismal record, beside his parents’ names? Why, the townland—a name that had previously meant absolutely nothing to me. Until I realized I needed to know.

To set everyone’s mind at ease, yes, it was “Tauntinna”—which I fervently hope is an archaic spelling for the same townland which Griffith’s had mangled to become “Fountinna.”

I think I really have the right family now. Wouldn’t you say?                              

8 comments:

  1. Jacqi, if I could back in time and talk to myself when I first began genealogy research I'd stress how important organization is to that research. Not only must you find documents you must be able to organize them so you can find them again and again when you need them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good point, Colleen! And oh, for the foreknowledge to be able to understand all those terms which, in our beginner state, we didn't think meant anything at all to our current search. Sometimes, it's not so much finding the documents again, as it is believing that everything--even those words we don't yet recognize as important--may have significance to our search.

      Delete
  2. Colleen is right, but doing so is so hard!! I get caught up in "the chase" and if I am lucky, I at least print stuff out along the way!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I find I eventually get buried in all that stuff I've printed out. That's where putting Colleen's advice into action comes in handy.

      I'm getting to the point where I try to scan everything, rather than print it out. Then, all I need to do is think of all the appropriate tags to file each scan under.

      Of course, whether my mind works according to today's logic in ten years may well be the ultimate question. I guess, in a long-term project such as genealogical research, there will always be best-laid plans which turn up lacking, given a decade or so.

      Delete
  3. We learn as we go with our genealogy research, so it's perfectly fine that you took another look at the same records. And congrats on your upcoming trip to Ireland. Sounds fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Jana! We are really looking forward to it. And yes, genealogical research done over the long haul tends to be a growing process. I don't think I'd like it any other way. If we don't learn as we go, we aren't improving. There's always something else to learn.

      Delete
  4. Are you putting the scans in the "cloud" someplace? Makes for easy access...like Drop box and it is free. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, thanks for the reminder, Far Side. That is a good point.

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...