. . . And Then, We Wait . . .

 

Like the child who couldn't wait until Christmas, I tried peeking at the Kelly ThruLines results at Ancestry.com once again, in the vain hope that I would be gifted with yet another new DNA match after all my tree-building work. (Spoiler: no one was.) 

Reaching out to DNA matches can be trying. We find a likely candidate—someone who seems as consumed with family history as we are—sit down and write the not-too-convoluted note designed to be just right for enticing a response. And then, we wait. And wait.

When I think about all the discoveries I've made over the years on researching my father-in-law's Irish forebears, I realize I have made progress. But that progress has come in waves. I'm quite confident those who persist in their research of Irish ancestry have developed a patience unlike that of researchers of other ethnic origins. 

Perhaps that is due to the very waves in which genealogical evidence washes up upon our shores. Bit by bit over the years, more documentation has become available online—not all at once, but collection by collection, perhaps even location by location. Perhaps this dribbling out of information has become just as frustrating to those of Irish descent still living in their own country as it has been to the rest of us among the Irish diaspora flung far and wide around the world.

While I keep hoping for more records discoveries in Ireland—or even those elusive passenger records of Irish arrivals in New Orleans—I reach out to other Kelly researchers in hopes that someone got the word on where on the old sod their Irish ancestor once lived. Granted, by the advent of second—or third—great-grandchildren, the chances of finding someone with the "stuff" of those old family mementos becomes even more slim. But I wait.

We'll likely keep waiting—until someone discovers and releases a newly reconstructed set of Irish records to benefit us all. In the meantime, as I've done so many times before, that Kelly research folder will get tucked away for safekeeping until a new records release calls it out of its storage and back into the search limelight.