Brick Walls and Kellys

 

If we call those hard-to-research ancestors "brick walls," then my father-in-law's Kelly family must be a walled citadel of relatives. Demarcation of this barrier began when James and Mary Kelly left all behind and sailed for New Orleans from somewhere in Ireland.

Trying to find any clues through DNA testing has not been promising. Using my husband's DNA test as proxy for my father-in-law's genetic heritage, we are looking at a connection at the distance of third great-grandfather—not so distant as to be unreachable, but still only showing us eight possible connections to these Kelly descendants via Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool. Out of those eight, two are children of my husband's cousins, telling me nothing new.

The paper trail has been clear enough from James and Mary's children down to the present, thankfully. I have not really added many new Kelly descendants to my father-in-law's tree since beginning this month's research project, thus it is no surprise that I only added ninety one new individuals to that family tree in the past two weeks. Those have mainly come from continuation of previous months' research projects, which are always chugging away in the background. Still, the total count for the tree, after two weeks' work, is now 36,751 names.

However, of those eight DNA matches linked to James Kelly's line, there is one ThruLines suggestion which I cannot trace. Beginning at the top with James himself and moving forward in time, there is a disconnect at the level of a grandchild. I simply cannot find any documentation to identify that individual which ThruLines indicates as James' descendant.

If I can't see my way clear to the end, perhaps switching perspective and looking in the opposite direction—from the DNA match backwards in time, all the way to the ancestor during James Kelly's era—may help point out the connection. Or point out the error. Building a "quick and dirty tree," as CeCe Moore used to call it in her training sessions, may highlight the error in the Kelly connection—or perhaps help highlight how the suggested ancestor actually fit in. There have been several iterations of that original tree-building idea over the years, complete with caveats from experienced researchers. But the biggest hurdle, at least from my perspective, will be finding the time to actually do the work of building someone else's tree.

I had hoped that, building out my own take on the Kelly line—plus all the collateral lines—would prompt ThruLines to identify additional DNA connections, but that count of eight ThruLines Kelly matches has stayed set for quite some time. It's the luck of the draw if any other Kelly descendants will choose to test in the future—and that may only be augmented if James Kelly had any siblings whose descendants also survived down to the present generation.

In the meantime, this coming week it will be back to our alternate research strategy: examine the context of immigration through New Orleans for these Irish immigrants, and hope for some sign of a F.A.N. Club associated with the extended Kelly family.