Sometimes, I Just Wanna . . .

 

...hop on plane and fly to Ireland and search for those ancestors' records in person. 

It's nearly the end of another month, and I've yet to make any breakthrough on my father-in-law's great-grandmother, Johanna Falvey. I can presume that her sister was named Gobnait—or Gobineta, or Debora, or even Abby—but I'd feel more confident in that if I could find further documentation. I can also presume that Johanna had younger brothers named Patrick and whatever actual Irish name the family might have used instead of Demetrius. But find any further record that could reasonably be linked to those family members? Not really. Not even by a thorough search through microfilmed records online.

Even exploring the discovery of "Debora" and her husband, Daniel Cullinane, while leading me to a couple possible immigrant sons through DNA matches, has not yielded any further leads. For this family, too, I've searched through available Irish records to find any trace of the Cullinane children without much success. There is so much more work to be done on this collateral line.

And yet, those DNA matches taunt me to find a connection. There is obviously one there, even if I can't see it. 

Along the way, I've certainly built a list of resources to consult for similar research questions about Irish roots. As I explore Irish civil registrations post-1864, juxtaposing townlands and registration districts, I've found resources not only for my Falvey question in County Kerry, but for use in research in the other counties in Ireland. From an overall guide to finding registration districts at FamilySearch.org to some tools for looking up specific townlands and their corresponding overarching government jurisdictions—for example, the Falvey family's townland of Knockauncore—I've saved these resources, and more, for future projects.

There will be more such projects to come. After all, my father-in-law claimed one hundred percent Irish heritage, with three of his grandparents born in Ireland, as well as all eight great-grandparents. Even though this month is coming to a close—and thus, we'll need to set aside our quest to discover more about Johanna Falvey's roots—we'll have one more Irish ancestor to search for in the coming month.