Will it be Any Better The Next Time Around?

 

Every time I select another Irish ancestor to research from my father-in-law's roots, I wonder: will it be any better the next time around? There is such a dearth of Irish records. It seems like not much more than an invitation to jump into the document void when I choose another one of those Twelve Most Wanted for the year; all my father-in-law's ancestors came to America from Ireland, the land of destroyed records.

For this month, we'll return to puzzle over Johanna Falvey, my father-in-law's great-grandmother from somewhere in the region known as the Lakes of Killarney. My only positive signal is that her 1903 obituary mentioned being survived by several siblings remaining back in her Irish homeland.

As I mentioned back at the beginning of the year when I selected Johanna as the eighth of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025, it may be possible that any research progress we make will be thanks to the addition of more DNA matches. I've already been in correspondence with one Falvey DNA match. As if a sign of forthcoming serendipity, not long ago I received an email from another Falvey researcher who was sharing recent discoveries. Perhaps there will be more to find in Ireland, after all.

Each time I return to wrestle with those brick-wall ancestors, I struggle with the idea of trying, once again, to succeed at what I had already failed to accomplish in prior years. Then I remind myself of all the advances in online searching—FamilySearch.org's Full Text search, for instance—and I'm encouraged to try once again. This month's pursuit of Johanna Falvey Kelly will be one of those "once again" attempts at discovering her roots in County Kerry.