Targeting Those who Escaped Detection

 

It's a new year, once again. While most people spend this brand new day with forward-looking thoughts, instead, I took some time for a retrospective approach. In selecting yet another year's Twelve Most Wanted to research for 2026, I wanted to target the ancestors who somehow escaped detection in past years so I can focus on them in the coming year.

Not only is today a day we celebrate as New Year's Day, but for my Twelve Most Wanted, today is the day I shift from selecting ancestors from my mother-in-law's line to finding which ancestors from my father-in-law's family need attention.

To do this, I drew up a list, not by date but by each ancestor's identity. For each of my father-in-law's eight great-grandparents, I noted the date for which I had selected that ancestor as my focus for the Twelve Most Wanted research schedule, all the way back to the first year I had initiated this process.

For instance, beginning with my father-in-law's patriline, I noted that I had worked on John Stevens in August of 2022. I tangentially researched that line once again the next month while researching John's second wife, Eliza Murdock. And in July of 2024, I once again poked and prodded around records for John's potential brother, Hugh Stevens. Still, no headway gained.

I repeated this inventory process for the remaining seven of my father-in-law's eight greats. Each one had two or three entries among each year's Twelve Most Wanted along the route from July of 2020 through the completion of last summer—all, that is, except for one. That one lone ancestor lacking in-depth research as one of my Twelve Most Wanted was John Kelly, my father-in-law's paternal grandmother's own father.

Oh, groan, as a good friend of mine used to say. Looking for someone named John Kelly in Ireland? Why not try launching a needle into a large haystack and see what can be found? With one of the most common surnames in Ireland, coupled with one of the most popular given names for Ireland's sons, this quest of seeking John Kelly's roots is surely doomed to failure. However, I can't not at least give it my best go.

This year, I've promised myself to make those Irish ancestors a chief focus. Though I'm still awash in doubts, I'm willing to sail in that direction and make July the month I'll focus on Irish-born American immigrant John Kelly. This time, hopefully there will be some clues over there in County Kerry, where John apparently met and married his wife, Johanna Falvey. If we never try our hand at smashing through those brick walls, we're sure to never make it to the other side.