B112: Triumph in the face of Adversity

5/9/2023

Doing Your Family Tree

The wedding photo on our wall at home of Peggy’s grandparents, John Gough and Alice Mulcahy, first got me interested in family trees and genealogy. I wondered what their life had been like in Massachusetts, what had brought them back to Ireland in 1899 and what had become of their family…. especially their daughters born in America who had re-emigrated.

The wedding photo that kick-started my genealogy quest!

So started my quest over the last ten years or so to piece it all together. I had a lot of info to begin with as my mother liked nothing better than “tracing”. So, I had heard about the Goughs, Houihans, Gaizleys, Guirys, Mulcahys, Dalys, Hickeys, Quinlans and Lonergans on her side. My dad Mickey’s side is a bit trickier though. As he was 50 when I was born, generally his ancestors were going back further in time; though I knew there were Phelan/Whelans, McGraths, Bagges and Houlihans on his side.

Today, I have almost 15,900 people in my Ancestry.com tree!! I hasten to add that they are not all “blood” relatives as some are the family connections of in-laws. And I have thousands of DNA matches from all over the world. Along the way I got a lot of collaboration in pulling it together from cousins and friends for which I am forever grateful.

Above My Current DNA Matches - (left) Ancestry.com (right) MyHeritage.com

I’ve learnt a huge amount from doing the family tree. A tiny number of things I learned that I didn’t know before are set out in the attached photos. Some of it has been amusing. And some extremely sad.

Overall, it has been a hugely enriching experience, learning about the lives of those who have gone before me on whose shoulders I stand. Admiring their strength and fortitude. Learning about where they lived and what they worked at. From the start, I was not so much interested in the “rich and famous”… if indeed there were any….but more interested in the “ordinary” people who triumphed in the face of adversity. (That said, I did find I have tenuous links to both First Lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Audrey Hepburn!! 😊).

Above: My Family Tree Chart Going Back 4 Generations

Moreover, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know living cousins I never knew I had….and have had the privilege to even meet a few in person. I hope to continue doing so in the future and perhaps visit Massachusetts in particular to where many of my relations emigrated. I’ve also had lots of fun collaborating with cousins here, rekindling kinship on this side of the Atlantic.

So, today’s blog gives some advice on starting your own family tree. I would encourage everyone to give it a go if you have the time. Also, if any of you out there believe you might be related to me through any of the families above, I’d love to hear from you!

I learnt that both my paternal great, great grandfather, James McGrath (son's marriage registration above) AND my maternal great, great grandfather, William Mulcahy (death registration below) were Tailors!! (From www.irishgenealogy.ie)

Starting Your Family Tree

If you’d like some advice on resources to help you trace your ancestors, I’ve set out below some of the tools that I myself have used. Researching family history is a hobby that’s booming in popularity, especially since archives became accessible online and TV shows such as ‘Who do you think you are’.

There has never been a better time to research Irish family history in particular. The increased awareness of the huge numbers who descend from emigrants, and who cherish that historic connection, has had a dramatic effect. Politicians and public servants now accept that it should be as easy as possible for members of the Irish diaspora to unearth the historical detail of the connection, their family history. Publicly-funded websites such as:
IrishGenealogy.ie, genealogy.nationalarchives.ie, askaboutireland.ie, databases.dublincity.ie and nidirect.gov.uk/proni have gone about supplying the tools to make that possible.

Above: My brothers, Martin and John only lived 13 and 18 hours respectively 😢(From www.irishgenealogy.ie)

The result is that most people of Irish origin can now take their family back to the second quarter of the 19th century quickly and easily and, for the most part, without payment. I’ve set out links to those many free resources, as well as paid genealogy services which could help speed up the process or guide you towards records you may not have known existed. It also covers new ways to trace your ancestry using increasingly popular home DNA kits.

Getting started – ask your Aunty!!

Before you go near any records, be sure and talk to your family. It makes no sense to spend days trawling through databases to find out your great-grandmother’s surname if your Aunty Annie already knows it!

So first, talk to parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents - find out what they know before they’re gone for good. Everyone I’ve met who has an interest in genealogy regrets not asking more questions when we had the chance!! Most families have at least one individual who keeps track of the extended network of relatives, and if you can bend her ear (it usually is a her), you’re off to a good start.

Make sure to ask about any Memory Cards or old photos you’ve seen around at home.

Above: Memory Cards for my lovely paternal aunt, Katty, & lovely maternal grandfather, Jack. (RIP)

One of my late mother’s favourite pastimes was visiting graveyards to look at headstones. Bear in mind that dates on headstones are often wrong as the headstone may be erected years after a death when the grave is full! Nowadays, thankfully, many graveyards are online at findagrave.com. Many wonderful volunteers have taken the time to not only photograph and locate headstones but, in many cases, attach records of births, marriages and deaths as well as linking graves of relatives.

Above: Some family headstones from Carrick, Rathgormack, Worcester (Massachussets)
and Newtown (Co. Waterford) - RIP to them all

Old newspapers are brilliant for getting both obituaries and even stories about your relations. I use rip.ie and Google searches for obituaries (free) and irishnewsarchive.com (subscription) for local newspaper clippings.

The one big piece of advice I’d give is that you start from what you know and use it to find out more. Don’t begin with Brian Ború and try to work forward to yourself. Take your granny and granddad and work back from them…..compiling births, baptisms, marriages and deaths where applicable.

If the dates on the death registrations are correct, then my paternal great, great grandmother, Johanna Ferriter Whelan, was 17 years older than her husband, my great, great grandfather, Morgan Whelan!! (From: irishgenealogy.ie)

Useful Online Sources

Here are some online sources that I have used to discover where my ancestors lived in Ireland and other fascinating details about their lives.

1. The National Library of Ireland
The National Library of Ireland (NLI) has a wide range of ancestry resources, including digitised microfilms of historical documents. This resource is beneficial if you’re interested in searching parish and church records. You can search by a specific parish or county to reveal microfilms related to your family’s history.

However, your search will yield as many as hundreds of microfilms in some cases. Luckily, websites like Findmypast have indexed documents, which may help your research process.

Marriage of my maternal great grandaunt Alice Gough Keane to Walter Keane on 27 Nov 1900 in Worcester, Massachusetts. (From 3rd Cousin Sandra Power)

2. Family Search
Registration began for everyone in 1864, with non-Catholic marriages starting in 1845. The indexes are free to search up to 1958 at the Mormon site FamilySearch (familysearch.org/search/collection/1408347).

3. Irish Genealogy
Irish Genealogy is a wonderful free website run by the Irish Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht that offers access to various types of historical records. I’ve found a huge amount in my ancestors there for free! You can search these documents by name, place, date, and record type.
On this website, you’ll find birth, marriage, and death records within the following timeframes.

Birth records from 1864 to 1922 (100 year privacy rule*)
Marriage records from 1845 to 1947 (75 year privacy rule*)
Death records from 1871 to 1972 (50 year privacy rule*)

* it is hoped that new records will continue to be added each year in compliance with the stated privacy rule, so don’t forget to check back each year.

Church records on this site include documents from the Church of Ireland, Roman Catholic parishes, and a limited number of presbyterian church documents.

John & Alice back from US and living in Gurteen in 1901 Census with him working as Woodranger for de la Poers at Gurteen Castle (From http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/)

4. The National Archives of Ireland
A huge quantity of irreplaceable records was blown up in 1922 during the Irish civil war - almost all 19th century censuses for example - and sadly nothing will ever bring them back. On the other hand, there are only four universally relevant sources, civil records, church registers, censuses and tax surveys, and nearly all of them that survived are online and free.

The National Archives of Ireland is an excellent place to search for your ancestors for free. The archives are particularly useful for searching census records. However, they also hold various documents that may be challenging to track down, like marriage licence bonds, wills of soldiers, tithe applotment books for finding your ancestors’ land, and more.

I have found the 1901 and 1911 Census Records particularly useful (here). Here, if you’re lucky you might even get to see your great-grand-parents' signatures and overviews of names, family relationships and occupations. Be warned: being able to wander around streets and townlands peering into the neighbours' households can be completely addictive!!

Through this online source, you can pore over raw data or browse PDFs of original records. These options make the National Archives a great place to begin ancestry research.

The tragic story of my great grandaunt, Kate Gough Londergan who died in Massachusetts of meningitis at the age of 38 leaving her husband James with 11 children under the age of 16. (From: Ancestry.com Massachusetts Death Records, 1841-1915)

5. Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)
If you’re looking for information on ancestors from Northern Ireland, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) is where you’ll want to begin. PRONI holds many historical records, including surviving church records from various denominations in Northern Ireland.
Through the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, you’ll find tools to help you access public records and private archives. Their online guide to family and local history records will help you learn what’s available and how to access information on your Irish ancestors.

6. RootsIreland
RootsIreland is an online genealogy database run by the Irish Family History Foundation (IFHF). This website offers access to searchable indexes, making it easy to track transcripts and original records.

RootsIreland contains documents of marriages and deaths, as well as birth and baptism records. I have found it great for getting baptismal records which are often more accurate than the birth registration as baptism was more of a priority. It also holds other fascinating documents, like ship passenger lists and Irish gravestone inscriptions. You can search this database online by entering your ancestor’s name and the year you want to search.

7. Griffith’s Valuation
Griffith's Valuation (1847-1864) is a detailed property survey carried out to assess local taxes (aka "The Rates"). As things stand, it's the only comprehensive census substitute before 1901. It's free online at askaboutireland.ie, a site run by the Local Government Management Agency.

Like the census site, askaboutireland doesn’t take variant surname spellings into account, so ingenuity may be required as name spelling can be a challenge considering most of the population in the 19th century were illiterate labourers. Even in my own case the name Phelan/Whelan/Whalen were used interchangeably! One of the pluses of Griffith’s though, is the huge collection of accompanying valuation maps, overlaid on contemporary Google maps, making it possible to match the precise locations of houses and field boundaries in the 1850s with what survives today.

Extract from "The Forgotten Hurlers of South Wales .." by Daryl Leeworthy ... mentioning Maurice Gaizley, my maternal great grandfather,

8. Church Registers
For the years before civil registration in 1864, church registers of baptisms, marriages and burials are virtually the only direct sources of family information.
Roman Catholic registers generally start in the late 1700s or early 1800s in the more prosperous East and South-East, but only in the 1840s or later in poorer western counties. Almost all pre-1880 Catholic registers have been microfilmed by the National Library and digital images of the microfilms are freely available at registers.nli.ie.

Two commercial genealogy sites, FindMyPast and Ancestry, have transcribed them, with access free only on FindMyPast. Another commercial site, rootsireland.ie, (mentioned at 6. above) has been making transcripts since the 1980s and covers about 80 per cent of pre-1900 registers. One significant difference is that the rootsireland transcripts were made from the originals, not microfilm, and the difference in the quality of the transcripts can be striking.

Baptism of my great grandfather, Maurice Gaizley, in 1887 showing his parents, John Gaizley & Margaret (Peggy) Hickey. (From www.rootsireland.ie)

Baptism of my maternal great grandmother, Margaret (Maggie) Houlihan in 1887 showing her parents, John Houlihan & Bridget Daly. (From www.rootsireland.ie)

What you can expect to find
What you’ll uncover depends on the quality of the surviving records for the area of origin, on the point where you start and the most important ingredient of Irish research, luck. For most people the early 1800s is the more likely limit.

I’ve learned from John Grenham when doing my Diploma on Family History that “In Gaelic culture genealogy was of crucial importance, but the collapse of that culture in the 17th century, and its subsequent impoverishment and oppression in the 18th century, left a gulf that is almost unbridgeable”.

My Diploma in Family History which I got in 2019 when recovering from stroke.

Paying a genealogy company
So. as you get into it and hunger for more information, you’ll ask yourself if you really need to subscribe to commercial record-transcriptions sites such as rootsireland or ancestry.com or myheritage or findmypast.ie?

That is something you’ll have to decide for yourself but they do give levels of access not found in the free records. Rootsireland, for example, is purely Irish and uses the transcripts produced by the network of heritage centres set up in the 1980s. It makes possible all sorts of weird and wonderful searches. Want to see every Bridget Power who died in Co. Waterford between 1865 and 1875? (74 by the way!) Or every marriage involving a woman called Sarah Ryan in Co. Tipperary in 1879? (2 by the way!) Rootsireland is your only man.

Even the global genealogy sites have their uses. Many of the records free to search elsewhere are set up much more conveniently on Ancestry and FindMyPast. For example, if all you know is that your ancestor John Sullivan had a daughter Mary who was born around 1890, you can use Ancestry to search the 1901 census for all John Sullivans with a 10-year-old daughter Mary, something not possible on the National Archives site. (There are 138 matches.)

I’ve had membership of Ancestry.com since 2010 and joined MyHeritage in the last few years. It can work out expensive like any hobby…. but I think it’s worth it. Many of the dedicated websites will guide you through the process of building a family tree online which you can update as your research progresses. These websites can also alert you to anyone else researching the same people as you, giving you the opportunity to share your work.

Professional Researchers
Professional researchers can also be very useful. Someone who’s been scouring the records for decades, as most professionals have, sees angles, connections and shortcuts that elude a newcomer. At the very least, they can do in an hour what might take an amateur a day or more.

Accredited Genealogists Ireland (accreditedgenealogists.ie) includes many (but not all) of the self-employed professionals in Ireland. The Irish Family History Centre (irishfamilyhistorycentre.com) run by long-established research and publishing company Eneclann provides advice and commissioned research and has a walk-in centre as part of the emigration museum EPIC on Dublin's Custom House Quay just outside my door!!.

Ancestry has its own team of highly experienced professionals (progenealogists.com), focused primarily on North America, but with deep expertise in Ireland also.

Above: My parent's homes in Garravoone and Ballynob.

Genetic (DNA) genealogy
Genetic genealogy is the use of DNA testing to assist genealogical research. The key word is “assist”: DNA testing can never take the place of research, though it can be a very useful tool in solving particular problems.

I’ve taken the next few paragraphs from John Grenham as I believe he explains it well! There are three kinds of DNA test used for genealogy, Y-DNA, mtDNA and atDNA. Y-DNA testing concentrates on the Y-chromosome, which exists only in males and is passed from father to son in a way that mimics the European practice of patrilineal surname inheritance.

Because of this, Y-DNA tests are particularly useful in single-surname studies, as they can provide a rough estimate of when the most recent common male ancestor lived. When a mutation or transcription error occurs in a particular man’s Y-chromosome, that mutation or error is then passed down to all his male descendants, making it possible to trace every male with that error back to him, the common ancestor.

Different parts of the genome mutate at different rates, varying from only three or four times in the history of humanity - useful perhaps for prehistoric migration studies - to once every six or seven generations. These latter more rapidly mutating “SNPs” (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) are the ones targeted in all three genetic genealogy tests.

Death of my Grandaunt Mary Gough Gee 1858-1930 & her granddaughter Mary Gee 1927-1930 (From: irishnewsarchive.ie)

The second type of test, mitochondrial or “mtDNA”, follows the maternal line. Mitochondria are energy-producing organelles that are long-standing symbiotes in the cells of many living things. Their DNA is not part of the human genome, but is passed from mother to daughter in a way analogous to the male Y-chromosome.

Men receive their mitochondrial DNA from their mother, but do not pass it on. Again, testing for mutations can provide evidence for the period when the most recent common female ancestor lived. The big difference is that mitochondrial DNA changes much more slowly over time than Y-DNA and is thus of use mainly for deep ancestry.

Autosomal or atDNA testing uses DNA taken from the 22 non-sex chromosomes, in other words all of the genome apart from the X and Y chromosomes. Because everyone inherits half the DNA in these 22 from each parent, the average share of DNA inherited from direct forebears halves at each generation.

So everyone has, on average, a quarter of their DNA from each grandparent, but only one-16th from each great-great-grandparent. This means that when comparing autosomal DNA tests, the results are reliable only out to second-cousin level, perhaps a century and a half. Beyond that, how results can be interpreted depends on documentary research or on having multiple family members tested.

Waterford Co. Council Road gang with BOTH of my grandfathers, Martin Whelan (3rd from left at back) and Jack Gough (1st from right at front) - c. mid-1930s

One point to be kept in mind is that all genetic genealogy depends on examining the here-and-now and deducing information about the past. In other words, test results are compared with the results of others and a statistical analysis of those results is then performed. The quality of the analysis depends entirely on the number of other test results in the comparison. Many of the problems with genetic genealogy stem from collections of test results that are just too small to draw sound conclusions.

The three main companies are Ancestry.com, MyHeritage, Family Tree DNA and 23andMe, all offering tests worldwide. Ancestry and 23andMe sell tests in Ireland as a subset of the UK market. All provide extensive online interpretation and follow-up on their websites.

Ancestry only does autosomal testing and has by far the largest database of results for comparison, with more than four million test results. Because of this, its “Genetic Communities” section can provide very useful solid evidence of 19th century place of origin in Ireland. The other two companies perform all three tests.

I personally did the Ancestry DNA test and the results have allowed me to make many new connections and fill in many blanks on my tree. I also uploaded the results to MyHeritage and this threw up even more useful leads and connections so I would indeed recommend!

A very useful way to compare results with as big a collection of tests as possible is via the free, open-source website, www.gedmatch.com. This allows the upload of any of the commercial test results together with a family tree in the standard GedCom format. Multiple DNA comparisons are then possible, as well as a cross-check with family information.

My Paternal Grandmother, Winifred McGrath Phelan, 1876-1958

Connecting with relatives
One of the most satisfying aspects of family history research is the awareness of ever-expanding interconnectedness. You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents …so nine generations back, about two and a half centuries ago, you have direct links to 128 families. That’s a lot of cousins!!

One of the most innovative social media initiatives of recent years is also based on that compelling sense of connecting extended family and re-knitting lost kinships. I have found Facebook and WhatsApp really great for this! There are numerous Facebook groups dedicated to the diaspora from specific areas (for example Things I Miss About Carrick on Suir (https://www.facebook.com/groups/656396771067851) and also several localised genealogy Facebook pages. WhatsApp makes comms between family groups very easy.

Ireland Reaching Out (irelandxo.com) is a volunteer-based, non-profit group that aims to build links between the global Irish diaspora and parishes of origin in Ireland. The way it works is simple: a group of local volunteers in Ireland (very often local historians) act as a liaison between emigrants or emigrants' descendants and their locality of origin.

My Maternal Great Granduncle, Maurice Mulcahy 1864-1914, who emigrated to New South Wales, Australia where he married this lady, Mary Ann (Polly) Faulkner 1869-1963 in 1887 when he was 23 and she was 18. (From: Their Great Granddaughter & my 3rd Cousin, Margaret Wainwright McKinlay)

So hopefully you haven’t found the above too daunting! And hopefully you’ve found it useful! Yes, tracing your family tree can be a very time-consuming hobby, but don't underestimate the thrill of unearthing results! Some days will be more successful than others so you can expect peaks and troughs as you gradually piece parts of the puzzle together. You may also find that you can share some of the work load when your research over-laps with someone else's. That's just one reason to make contact with people who are connected to your family tree. In fact, a large part of the fun is about sharing research and stories.❤️❤️Good luck!!

Bucket List Items Ticked Off in the above Blog 112
Number 20 - Creative

Create a Family Tree with at least 4 Generations

Other Blog Posts
Blog 11 - Sydney, Australia
Blog 12 - Hong Kong, China
Blog 17 - Beijing, Xi'an & Shanghai, China
Blog 19 - California, USA
Blog 27 - Scotland
Blog 28 - Barbados
Blog 29 - Canada
Blog 30 - Alaska
Blog 31 - Everglades, Florida

Have you done a family tree? Tell me about your experience in the comments section below.

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