Irish Genealogy Presentation

Betty McCain and Carol Arthur prepare for an hour filled with the dulcet tones of my voice.

Last Tuesday I did my Irish Genealogy presentation in front of about 34 people, which is a lot to be smooshed into the local history room.  Some came in from Wake County, which was nice of them to drive that far. We also had a special guest: Betty McCain, the former Secretary of the Department of Cultural Resources 1993-2001.  It is always a joy to see her. Everyone appeared to be entertained by the presentation and there were some great questions at the end. One person even came back the next day and broke down some brick walls with the databases and resources I highlighted in the talk.  So I would call it successful!

Irish Genealogy Program

ALL Irish Records Free for the First Week in March on Find My Past

Find My Past has pulled up the portcullis, unlocked the barbican and lowered the drawbridge on their records this week.

So drain the moat on those ancestors as quick as you can before I’m forced use even worse literary devices.

Irish Genealogy

My mother, Katherine Robinson with her namesake, grandmother and Irish immigrant Katherine Quigley. She was in her 90’s in this picture.

If you are interested in Irish Genealogy then next month will be reason to celebrate, because Ancestry is adding the searchable Irish Catholic Parish Registers to its database.

This is going to blow down many brick walls for a lot of descendants of the great Irish diaspora, of which I count myself among.  Most of my ancestors were Protestant Ulster Scots who came to America in the mid 1700’s from Ireland and this is not going to help in my search for them….but my great-grandmother, Katherine Quigley, emigrated from County Roscommon, Ireland in 1893 to Philadelphia.  She was Catholic and would have been included in the Catholic parish records.

On a related note, I am traveling to Ireland at the end of May to stay with some friends in Dublin and then meet my extended family in Roscommon, where I can peruse the actual records if I wish.  But I will probably be too busy dowsing for gold hoards, scuba diving for bog mummies and inspecting tapestries.

Actually, I might look at some records, but mostly I will be concentrating on oral histories from my kinfolks that I am very excited to meet.

Reference: Genealogy Insider

Kate Quigley on the ship she immigrated to America on in 1893, the Lord Clive. It says that she is traveling to Philadelphia and staying with her sister Mary. It even lists Mary’s address, which according to Google Maps is now just warehouses.  The record also state that she left form Queenstown, a city that has now reverted back to its original Irish name of Cork.

 

Photo from The Irish Aesthete