To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, the New England Historic Genealogical Society is allowing free access to its online Irish family history resources from 15-22 March. Sign up for access via the NEHGS's American Ancestors database at the following:…

The above is a picture of Loftus and Mary Gray, my great-great grandparents. Jack Holt, the husband of Mrs. Billie Jo Holt (who provided the above photo) is also a descendant of Loftus Gray. Jack's maternal grandfather was Walter Gray. The picture was given to Mrs. Holt by Anne Holt and later verified…

While in Ireland during what laughingly passed as a summer in 2015 I spent time doing maintenance at a graveyard. Three of us spent a few hours mowing and strimming Rath Graveyard near Ballyvaughan in County Clare. Well, I did the mowing and my companions hogged the strimmers. There was only a limited area where mowing…

Gracie Allen was born to George Allen and Molly Darragh, who were of Irish Catholic extraction. The Darraghs are listed as being from County Antrim with Gracie’s father, Patrick, born in 1833 and married Margaret Peggy McKillip from Ballymoney, County Antrim. The Darraghs were from County Antrim. Gracie’s father, Patrick, born in…

Mary Kate Neill was born on June 11th, 1900 in the tiny township of Graiguenaspiddoge in County Carlow. The 1901 census shows her ten months old. Her mother was Catherine or Kate Neill (née Cullen) aged 38, and her father Michael Neill aged 51. Born in 1850 just after the potato famine of 1845-7, he was a blacksmith. Graiguenaspiddoge was a row of 28 houses beside a main road in the countryside,…

When a "family detective" starts researching  “Royalty” connected to one’s family, there arises  women known as “Mistresses” and “Concubines”.  Most Kings had them. Do you know the difference in these terms or “titles”?

A concubine can be part of a harem, or a…

Bit, I told Janet earlier about you calling these kind of trips I make Fairy Trips....and she laughed. Later, she turned round and asked me what I had said about Fairies.

The more I think about this, I smile - travelling through Ireland with nary a care in the world, not worrying about where you are going because when you get there you will find something worth remembering - it is actually a fairy trip. Earlier today we were trying to get home from Castlecomer and I saw a sign…

Seventy million Irish diaspora know they have something intense and unexplainable coursing through their DNA. Perhaps, more than any other country in the world, Ire-land has left an extremely strong emotional connection to it's land through the DNA of it's people.   While we were…

Ireland's worldwide invitation to the Irish diaspora to come home in the very ambitious and controversial countrywide event "The Gathering" has exceeded all expectations.  A resounding success, especially for Irish tourism, the central statistics…

We continue and complete our interview with genealogist, author, producer and speaker Megan Smolenyak, wherein we discuss her work with Unclaimed Persons, finding the family of a World War I…

(photo courtesy of Megan Smolenyak)

Genealogist,…

We interviewed the "Indiana Jones of Genealogy," Megan Smolenyak, for this genealogy blog in a two-part post, ‘Connecting Across Oceans and Time’: Q&A With Celebrity Genealogist Megan Smolenyak…

I grabbed some Irish-related links from Megan Smolenyak, one of the world's leading genealogists, posted in a recent newsletter.

From the Huffington Post:  'Letter to Ireland Answered -- 28 Years…

By Susan Kimura



Salt Lake City — I conduct family-history research every day as finding my ancestors and learning about them is an important part of my life. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints (LDS), also known as Mormons.



The LDS website states: "FamilySearch is a service provided by…

Since the discovery of her Dublin Highwayman ancestor, Australian genealogist and author Barbara Hall has lovingly devoted herself to researching those Irish transported from their homeland to Australia on five convict ships.  Along with Cassie Mercer, editor of…

At the encouragement of some fellow members of TheWildGeese.com, I'd like to introduce myself to everyone here with whom I have not had the privilege of interacting (yet).  I've recently made the decision to combine two of my most ardent passions -- Irishness and photography -- into a new business venture.  That business is called Irish Homeland Photography.   I'm thrilled to be one of the very first…

My 'Irish' GGrandfather was not Irish at all!  I just discovered that my hunch that he deliberately hid his childhood turned out to be true and he did it by inventing an Irish background to camouflage everything about his parents poor Liverpool linage, but why did he choose to become Irish?  

I received my package from Bernardos Children's home on Thursday so I had time over the Easter Weekend to comb through the information and insert it all into my family tree. I couldn't pull my…