Family history service is primarily based on Forensic record research, personal consultation and guided tours.
Currently in these covid pandemic times confined SELF ISOLATED are keen to take up the tracing hobby to do their own family trees. Assisted SEARCH requests are being answered positively.
Most have yearned to do this, but for many it is somewhat aspirational aim due to time poverty and lack of knowledge. It’s quite innate to know who you are, where you came from , what good / traits inherited, what your people did do for a living, pastimes played political alignments , religion etc.
We all possess 2 parents, 4 grand parents, 8 great grand parents and so on.
In 520 years you can have 670,000 direct ancestors assuming a 30 year generation gap.
Did your people poach take part in faction fights where the blackthorn stick was wielded to test skull fragility of the tribal opponent at the fairs. Were there fierce slashers of the caman / Hurley for the pride of the little parish.
Were there any convicts like Infamous bushranger Ned Kelly in Australia.
Any skeletons discovered in cupboards.
Tracing is the World’s oldest pastime on a misty journey into the past to find people live and dead, dates of birth, marriages, deaths & emigration. Places of birth, residence, work.
Use of censuses starting in 1766 , property valuations, estate records , deeds, wills, emigrant including eviction records often indicating place of birth, military records, liaising with online family trees even though 50% are incorrect worldwide, DNA tests and interpretation.
Issue of annual dog licenses from mid. 1800’s often tied down the homes where rural people lived. Irish family Search Commisioned research is seamlessly allied to personal tours by chauffeured drives from Cruise, Ships,airports, Railways etc
The tours range from visiting historic sites to ancestral homesteads, churches where ancestors were baptised, married and family memorial services held. Visitors like to take holy water from the water fonts. Graveyards where mementos like headstones have been known to be “lifted”.
Pagan well and pattern day visits to pray for medical cures often fell by the way of debauchery as poteen flowed liberally.
Due to current Brexit a big surge in Irish Citizenship applications based on the grandpa rule as used by Irish soccer team managers. There are 800 Unclaimed estates where Irish people have died in UK without making a will and having no immediate kin.
Family clan gatherings arranged specially where DNA testing and ged matching has unearthed many new cousins.
FAMILIES TRACED
Family History traced for Carroll Spinney aka Big Bird from S
Fames Sesame Street had Mary Fagan as a Westmeath grandmother.
Israeli Lili Struse Roth Austwitz survivor from Tel Aviv / Slovakia revisited Clonony Castle, Delvin 73 years after her stay there for recuperation after WW2. As an Austwich concentration child survivor she came to Ireland as a Jewish refugee when they were shunned all over Europe. De Valera came to the rescue here. 103 children came for 8 months to the Castle before their repatriation to Israel. On arrival back after 72 years she found that Clonony Castle was in Nama and off limits to all including RTE’s Kieran Mullooly film Crew. With the help of the local parish priest I arranged a visit to the Castle with the caretaker family. Lili was totally amazed that the bedroom cornicing design had not changed one iota since her stay back then. Seeing that room was her eureka moment.
Noted US genealogist Jay Norwalk from Maine arrived to Ireland having researched his Mitchelstown Hennessy ancestry , only to be met by John Hennessy to inform him that he had found the wrong family of the same surname in that townland of Knockagarry going back to 1857.
I was hastily contacted to redirect the research. We found in-laws which lead us to unearthing 96 cousins including a 98 year old lady who knew more than all the rest put together.
My wife Mary Hammersley has met her 11th cousin from Australia due to her church of Ireland / Cromwellian Army ancestry since they arrived to Cullen and Carnahalla Tipperary from Staffordshire in 1649.
Michael Fox my 4 x great grand uncle was transported as a convict to Van Damian’s land in 1807. He was charged for cutting down a tree on the estate of Lord Darby’s of Ballykisteen house. He was an absentee landlord living in Dublin. Michaels Fox’s birth place known as Coogey / Cooga Doon was recorded on his Australian Naturalization application, Whereas He and His siblings townland of Cooga was not recorded on any of their church baptismal records in Doon.
Fox Gatherings were held in Cashel 2000 Tullamore 2001 and Ballykisteen 2019. There were Stories of bad blood of between Higgins & Foxes in laws both living in small 10 acre farms in Foilaclug Hollyford. Trespass of pigs , goats caused endless attendance at Cappawhite petty court sessions as well as for physical brawling at the cattle fairs with fines of 2s 6d imposed for their trouble. Michael Fox who fought in a faction fight in 1882 at Cappawhite came home with a badly damaged skull only to be coldly admonished by parents Tom & Bridget who said to him “ where the hell were you going to Cappawhite Fair with a thin skull” He emigrated to Australia, but died soon after.
Division of an American legacy of a Higgins ancestor left another rift between the families ,as land purchase share was subsequently found to be unequal when they moved to Grantstown & Glebe.
Expression of interest in Ballyhoura area namely big gaa club games, community games, concerts, sessions, dancing at cross roads 45 card games croquet, Road bowling, pageants tourist event under Ballyhoura Failte / heritage. Popular tourist routes loughgur lake, DonerAile House, Vee in Clogheen, Mount Mellary , St. Fanahans Well Mitchelstown, Mitchelstown Caves, Labbyacally Monolithic tomb Glanworth, Galtee castle Yoga, libraries.