Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

When one imagines staying on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with the beach at their fingertips and palm trees canvassing the horizon in front of picturesque, cotton candy-colored sunsets, it's likely not to be in the thick of a world war. However, my grandmother, Edna Arlene (Dean) Millhouse, could recount just such a memory. Edna Dean on Tinian Island, 1945. During World War II, she utilized her training as a registered nurse to serve in the U.S. Army as a 1st Lieutenant. Edna Dean during World War II. While part of her service remained shoreside at Newton D. Baker General Hospital in Martinsburg, West Virginia, one of her wartime assignments brought her to the island of Tinian, part of the Northern Mariana Islands to the east of the Philippines and mainland Japan. Edna Dean in between her parents, Beatrice and Chester Dean at Newton D. Baker General Hospital. After Saipan was invaded, Tinian became the next target for the marine forces. The name Jig Day was ...

Have you ever heard of this commemorative holiday? It’s also known as the Glorious Twelfth, and is celebrated in Ireland each year to honor the Protestant king William III (the former Prince William of Orange)’s victory over the Catholic king, James II, at the Battle of the Boyne in the year 1690. During that year, the battle actually took place on the 1st of July, however, since that time, our calendars have changed from using the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, thus shifting the observation date to the 12th of July.  James II’s reign was the last time a king of the Roman Catholic faith has ruled as monarch over the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It should be noted that modern analysis of documents from that time suggest that soldiers of both Catholic and Protestant beliefs fought on both sides. Historically, this day has seen its fair share of violence on the streets of Ireland (particularly during the ‘Troubles’ of the 1960s-1990s), as it’s a quite contro...

In November 2020, I began intensively researching one of my maternal Irish lines, the O’Keeffes. I wanted to learn more about the direct impact the potato famine of 1847 had on my family. During my studies, I made some incredible discoveries practically all in one night, one after another, that you can read through here -- Potato Famine: The Great Hunger That Forced My Irish Ancestors to Flee to America . A few months later in May 2021, I followed up with this writeup on a grandson of my immigrant family -- William Thomas Murphy . This breakthrough helped me expand the search on the O’Keeffes here in the United States. But now, it’s about time I head to ground zero for this family, or at least ground zero-adjacent. I have a research trip planned in the fall of 2023 to Ireland that will be entirely focused on the O’Keeffe branch of my ancestral tree. I’ll be diving deep into record groups held by all the major repositories in Dublin. Kira D. Foltz, Dublin, Ireland, September 2019. This ...