Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

The days since my research trip to Dublin, Ireland have quickly slipped away, but in addition to the travel log that I already blogged about, it's important to expand upon the most exceptional discovery I made. What better time to reflect on that find than on St. Patrick's Day? For a full look at how the discovery came about, click here for Day 3 of my Dublin adventures last year in 2023. Kira D. Foltz at the National Library of Ireland, October 2023 It was my very first day of doing research in a foreign country. I was in the Manuscripts Reading Room of the National Library of Ireland, and I was digging through the estate papers of the Cole-Bowen family in hopes of finding any mention of my Keeffe/O'Keeffe ancestors of County Cork. But more importantly, I was hoping to find a map of the local area in which they lived during the famine years.  National Library of Ireland Manuscripts Room, October 2023 The smallest unit of land is called a "townland" in Ireland, b...

Continuing my work on the Keeffes of Cork, the following is a log of information on the family I’ve uncovered over the past couple of years from record groups overseas. I hope to discover plenty more when I travel to Dublin later this year and get a chance to research in the National Archives and National Library of Ireland. Here is a recap of the discoveries made on this side of the Atlantic: Catching Up With the Keeffes During COVID . As to information I’ve gleaned from Ireland’s resources of late, one of the most beneficial was by an Irish local. The site IrelandXO functions as a message board and information hub for the public to reconnect to their Irish roots. Mostly managed by volunteers, the website’s mission is to seek out the Irish diaspora worldwide, knowing full well that millions of natives left the island in the mid to late 1800s and settled in all parts of the world.  I posted a query on one of the virtual boards in regards to the exact location of Lismonihis in Cou...

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 ...