Discovering the Past The third in our series of articles on researching your family history into Ireland. We are at the point now where you have identified as many current relatives as you have or know of, by organizing the information into pedegree and genealogy charts and group format help sheets, you should now have a solid foundation base from which to explore your deeper roots. So before becoming a library mole or a bookworm scholar, the time has come in your journey to "Get Social". Theoretically, every living soul in your current family tree should be contacted and encouraged to share their knowledge of your common history, and become involved in your quest. First cousins, second cousins, great aunts and uncles, distant relatives with the same ancestors, and even in-laws if interested. Starting with the elder members of your extended family, you will want to establish or re-establish contact, and find a way to discuss and explore your heritage together. Sadly, this is often one of the biggest obsticles in the pursuit of family history. Anyone familiar with general history will know that most of the battles, wars, and trials of the world were the result of in-fighting amongst family members, near relatives, and peoples of common roots. If one side of your family does not speak to the other, unfortunately you are missing half of your history. If some relatives have avoided shaking up "hidden skeletons", then the biographies and stories you are trying to discover might not be openly true. If some members of your family are not interested, or cannot be contacted, then you might be missing an important piece of knowledge evidence which could link you to a specific community or events in Ireland. Family traditions, photographs, documents, heirlooms, hearsay, and even rumors, from all sides of the family, each have their place as puzzle perspectives, like faces of a diamond, all bound in the same nugget, reflected, pointing to the clues, proposals, and theories of that solid core of facts. If your heritage history is a bit of a mystery, then you need all the help you can get. If you are looking for ancestors, every related descendant is a vital link to the past. The other, common sense, reason for gathering all existing known information first, is to avoid re-inventing the wheel. Why spend years in archival research, or the money it might involve, if your grandmother's cousin has already written about her days in Ireland for her parish newsletter. If she was the last of her generation to remember the immigrant travels, or she only told her eldest son, you might miss out on otherwise hard to find details. The further back in generations you know, the larger the potential group of relatives who have the same ancestors of which you are anxious to learn. If any one of these received the family bible with birth dates, or was given the same middle name as Grandpa Riley's mother's maiden surname, or they were taught a song about a village burning; these fellow descendants have information you likely need for your family history goals. How do you deal with un-responsive social communications outreach? How do you find or contact these relatives you may not even know about yet? What if you have exhausted all your known kin? It can be very frustrating, especially after preparing your organized charts and forms, let us say, showing 12 living relations over three generations, only to realize that cousin Mary never kept in touch with the other 10 on her side. You try to break the ice, by doing an internet search for Uncle Rory Hamlin. You find his address, and send an envelope by post. It returns one month afterward marked "forwarding unknown". You have a verified email for your neice's business enterprise, you introduce yourself, but never receive a reply. You see a forum on an internet blog about the Kelly's of Canfield, and you realize that the writer might be a distant relative because your Aunt was married there. They have published several webpages with some family history, but never mention your grandfather. You want to find out the name of the index where the writer found the baptisms or christenings lists. There is no contact information, and the webiste is seven years old. You find an inscription on some antique lace at your sisters, it has a year, place (of manufacture?), and initials. The initials match your grandmother, so you wonder if she came from the place described as Ballybyrne. You look up Ballybyrne on the internet and find at least eight different places called Ballybyrne in various spellings, scattered across Ireland. And even so, is that "actually" where she "came from" anyway? These are the types of challenges that send us into the genealogy swampland. We also trudge in that direction, a disapointing journey, after we have gathered all we can from busy, living relatives, gained nothing new, and still have not found what we are looking for. If you were lucky, your second cousin had a postcard, which he found in an old trunk full of musty clothing, which mentioned the creamery plant where Great Uncle Ben used to work. You look up the town and find it on the map, and confirm that your creamery used to be on the corner of Main and 5th. But is that where Ben "actually" lived, because there are several other villages nearby, all in walking distance to a job at the creamery. So as you can see, even with the help of ALL your family, you then begin to think outside the box, building upon all your gathered information, and starting to seek some background from other sources. Every clue you have compiled to that point, thus becomes the springboard to "Get Social" again. But this time, you begin to expand the circle of knowledge from your family out into the community. Have you talked to others from the creamery? the village? the parish? Have you contacted the local history groups? Have you coresponded with the regional archives? Have you discussed your search with the nearest library? with other researchers interested in the same time and place? You start to think, what would be the best process or sequence to explore the many associations of others that your relaives may have come in contact with during their life? In our next article, we will offer some more ideas, resources, and helpers, for the next steps on the trail. =welcome>about>help>back(to"help")>NEXT: Libraries

Or, in the Irish American News These suggestions, As published in the Irish American News, March 2013, page 68, "Genealogy". More Detailed Help Pages Coming Soon If you have any questions in the meanwhile, simply contact us. Topical Weblinks Methods of Sharing Online Networking "Family" history Extended Family Finding Living Links Gathering Clues Organizing Methods The Research Cycle Building Your Past Review Introduction Organizing Networking NEXT