Ramblings On A Hot Summer's Day

     There are times lately when working on my family tree at Ancestry.com feels more like data entry than genealogy.  Hints are continually popping up which is good, but it's getting a little overwhelming.  Having already found most of the available online information pertaining to my direct ancestors, most of the new hints are for peripheral relatives.  Now I end up dropping my current research into ancestors I'm more interested in to clear out the pages of hints.

     I've come to miss the act of real in person research and the thrill of finding that piece of information that had been eluding me.  As they say, the hunt is part of the fun.  It's so easy to become preoccupied with winnowing through those endless hints that I sometimes fail to stop and give due consideration to what the facts are telling me.  Not just the research paths they could point me towards, but the stories of the human beings involved, their motivations, emotions, and everyday lives. Which fascinate me every bit as much as finding a new fact.

     My Irish ancestors are my main interest. After decades of scrutiny I've discovered the stories one hears of chain migration and "clannishness" are essentially true. It's one thing to read that, but another to see it for yourself. Comparing Irish land and church records with similar American records the patterns are easy to spot. In Palmyra, New York there were large contingents from Counties Tipperary and Laois, (formerly Queens County). Now when I see the surnames Delaney, White or Keyes in documents I automatically think, Laois. Ryan, O'Dwyer, and Hogan bring Tipperary to mind. The city of Auburn in New York became home to many immigrants from Kildare, Carlow and Wicklow. The Coleman, McGarr, O'Hora, and Kinsella families, names heard in Auburn to this day, all hailed from those counties. It's amazing to find an individual in Irish baptismal records and then find that same person in a marriage record in New York. I know much of this from research in offices and repositories and can confirm much of what they have has never made it online.

    
    Shaky leaves will never be the equal of years spent poring over entries in church registers, OSI maps and other sources. I learned a lot in the hours spent reading line by line. For one thing the indexes of church records do not include the names of sponsors and witnesses, very pertinent pieces of information. I would have missed entirely my third-great-grandfather being a baptismal sponsor to the child of a family who later turned out to be related had I relied only on searching an index for him. In a way I'm grateful I had to start my research the hard way before indexed records were available, although indexed history books are a Godsend.

The British loved to hold hearings on social and economic conditions in Ireland then compile notes and statistics on same. Many of these can be found at Google Books and are full of details about different areas of Ireland. I've even found an interview done in the 1840's with my ancestor's parish priest. Daniel McGarr, a small farmer living in the back of beyond, would never make it into a book, but the observations of his priest are the next best thing.

     My point is, there are so many questions that Ancestry and their hints can't answer. They are indeed helpful but can't take the place of in depth research, so much would be missed by not looking any further.