It's About Time-Family History Search

07/17/2023

Pauline Boiselle

This beautiful sculpture was built by the Irish people in their own country to honor the American Choctaw Indian tribe. They were grateful because in 1847 the Choctaw people sent money to Ireland when they learned that Irish people were starving due to the potato famine. The Choctaw themselves were living in hardship and poverty, having recently endured the Trail of Tears.
And that is a lesson in how to be a person in this world.
Kindred Spirits is a large stainless steel outdoor sculpture in Bailick Park in Midleton, County Cork, Ireland. The shape of the feathers is intended to represent a bowl of food.

04/30/2023

08/08/2014

What started out as a dead end ("Oh we don't know much about them" someone said) turned into a heart-wrenching story.
And to think I was going to skip this photo. All it said was, "Cousin Gus ... & child ?"
Handed the family photos upon the matriarch's death, I knew the oral history:
Mary ran away from an abusive step-father to her uncle's -- a hundred mile trek about 1897. She always thought kindly of that uncle and his wife. They were there when she needed them. They were the only link Mary had to her deceased father, Anton, who had died back in Germany when she was only 3 years old.
Searching through online documents I was able to piece it all together: the uncle and aunt only had one child, a son.
That son, Mary's first cousin Gus, it appears married a 19 year old girl named Jennie, newly from Germany. They went on to have a son also, Albert. But for whatever reason, they were divorced within the first 10 years. There is sadness enough.
I was hoping to be in touch with descendents of this young Albert who by now would be in his late 80's. Then the last document popped up. Albert's grave! Not only had he died. But he had died before his 14th birthday in 1942.
"Cousin Gus & Child"... his son Albert about age 2. Bless them all.

01/17/2014

It's not easy to find records about Catholics in Ireland before the great famine of the 1840's. But here is an 1828 record of tithes on Catholic farmers to be paid to the Protestant Church of Ireland. And - BINGO - we find the sought after ancestor - Michael McLaughlin!

01/13/2014

WHEN IS AN “H” NOT AN “H”? WHEN IT’S AN “N”!

Looking for confirmation for the 1868 death notice of Catherine Enright in the Pittsfield newspaper. Since Enright might be a common name, perhaps it was not our ancestor.

We knew from the gravestone that her maiden name was Normile.
So we turned to the listing of death records, typed in a book. Ah shucks, it said that her name was Catherine H. Enright. Must not be our gal.

But we thought to just take a peek at the handwritten ledger. There is the “N” which is easily, mistaken for an “H.” That is our Catherine Normile Enright, all right.

01/12/2014