Not long ago, I was persuaded to republish a 2002 article I wrote about genetic genealogy, and much to my surprise, readers loved it. After that experience, I decided to take an occasional dive into my archives and re-share selected old favorites. Some are timeless in nature, but even those that are dated, have some useful insights. I hope you’ll enjoy my “Genealogy Classics.”

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Ireland on a vacation sprinkled with a dash of genealogical ambition. I had been there twice before, but promised myself I would not return until I had at least one ancestral village to visit. Being half-Irish in origin, with a total of six immigrant ancestors from the auld sod, I didn’t think this was an unreasonable standard. After all, I just had to find the home parish of any of these six forebears. But it took me more than a few years to succeed.

Lucky Break

As those of you who have dabbled in Irish research know, it can be rather challenging. My break came a few years ago when I was invited to speak at the NGS conference in Portland, Oregon. I had grown up with one of those Oregon Trail tales in my family and it pertained to the sister of one of my immigrant great-great-grandmothers, Ellen Nelligan Murphy. I decided to head to Oregon five days early to see what I could learn about this branch of my family. A wonderful genealogical adventure that took me to churches, court houses, county and state archives, cemeteries, and even a morgue (truly testing the limits of my then-fiancé’s patience) culminated in my meeting a couple of distant cousins who were the proverbial “last in their line.”

Now in their 80s and 90s, respectively, they were two generations closer to the old country than I was, and one of them provided the magical nugget I needed. He had no idea how to write them, but phonetically gave me the names of the towns (supposedly fairly close to each other) from which his grandparents hailed. Combing maps of Ireland, I found a likely pair of candidates: Listowel in Co. Kerry and nearby Abbeyfeale in Co. Limerick.

Since most of the records from this region were not available in the U.S., I hired a researcher in Ireland to have a look at Catholic church records from these two towns, but both came up blank. Fortunately, since they were a mere seven miles apart, there were only two Catholic parishes between them, and I had already researched one of them using FHL records. A search of the last remaining parish – Dromlegagh, Duagh – finally revealed my Nelligan clan on its home turf. (2024 remark: Many of these records are now available online.)

The Voyage

Now having an Irish “hometown” to visit, I arranged the trip, bearing in mind the promise I made to my now-husband that the entire journey would not be restricted to graveyards. I claimed the first few days for puttering around in my ancestors’ neighborhood and one day for visiting the Cobh Heritage Centre (to see their counterpoint to Ellis Island – The Queenstown Story exhibit about the three million emigrants who departed from this port), and allocated the rest to traditional sightseeing, such as queuing up to kiss the Blarney Stone and terrorizing locals by driving on the wrong side of the road on the Ring of Kerry.

While unfortunate for Ireland, the fact that this was their worst year for tourism in a decade meant that we could be as flexible as we liked in our itinerary with no worries of there being “no room at the inn.” Early in the trip, I read an entertaining book called McCarthy’s Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland by Pete McCarthy. According to him, the eighth rule of travel is “Never pass a bar that has your name on it.” Had I been pursuing my Murphy roots, this might have been a problem since my hindquarters would have been almost permanently affixed to one stool or other, but with the Nelligan name being considerably less common, it seemed a useful travel tactic. (2024 remark: It’s hard to believe now that Ireland ever had a tourism lull.)

My Own Rules

I stretched McCarthy’s rule a bit for my own purposes, though, and ultimately visited a pub, bakery and even an accounting firm with the name Nelligan on them, all in the small region in which my ancestors had lived. The pub was a bit of a disappointment, attached as it was to a hotel and designed to seem authentic as opposed to actually being so, but I was surprised to feel a sense of pride at just how good the bread from the Nelligan bakery was. The proprietor, Charlie Nelligan, was probably a cousin after all! The last netted me a startled look from a bookish-looking gentleman who graciously recovered and took us to lunch, in spite of the fact that this was not the first time foreign, Nelligan-seeking strangers had strayed into his office. Although the paper trail is too spotty to prove it, it appears that this fellow is probably a fourth cousin once removed – and barging in on him earned me the names of a few possible American and Australian cousins as well. (2024 remark: The bakery sadly closed about a decade later, so the memory is even more special now.)

It didn’t occur to me until we had seen more of the country, but I developed another rule that I will use the next time I visit based on the overwhelming number of B&Bs we saw (everyone with a spare bedroom seems to have one) and a change that’s transpired since my last Irish jaunt. Whereas most Irish towns used to be rather monotone with grey predominating, someone got the idea to paint virtually every building in the same vivid colors often associated with the Caribbean. Consequently, just about every village now looks like a picture postcard. Such is the explosion of color, in fact, that my new rule is this: To add spice and a bit of a theme to your journey, choose a color and only stay in B&Bs of this pigment – all hues acceptable. If you try it out anytime soon, please let me know how it goes.

Lessons Learned

In addition to learning that walking in on strangers is a genealogical productive exercise, I took home several other lessons that might prove useful to those of you planning a trip to Ireland:

  • Stop at the church your family attended, even if the records have already been searched at the National Archives in Dublin. I was surprised to find that the Dublin records included a baptism that the locally based records didn’t, and that the reverse was also true. By the way, priests are so accustomed to roots-seekers that they probably won’t even react to your appearance at their door. And of course, it’s always common courtesy to make a donation for their kindness in receiving you. (2024 remark: What I said here about finding random records in one resource and not another remains true today!).
  • The quality of the heritage centres scattered around the country varies widely. Some are not much more than a collection of shops designed to separate tourists from their money, but others – such as the impressive Flasket Islands Heritage Centre – will leave you educated and moved. (2024 remark: There’s been considerable improvement since this time.)
  • Visit any cemeteries in and near your parish of origin. The one in Duagh rewarded me with a tombstone for an ancestor who had lived 1721-1788, and others from the three closest parishes provided me a collection of possible relatives I’ll now research and try to patch into the family tree.

So now I’ve tramped in the footsteps of one of my Irish immigrant ancestors, and all in all, it was a wonderful experience. My roots give me a perfect excuse to return at least five more times – and just to set myself a bit of a challenge, I think I’m going with pink the next time.

Originally published in November 2003.