The Family Newsletter
When I began my genealogy search over thirty years ago I
simply wanted to find out more about my father’s family.
Just before my first trip to Ireland in 1988 I made a trip to Calvary
Cemetery to see the place where my grandparents were laid to rest.
I’m not exactly certain what I was expecting to find but to my sorrow
there was nothing there to commemorate their lives, save an empty patch of grass
among the surrounding monuments. How
sad I thought, there must be
something more to our earthly existence other than
birth and death, what about all
the in between? It is irksome at
times when I think about all the opportunities that presented themselves to me
where I could ask questions and didn’t.
But who doesn’t think to themselves at one point or another in their life
that if only I would have asked more questions when I had the opportunity.
On the positive side of things, I was going to do my best to find out the
answer to a question I had since I was five years. Who were my grandparents?
Thirty years ago I simply wanted to find out more about
my father’s family as I already had plenty of firsthand information about my
mother's family to build on. Just
before my first trip to Ireland in 1988 I made a trip to Calvary Cemetery to see
the place where my grandparents were laid to rest.
I’m not exactly certain what I was expecting to find but to my sorrow
there was nothing there to commemorate their lives, save an empty patch of grass
among the surrounding monuments. How
sad I thought, there must be
something more to our earthly existence other than
Born and Died,
what about all the in between?
One day in 1990 or thereabouts, I received a call from
my cousin Arthur who I hadn’t heard from in several years and he was asking
questions about our paternal grandparents.
He was in the process of applying for an Irish passport and needed help
with some of the details about the Sullivan family.
Unfortunately at the time I did not have much to offer and I’m not sure
what became of his efforts. Still
that wasn’t enough to jumpstart my interest in genealogy.
It wasn’t until my mother passed in 2003 that I began to find out more
about my Irish grandparents. And so I began to collect all the facts and details
through the online services and depositories that were available to me.
I became quite adept the research methods used by the more accomplished
genealogists and used them to all my advantage.
But there was something missing.
There must be I thought, a story to accompany all the
census figures and vital documents that I accumulated over the years. Surely
upon careful inspection a more intricate picture about these people would
present itself to me. An analogy
which comes to mind is that of someone relating statistics about an epic match
between two teams as opposed to someone who coherently organizes the facts in
order to tell the story.
Reading between the lines is a speculative effort at best, and researcher must
avoid embellishment as well as prejudice in an effort to bring the story to
life. It is not up to us to elevate
or tear down or question the motivations of people we never met, we just don’t
have all the information.
The ‘Tip’ newsletters are a collection of memories as
well as an effort to disseminate information gathered over the years.
When there is a story to tell, I tell it lovingly and without malice and
hopefully years from now when my story is told, I will receive the same
consideration when someone attempts to tell my story.