Chris Erskine is waxing lyrical in the Saturday edition of the LA Times this morning about LaLa Land and I am reaching out to cousins in Ireland. The Irish stories I have found while doing genealogical research have affected me. It can be hard to find solid connections within the records. Looking for the children of a great-great aunt I find people with the same names. Do I choose the girl who was shipped to Australia as an orphan to be put to work as a servant. The boy who ran away from the workhouse. The young man who was sent to prison for steeling 2 cows. Or the people of the same name who prospered and had children.
Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt today was to open a book and pick a word, phrase, or sentence and write about it. I have been going through databases which are like big books and finding words and sentences describing people’s lives.
I did find some living cousins in Ireland and will be sending a letter and have sent an email from their long lost cousin in America.
Featured image of Nenagh Castle (tower) in Tipperary.
Notes Tied On The Sagebrush 
Why must you choose between them?
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I really can’t just choose or at least I won’t. I have to wait for better information to verify the relationship and I may never know for sure. It just makes me worry about what happened to them. The orphan girl who was shipped to Australia did get married. With some people there is no trace. They could have died in the great famine or from something else. Just hope that they had some happiness. Wanted to write about the contrast in the lives of people with the same names.
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It’s like opening doors, or which road to take. Trust your intuition. Enjoy the adventure!
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I have learned a lot and just hope the people I have mentioned had some happiness in their lives.
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Me, too. I bet they had moments. Sure makes me more thankful.
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They lived through very hard times with the great famine. I read that over 77,000 people died in Tipperary alone. There was not much help for the destitute. You could end up in the workhouse or like one orphan girl, get shipped to Australia. Many people who emigrated, desperate to leave Ireland, were malnourished and in ill health. It was the stuff out of Dickens,..”are there no workhouses?”
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Thank you for keeping their memories alive.
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You have a lot of work cut out for you with all those leads. I’ll bet it will be exciting.
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I have to keep reminding myself that it is great that I have been able to find as much information as I have about many people on my tree. It is hard when you don’t know what happened to people but I need to be realistic and acknowledge that I may never know because records are just not there for some.
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Have you read The Cruelty Men? I’ll bet you’d find that fascinating. It has some harsh, but real Irish history.
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I haven’t read it and just looked it up. It is getting some good reviews. I think I would have to steel myself to read it though. I saw the film ‘Philomena’ and that was good. This book sounds a bit like that story.
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