Irish Ancestry and More

“Be careful about my country and my people and how we tell our history. We Irish prefer embroideries to plain cloth.” To us Irish, though, memory is a canvas – stretched, primed, and ready for painting on.

We love the “story” part of the word “history” and we love it trimmed out with color and drama, ribbons and bows.” “People say that we reinvent the truth, especially when it comes to the history of our famous oppression by England, the victimhood that has become our great good fortune.”

“…what is history but one man’s cloak cut from the beautiful cloth of Time?”
“Customarily, history is written by the victors: in Ireland the vanquished wrote it too and wrote it more powerfully.”
All who write history have reasons for doing so, and there is nothing so dangerous as a history written for a reason of the heart.
The deeper the reason, the more unreliable the history; that is why I say, “Be careful about me.” (Delaney, Frank. Tipperary. 2007. Random House. New York. P. 3-4)

Write your own history. Those emails that you send to your family each month. Turn them into a book about your family. Note that we no longer call it "genealogy" but "family history".

That is because we aren't only connecting family ties together but we are learning about our ancestors. We are learning about our heritage.

What makes us tick, why do we like certain things. What connects us to those from the past. We have their DNA, they are a part of us.
Flynn ancestral site Sharhanan Church.

We are enjoying our Church Service Mission at the Family History Center in Salt Lake city on the British Isles Service area (B2). We have learned more about English, Wales, and now Irish resources in books and on line that make connecting with your ancestors easier. We are now able to join the other missionaries in serving the patrons that come to research their British Isle's ancestors.

Here we are joined by our zone Leader Elder Cronk and the Head Consultant Eva as we receive our "British Flag" pin for completing the England & Wales Journeyman training.
We are now working on our Irish and then we'll go to our Scottish Journeyman training.
We are continually amazed at all of the avenues that allows one to search records without having to go to the country and now for a lot you don't even have to go out of your home.

The Family Search new beta program (www.beta.familysearch.org ) is marvelous as it is combining the IGI, Pilot,and extracted records from Church and Civil registries all into one location.


It gives not only what is on the Civil registration but also the film numbers so that you can go to the Family History Center and look at the digitized copy of the actual document.
When one is doing family history research one should never rely on one source, especially if it is just an index transcription.

View multiple documents if possible on your ancestor, view the actual document and compare it with what is written in your copy of the transcribed indexed.


Check out the United States Census and Immigration records that will give you needed information to connect you to the British Isles.


The road back in history is a marvelous journey towards discovery of yourself.