Field Research

P. Breathnach

Like many people in this forum, I have been bringing problems here in order to seek guidance and assistance - which has been generously supplied, and for which I am grateful.

Today I want to tell you how things can also go well.

I'm just back from a visit to the Dingle Peninsula. I went there with maps that I had got from Griffith's Valuation of two possible ancestral locations.

When I got to one of them I found an old house that is now a farm outbuilding. The wife of the farmer came out from her home, and I introduced myself and explained what I was looking for. She could not confirm anything for me, because she was not originally from the place, but her husband would be back shortly - and he had the same family name as my ancestor. Yes, his family had been there a long time. And when he arrived, I saw a strong family resemblance. We got talking, and were quickly able to establish connections: he is my third cousin. He confirmed that I had correctly identified the house in which my great-grandfather was born, in which my g-g-grandparents had lived, and perhaps my g-g-g-grandparents also (they certainly lived in that townland).

My other target was a clachán of about 20 houses on the side of a mountain. Off the main road onto a narrow road; off that onto a narrower road that was also twisting; off that again onto an even more difficult piece of road. And the clachán was there, most of the old houses still standing but serving as sheds, and a few modern (i.e. post-1900) houses among them. I got into conversation with two local residents whose families have been there for generations. They know about my ancestors, and could tell me about things from the middle of the nineteenth century, and who lived in what house - things like "after she married, she went to live with her husband in that house down there". I actually got a piece of family gossip from 1856!

And, as a bonus, we enjoyed some good weather.

rafferr

Brilliant story, you can't beat a bit of field work! There is no amount of archive material that could put the reality of the past into real perspective; visiting the physical locations of our ancestors past is probably the way to get an air of who they really were.

pinkypinky

That's brilliant! I love when that happens.

Waitsian

Great story, thanks for sharing.