I believe I have met my match in genealogical research, most especially with Irish ancestry.  I took a break one evening and decided to see if I could follow Annie's mother's line back any distance.  All I can say is there was definitely a reason she was in the D.A.R.  The line had been traced by multiple people or family groups and there was so much well researched data available that within about five hours I had gotten back, in a direct patrilineal line to a married couple, the husband of which had parents born in the very late 1500's.  They weren't Irish.

Irish ancestors must be the most difficult people on earth to trace in all of genealogy.  I have come to the conclusion that there are only about a dozen surnames in all of Ireland, and roughly eight male given names, possibly less.  Further, they sort of trickled into the USA until the Potato Famine, at which time half the country emigrated.  In the 1880 US census I thought I had discovered the right Nolan family living in Baltimore.  Husband listed as M J Nolan and wife Bridget, first son John born at the right time.  The other four children were the right ages and very close to what I thought they were named, they were living near the East Coast (along with probably 87.341% of the other Irish immigrants of the time) but I remember clearly my family having a special attachment to Marblehead, MA, and at least it was fairly close.  I suppose I should have suspected something.  Of course they settled along the East Coast.  They came from that direction! 

If my estimate of the commonality of Irish male names is anywhere close, I had a 1 in 96 chance of finding an Irishman named Martin Nolan wherever I looked.  Just in case I might possibly be wrong, I started on the Indiana census for 1880 where I knew the family I was tracing eventually lived.  How odd.  Martin and Bridget were exactly where they were supposed to be in Indiana also, along with all the children falling perfectly into place.  Fire, and water from extinguishing it, ruined virtually all of the 1890 Federal Census, but there they were again in 1900, missing one or two who had married and needed to be traced independently.  In addition, there are familial connections and marriages to Ryan and Regan lines.  Nice, easily located Lithuanian names, there, huh?  I have gotten far enough afield to try to find one of the Ryan brothers through a model ship he made and named the "Peanut Vender" (sic) which was a popular song written in the late 1920's or in 1930.  He was a Lakes mariner but the model appears to be a passenger vessel rather than an ore ship.

The model was made by one Ryan brother and the house paint on wood artwork above it was done by another Ryan brother.  The photo was deliberately oversaturated to define smaller details.  The man who painted the picture was the same one that taught me much about life, like how to shoot bumblebees out of the air and to take nobody's word, even his, that it is a good idea to release a live skunk from a trap.  I am left as the final caretaker of such heirlooms as these and and as a documenter of the lives of people who had no offspring.  I must do this.  I just have a hell of a lot to learn yet before I am able to do it right.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh:  but the earth abideth forever.  The sun also riseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." - Ecclesiastes Chapter 1