Many Irish Americans come to Ireland in the hope that they will find some trace of their Irish ancestry. The success of such a mission can depend on the amount of information that they have, but also can depend on the way that they go about trying to do this. In the case of the Kelly family, who have been touring with me this past week, the only concrete information we had was a baptismal cert for Maureen's grandmother, and that she had been born in the region of Ballinasloe in county Galway.
I do not wish to appear boastful when i say that i seem to be quiet good at this type of investigative work, but i have had quiet a lot of success in this area. In the case of the Kelly family, we had great success. The following pictures will illustrate just how great our success was.
The picture above was taken in the cemetery at Clontuskert church, near Ballinasloe, and this is the family grave of the Kelly family.
Not only did we find the family grave, but we found the family. In the picture above, we have Mattie Kelly, second from the left, a cousin of my Kelly family, and the family member who still lives on the Kelly family farm in Gorteenaveela Clontuskert. From the left in this picture, we have, Stone, Mattie, Maureen, and Jill, all together after all of these years, and standing together in front of the family grave.
Here we have, Maureen, Jill, and Stone, inside the old church in Clontuskert. This is the same old church used by the family back into the eighteen hundreds.
What a remarkable story this one turned out to be, as not only did we find the family farm, but also the remains of the old family cottage, pictured above here, with Maureen, Jill, and Stone standing outside. This was of course a thatched cottage in the past, but is now just used as a shed to store odds and ends.
Mattie very kindly invited us into his home for some good old Irish tea and some Barm Brack. Mattie is a fountain of family information and history and we could not have found a better person to fill in much of the family history down through the years.
In this picture, we have, Mattie, Jill, and Maureen, seated in the kitchen, and listening intently to Mattie as he related more of the family story.
Finally here, we have the whole group, poictured together outside Mattie's house.
From the left we have, Mattie, Maureen, Nicole, (Stone's partner), Stone, and Jill.
What a marvelous story this is, and what a great outcome for the family. They will now leave Ireland, and their newly found Irish family, with a genuine feeling that they have recovered that missing connection with the land of their ancestral birth, and their own real family.
God is good.
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