Getting back to Ireland

 

                                                                              Boyne Valley, Ireland

Most of my family lines lead back to the UK. They are predominantly English and Scottish but include a smattering of Irish. It's that smattering that I'd like to put some shape to. My goal is to take it back to some particular place in Ireland. The Irish genealogy experts say that finding your family's records is a matter of finding out the particular place they come from. Finding out the county is good but getting them down to their townland is better.

This last point was emphasized in one of the talks at the BIFSGO online conference, Irish Lines and Female Finds, which I signed up for. It's an interesting mix of talks about researching Irish and female ancestors. Both strands of talks deal with particularly challenging areas of research. Areas that can benefit from accessing records beyond the top genealogical sources. Perhaps one of the presentations will point me in the direction of something that can help me.

My problem is that my Irish immigrated to England. I can trace my Irish line back in time in London but have been unable to find out where they originated from in Ireland. If it wasn't for the surname, I wouldn't know they were Irish at all. But unfortunately, it isn't one of those surnames that can take you back to a particular area of Ireland. The name Cavanagh can be found all over Ireland. Or perhaps that should be Kavanagh. Once, when my father registered at a hotel in Dublin, the receptionist told him that his last name should be spelled with a "K".

I had hopes that DNA would be able to pinpoint where in Ireland my Cavanaghs came from. DNA certainly seems to work that way for other people. Unfortunately, that doesn't work in my case. My portion of identifiable Irish DNA isn't large enough to trigger breaking down the regions down further. Either that or, like my English ancestors, my Irish ones didn't stay in any one place for long. So it's back to plodding through the records and listening to talks to see if there is something that can help me find that illusive place of family origin in Ireland.