Gerard’s knowledge of genealogy research methods was brought to my attention by a mutual acquaintance. I had conducted my own family history research but I had reached several dead-ends. After studying my enquiry, Gerard guided me on where to concentrate my searches next without any significant costs.
After a few weeks, I reported back that my own advanced research efforts had produced a frustratingly poor result. My deceased parents had emigrated separately from Ireland to the USA, where they obviously met and married. They eventually returned "home" to settle here in Ireland a few years after marriage. I had been searching for emigration records and Gerard’s patient assistance helped me to find a record of my father’s departure for America.
My initial frustration was that I could find no record of my mother’s emigration, or for that matter, how and when she crossed paths with and met my dad in the States. Gerard had advised me all about the Ellis Island immigration records. Here, a multitude of centuries old details about Irish emigrants arriving into New York are available for inspection. With Gerard’s guidance, we eventually found a record for dad at Ellis Island.
Gerard responded to my desperate plea for help by asking me to list everything I knew about my family’s time in America. My list included an uncertain reference about my mother once working as a servant in Philadelphia as a young girl, prior to living at an unknown NY address after marriage. This was all Gerard needed to start a new line of research. A few days later, he reported back that a ship’s passenger manifest had been located showing my mother sailing directly from Ireland to the port on the river at Philadelphia. I would never have explored this possibility because I was unaware that “inland” Philly had a passenger port at that time or that Irish emigrants disembarked there.
Our research gathered pace at this point. As well as confirmed references to the original Galway homestead from the manifest, Gerard quickly located accommodation addresses in Philadelphia for my mum and her siblings. This trail led us to find my most treasured ancestral document ….. my parent’s marriage certificate for a wedding conducted in Philadelphia itself. It would appear that my father's employment took him to Philly, but my parents American home was always referred to as New York when I was a child.
I have been given many more leads of enquiry to follow up through Gerard’s involvement. We have traced probable family connections in Pennsylvania and New York. The assistance of Irish Ancestry Research has been critical and welcomed each time we made contact. And our Galway roots are now firmly established on record to compliment the family folklore tales.
