To Sit Beside a Turf Fire...

In spite of my varied genealogical background, I was raised Irish. Didn't matter that my father's mother's parents came off the boat from Italy, in my father's mind, we were Irish. St. Patrick's Day was celebrated year-round, and on March 17th, watch out!

L-R Shawn, Mike, Ed, Pete and Edd; yours truly front & center

This would have been before 1971, the year Edd passed away. 

Edd's parents were Irish immigrants. 

Ed, St. Pat's 1969

Early 1970s?

So it should come as no surprise that I know a lot of Irish songs, especially Irish American songs. One in particular was especially poignant: "Galway Bay" in which an Irish emigrant to America speaks of returning to Ireland to "sit beside a turf fire in a cabin."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9NM3SMRtaQ

When Ed was alive, he would always tell Howard and myself what he was going to leave us in his will, and I would always tell him that I would go to Ireland in his memory and he seemed to like that idea. 

As we planned our trip to England this past Christmas, I thought about the logistics of getting to Ireland, but it seemed a little overwhelming. But as in all great genealogical endeavors, it worked out perfectly in the end!

We landed in Dublin airport and were welcomed by that "soft Irish weather." All signs in Ireland are in Irish (Gaelic) and English. 

My first glimpse of Ireland

We rented a little VW Golf, which had a sticker taped to the steering wheel that said "Stay Left!"

(note the cow escaping backwards from his pasture)

You've likely heard of Ireland referred to as "The Emerald Isle." No photographs can do it justice; even on a rainy January day, it's green-ness was amazing:

We drove first to Clones, Co. Monaghan, where my great-grandmother, Kate Beggan Smith was born. We had a lovely walk around the town, enjoying the sunshine, although it was chilly.

This photo was taken from the Sacred Heart Church, the Catholic Church in Clones. The current building was built after my great-grandmother left Clones for America, but it was built on the same site as the previous building, and I suppose all her relatives who remained in Ireland would have attended this building. 

Clones is an ancient town, featuring a 9th century round tower and the ruins of a 12th century abbey:

The next morning we drove to Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim, the ancestral hometown of the Smiths. If you know anything about Ireland's history, you know that it is one island, two nations; the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the latter being part of the United Kingdom. Both Clones and Ballinamore are very close to the border between the two countries, but are part of the Republic. Yet in that 50-minute drive, we crossed the border between the two several times! 

Previous to our trip, I had contacted the Genealogy Centre of Leitrim (pronounced LEE-trim) and got some great help from Patricia, so we made that our first stop so I could thank her in person for the help. We picked up a few other bits of info, including the fact that John's father Patrick likely went to England for work and died there. So, a new avenue for research!

After we walked around the town for a bit, I returned to the center to ask about which church might have been in Ballinamore when my ancestors' family lived there. Patricia explained that the church that was there then was sold to become a furniture store, which has since gone out of business. She pointed out it's location just up the hill from the new, modern Catholic church. Just as I was turning to leave, an older gentleman popped out from behind a bookshelf to remind her that at the time of the sale of the old church, the altar was removed and placed in the new church.

The defunct hardware store.

The altar from the old church in the new church building.

From Ballinamore we drove back to Clones. Refer back to my post of 22 July 2010 to learn how I found my living Irish cousins. I contacted John again and he did a fantastic job of lining up a visit with Kathleen and Benny, whose grandmother was a sister to my great-grandmother. 

We were supposed to have also met with Rosaleen, whose father Peter was my great-grandmother's brother. She is in her 90s, but had caught a cold and couldn't meet with us. Otherwise, we could have taken a 4-generation photograph! Benny brought his daughter and granddaughter with him to Kathleen's house. 

As we walked into Kathleen's, she had a turf fire warmly glowing. As the words to "Galway Bay" went through my head, it seemed that a conduit opened up and I felt connected to a thousand years of Irish history. We had a delightful visit and found that although we were from different cultures we had so much in common!

"To sit beside a turf fire..."

After Kathleen served us tea, Benny drove us out to the cemetery, where I saw for myself a headstone that I had seen in photographs for many years: That of my 2nd great-grandparents, Bernard and Catherine "Kitty" (Learo) Beggan. 

On our way to the airport the next morning, we met with John again, this time at the Library of Trinity College in Dublin. Heaven! We enjoyed an all-to-brief visit with John as he walked us through the National Gallery of Ireland. I sincerely hope we can return soon and spend more time with family and in a remarkable country.

The Keillors, Stonemasons of Skelton

The village of Skelton-in-Cleveland is a lovely village in the northeast part of Yorkshire, England, near North Sea.

It is also the furthest back location to which we have documented the Keillor family, although surname maps suggest the Keillors are originally from Scotland.

 A few days before we left for our trip to the UK, I found this website, https://skeltonhistorygroup.wordpress.com, run by a group of individuals interested in the local history of the area. They had extracted names and dates from the parish registers which was very helpful. 

Using the “Contact Us” tab, I sent a brief
note of thanks and mentioned we hoped to
visit during our stay. In  the bustle of getting packed
I put it out of my mind. Within a day, I got a response
from Peter, who said we must be descended from
Thomas Keillor, stonemason, who had emigrated
to North America in the 1700s. He also said
he would be glad to give us a walking tour of
Skelton if we would let him know when we would be there.
How cool is that?!?

 On the way back from Glasgow, we set up to meet Peter in Church Lane, which leads to Old All Saints church. A gentleman who lives nearby unlocked the church for us and we spent a few minutes exploring until Peter arrived.

He came prepared with a booklet of documents, all pertaining to the Keillor family in the two generations they appear to have spent in Skelton. 

John Keillor and Ann Calvert were married in nearby Guisborough in 1723/24 (calendar issues!).  In 1725, he makes his first appearance in the records of the Skelton Church warden accounts for his assessments.

In 1730, he signed the church warden accounts:

In 1757, John’s son Thomas married Mary Thompson:

Then around 1774, Thomas emigrates to Canada (and that’s another blog post!)

After we walked around the church and Peter pointed out the section that would have been standing when John and Thomas lived there, we walked around the town, where Peter showed us the spot where Thomas is thought to have lived.

Then we treated him to lunch at the Royal George Pub. We had a great time, chatting as if we were old friends. Peter has since sent additional documents and suggestions.

Three generations of Keillors back in the ancestral hometown.

What a blessing the internet is as we seek to walk in our ancestors’ footsteps!

Return to Caledonia

My husband’s Aunt Joanne was an amazing woman; a mother, teacher, media specialist and avid family history researcher. Over the years we’ve had many phone chats and emails regarding the family history, and she was particularly interested in the Mc/MacDonald/Soutar/Sutter (that story is a whole 'nother blog post!) line from Scotland.

At her passing, her children contacted us to see if we wanted her notebooks and other family memorabilia. Of course we did! They offered to mail us a couple of boxes, but I knew there was much more than a couple of boxes, so I (rather frantically!) contacted another relative who lived not far away. She was willing to hold the boxes until we got there, and the “couple of boxes” turned into five!

That summer, we drove to Detroit to get them from Cousin Carol, stopping in Ohio to pick up a couple of grandchildren. When we got back to Ohio, I couldn’t wait to see what was in the boxes and could be found sitting in the back of the van rifling through them – it was like winning the lottery - what a treasure trove!

One of the photographs that spoke to me directly was this one:

It’s a fairly large photo, about 11 x 13, mounted on stiff chipboard, and although worn around the edges, the photograph itself is in very good condition in spite of its age, probably right at the very early 1900s, as the youngest child in the photo was born in 1897 and looks to be around two or three years old.

I recognized from other family photos the face of Annie McKenzie MacDonald and surmised that she was standing with her parents and siblings. Annie was a nurse who worked in Scotland, Canada and Michigan and married Howard's grandmother's brother. They had no children. I scanned the photograph, did a little research and constructed the family from records on familysearch and ancestry and then posted the photograph on familysearch.

Not long after, I received an email from Gillian in Scotland. One of the boys in the photograph was her grandfather! I was thrilled to be able to make that connection and wanted very much to give the photograph to Gillian, but I was reluctant to trust this treasure to overseas mail! I had a friend who was a flight attendant for a local airline, and we tried to make a connection to Glasgow, but it didn’t work out. I was disappointed, put the photograph back in the box and hoped we could work something out.

Fast forward to last June, when one of our sons was transferred by his job to England. We determined to spend Christmas with him and his family. We made a list of places we’d like to go, and when he mentioned Scotland, the lightbulb finally went off in my head! Why, Glasgow, of course!

Accordingly, we made plans to meet up with Gillian. It was two days after Christmas and the day after Boxing Day, a holiday nearly equal to Christmas in the United Kingdom. The city of Glasgow was still decked out in holiday finery, with a huge Christmas market at George Square in the center of the city.

After some wobbles, we found each other, and it seemed as we had always been friends! We talked all about family, family history, Scotland, holidays & etc… When the time came to hand her the photograph, my eyes were misting over. Gillian’s grandfather died before she was born, so she never knew him.

I knew we had made the right choice to return the photograph back to its true home after over a century, where it will be shared and treasured. What a blessing to have the kind of technology that allows us to make these family connections, even across the ocean!

Since that time, I’ve realized that there were other photographs taken in Inverness, where the McKenzies were from. I had assumed that they were of the MacDonald/Soutar clan, but now there’s a possibility that they might have been Annie’s photographs. So stay tuned!