The Shamrock Genealogist

I enjoy researching the military veterans of the family. The records that you can find can tell you so much about their lives and give you a sense of what they encountered during times of peace as well at war. I've highlighted several military ancestors in my blog. I've recently been digging into my 2nd cousin 1x removed, Horace Joseph. Source: Newspapers.com - Daily News 28 July 1944 Horace died on 6 June 1944 in Normandy, France. He was a paratrooper and broke his leg upon impact. He bled out and died. According to his Find a Grave memorial , he tried to use a tourniquet. Apparently, Horace is included in a book , which I plan on getting a copy of at some point.  6/14 Update: Here's an excerpt from the book Enfin Libres that discusses Horace: " The other soldier did not wore no trace of bullet or stab, but a tourniquet he had made himself above the knee revealed the nature of the wound from which he had succumbed.  His parachute having presumably not working, or too ...

 It's been several months since I did my last post. I've had a number of lectures to write and client cases to work on. My personal genealogy research has been increasing slowly during my free time. I even made some breakthroughs in my tree including the following: Confirmed the burial site of my great grandmother Tessie Freundlich and her son, Alfred Schild.  Located an obituary for my great grand-aunt Rose Siegel, sister of my great grandmother Matilda Siegel. It even had a lead on one of her sisters with a married name!  Located a new cousin who shared a picture of my great grandmother Tessie Freundlich, someone who I have never seen photos of. Identifying some more leads on my maternal great grandfather Anton Gailunas' service on a merchant ship during WWI.  Confirmed one of my 2nd great aunts died in Alberta, Canada Obtained a photo of my 2nd great grandmother Eva Bodner's headstone Here are some of my tips that I used to help accomplish the above: Used the powe...

RootsTech Connect is officially over. The event was officially on February 25th through 27th. Over one million attendees attended! Let me repeat that - one million! And what an experience it was. I desperately miss the in-person interaction that I feel when I go to Salt Lake City. This was the next best option - to be safe at home while we are still trying to surviving this awful pandemic. And best yet it was FREE! And the videos will be available for one year.  Speaking as someone who was working a booth and also a presenter, I enjoyed using the chat room features to connect with others. Many had expressed interest in starting their own enslaved person memory project, mirroring what was done for Georgetown Memory Project. Others commented that the gravestone series "The Stones Speak" gave them new ideas for their own family history. I helped answer genealogical questions from attendees who were getting stuck on a particular brick wall or just wanted some advice on where to t...

It's time for RootsTech Connect!  Around this time of year I would make the annual trip to RootsTech, one that I have been making the last four years (starting in 2017). RootsTech is where everything changed for me. I connected with so many friends and I really ramped up my genealogy. It was when I made the decision that I wanted to do professional genealogy full time. I was determined to be on stage within the next couple of years. And it happened! I changed jobs and started working at American Ancestors/NEHGS. The next year I gave my first lecture on using Roman Catholic Church Records, a record set that I use regularly to research my Irish ancestors. I was so honored that the RootsTech team gave me two sessions for this talk. I was invited back each year to give more lectures. My favorite was honoring my grandfather last year in Reporting for Duty. It was very emotional for me to share the story of my grandfather's WWII service. You can read about some of my journey at Roots...

 This week's prompt for #52Ancestors is Valentine. One of the first things that comes to mind is my 3rd great grandparents, Francis Dougherty and Catherine Clerkin. They married on Valentine's Day in 1828 in the Tydavnet parish, County Monaghan, Ireland. It seems like a romantic day to get married.  It is more likely a coincidence and that was the date available at their parish church when they married on a Thursday (Saturday and Sunday were not options). The couple was likely following the rules of Shrovetide , where Irish couples married between January 6th and Lent. It must have been a very cold wedding day. I'm fortunate to have found this record as many of my Irish ancestors' parish records were not recorded this early.  The marriage entry of Francis Dougherty and Catherine Clerkin in the Tydavnet parish register We don't know much about Catherine. We can estimate her birth around 1810 in County Monaghan. Several of her siblings, identified through DNA matche...

  Last week's prompt for #52Ancestors was "In the Kitchen". It seems appropriate that this was my memory shared three years ago. I entered this photograph of me and my grandmother, Rose (Corcoran) Doherty in her kitchen in the RootsTech photography contest. I didn't win but that was ok - I wanted to share this piece of my family history. I adore this picture because my grandmother looks so happy.  The kitchen was her domain and she was quite a baker. She is known for her chocolate chip cookies and my personal favorite, her yellow cake with the homemade royal icing. She also made homemade bread each day for my grandfather. She did cheat a little with her pies - using store bought crust but made the apple pie filling (a trick I use today). And of course she made Irish soda bread, a recipe passed down from her mother. The recipe has been changed up slightly to allow for a more bite size proportion. Readers may recall my family's famous Irish soda bread recipe being ...

 This past week's #52Ancestors prompt is "Favorite Photo". This is not an easy decision for anyone, let alone a genealogist who treasures each photograph. A long standing tradition for the last few years is receiving a group of photos and family letters from my aunt for my birthday and Christmas. One of my favorite photos is this one of my grandfather, Michael Doherty, during his service in the U.S. army.  It has been hung on the basement wall of my parents' former home for over 18 years. Over the last few years I have been digging into more of my grandfather's service during World War II. I even hired a researcher to go to the National Archives in St. Louis, Missouri to request and scan his military personnel record. Sadly his record was destroyed in the 1973 fire like many of the other Army and Air Force records. There wasn't even a "B file" that remained.  His final payment voucher was kept in a separate location.  This resulted in having to turn...

 This week's #52Ancestors challenge prompt is namesake. Discuss an ancestor you were named after or a name being passed down from someone else. My first name "Melanie" comes from my great grandmother, Matilda (Mollie) Siegel. My middle name "Elizabeth" comes from Matilda's husband Eddie (which was actually Anton before he changed his name).  I find myself looking at names in my family tree. There are often names being passed down from one generation to the next. Sometimes the children have the middle name from their mother's maiden name. This is a fun bonus to come across as it often holds the clue to finding out more about the mother's line.  A few months ago, I used traditional Irish naming patterns and DNA clustering to uncover the identity of my 4th great grandfather. I started with looking at the details on his son, Francis Dougherty . The marriage witnesses to the wedding of Francis and Catherine were a Patrick Keenan and Michael Doherty.  I ha...

 This week's prompt for the 52 Ancestors challenge is "Family Legend". We all have these stories in our families and it's no exception with mine. One of the family legends that my father passed down was that my paternal grandfather, Michael Doherty came to America aboard the S.S. Carpathia . Yes, that Carpathia that helped rescue the Titanic survivors in 1912. My grandfather Michael did take a ship aboard to America but it was definitely not the Carpathia. It was the S.S. Calvin Austin . This information was confirmed in my grandfather's naturalization record.  However, I digress from who I want to highlight in this week's post. My maternal great grandfather Anton Gailunas was a man of legend. I have been slowly piecing his timeline together based on the stories I heard of him serving in World War I for the British navy after leaving Latvia (serving as a quartermaster), and even going down to Brazil for a time. I was told stories about him living amongst the...

 It's a new year and it's time for new resolutions. I want to do more with putting my lines on shared trees like FamilySearch, WikiTrees, etc. In addition to sharing the research that I have done, I find it a great way to set out "cousin bait", and meet new cousins that descend from the same lines.  I also want to get back to writing more as this more blog has been neglected. You would think that being home all of the time due to quarantine, I would be inspired to write. Unfortunately, that did not happen. After hours of working from a screen with little time for my poor eyes, I couldn't think of writing each evening after work. At times I lacked ambition and would resort to comfort eating and watching some rubbish tv ( 90 Day Fiancee is my current binge show along with restarting The Office on Netflix).  One of my writing resolutions was to try to contribute to one of the ongoing campaigns like Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors . I tried to do so in the past a...