I started out searching for my long lost relatives in County Galway about nine months ago. I had little more than my great grandmother's name and the name of the village, Ardrahan, where she grew up between 1870 and 1890 before she went to to the US. I was unable to find any records of her life in Ireland without her exact birthdate so I started searching the web for some help in locating any history of my family.
I found Ireland Reaching Out and joined my parish and within a few days Rory O'Shaughnessy had responded with news of relatives currently living in Ardrahan. He knew of my Irish relatives home and sent me pictures of the house, and told me where the family graves were located. The best news was that Rory had located relatives still living in Ardrahan and put me in touch with them! I can't express what this means to me and my family to reconnect with relatives after all this time! I really appreciate his help finding my family. I am now going to continue the search on Ireland XO for my other great grandparents in other counties. What a valuable resource this site has been, I highly recommend Ireland XO!
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