In late September the Ireland Reaching Out Office in Co. Galway had a visit from Christina Shaughnessy looking for assistance researching her family tree. The team were able to introduce Christina to living relatives she didn't even know existed through their network of volunteers in the relevant parish! Ireland Reaching Out found living relatives of Christina and her husband which they managed to meet on their trip.
Christina explains that so much media coverage is devoted to the records that were lost in the fires but the years that those records covered were relatively few, and within each parish with inter-marriage between all the various families in the local area, those families do have the potential to bridge that gap if they work together. "Thank you so much for all of your help and assistance in reconnecting us to our family there in Loughrea. It was wonderful and more than we hoped we would discover!! My husband and I came to Loughrea in the hope to do research on the family and piece together what we could. Thanks to you, we actually found members of our family!! We can't thank you enough".
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