I am trying to find relatives in Ireland, the only thing I know for sure is that my grandfather Andew was born in Ahascargh on January 25, 1870 to Thomas and Catherine Kelly, they had 12 births and according to the 1911 census 10 were living, my grandfather came to the States around 1884. To my knowledge he is the only child who came to the States and My great grandmother Catherine was a widow in the 1911 census. I emailed Father Reynold but have not heard back from him. Can anyone help?
Friday 20th Jan 2017, 01:05PM
Message Board Replies
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Ed:
Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!
Kelly is a very common surname in East Galway so it will be very difficult to identify possible relatives living in the Ahascragh area currently without more information on the family. ( As an aside Catherine Kelly's maiden name was also Kelly).
Do you have any other information on your family?
Parish priests are very overstretched so they find it difficult to assist with requests to find relatives.
Have you considered autosomal DNA testing?
Roger McDonnell
Castlemore Roscommon, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘
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Hi Ed,
Tried to contact Fr Reynolds myself for the same reason last year, no joy at all. Roger is bang on the button there with the reason.
Did you create a tree in any of the genealogy sites? Ancestry.com (the one I used) will make suggestions to you for your tree based on the information you have in it so that might help.
You could also try cold-calling...sounds drastic but a friend of mine did her tree this way when she was trying to find US relatives before the days of the Internet.
My mother is from ahascragh - long gone from it, but I'm a member of the Ahascragh community page on Facebook as we'd still know people there. You could try posting something on that and leave an email address perhaps?
https://m.facebook.com/ahascragh.ada?slog=860&seq=1903558479&rk=8&st=us…
It's a very active page.
Good luck
Emmaemmarose39
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Roger thank you for the information, unfortunately I am the last Kelly that I know of in the States and that was all the information I could find I have not gone the DNA route but it sounds like something I should and wil look into.
Emma I appreciate the information I will try going on facebook and joining the page, I have not joined any of the genealogy sites yet, there are so many and not sure which one would be the best, but do intend to pick one and see what happens
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Roger I did find a letter to my aunt from a cousin Thomas dated January 1967 that an Uncle Jack had passed in April 1966 and Thomas still lived im Ahascragh.