Ongoing DNA testing of me and other family members
started in 2019.
I am testing with Ancestry, to maximise the number of real people we can connect to,
and real lines we can prove.
So far, DNA testing
has strongly confirmed, in many different lines, the accuracy of my family tree research.
Many lines in the family tree are now DNA proven.
The re-discovery of the lost Reebkomp portrait, 2023.
Lost for over a century, a "reverse image search" in 2023
re-discovered the lost
Reebkomp portrait in America, mis-labelled.
A formerly lost portrait of Augustus Montgomery.
Painted maybe around 1783.
It was inherited by the Gibbon family and sold after 1913.
It was then mis-labelled, and lost for a century,
before I re-discovered it in 2023.
1805 attack on the property
of (my direct ancestor)
Jack Hourigan, of Annagh.
100 years since the burning of the Four Courts, June 1922.
100 years since core parts of my family history
were burnt forever:
List of things in the family tree that were
burnt in 1922.
The real disaster for my family tree was the burning of things that would have solved the
Blennerhassett problem:
Census records 1821 to 1851 for
George Cashel
were burnt in 1922.
The earlier ones may have had his parents.
The 1821 census would be crucial in showing where the teenage George Cashel lived.
The majority of the CoI parish records
for Co.Kerry.
Which may have had (probably did have) George Cashel's baptism.
And his parents' baptisms.
If we ever found George Cashel's baptism, it would probably solve everything.
Many known Blennerhassett wills.
And also George Cashel's known will.
Some abstracts and full copies survive.
For others, it was all lost in 1922.
Destroyed at some unknown point (but maybe destroyed as a consequence of the 1916-23 revolution) was:
Marriage licence of Elizabeth Horseman and Peter Orby,
4 March 1603.
Talk on the Queen's Irish ancestry, Feb 2022
I gave a talk on the Queen's Irish ancestry
on 17 Feb 2022.
This was part of the
Jubilee Talks
organised by
Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council,
Northern Ireland.
To mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee (70 years) in 2022.
Video of the 1 hour talk.
There is an intro.
Then I start at
1:47.
I finish, and Q and A starts, at
1:04:13.
We made an error in the Q and A:
The talk is fine, but in the Q and A at
1:13:30
we went wrong.
Seamus Farrell (another speaker in the series)
referred to the marriage of the daughter of
Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone
with Viscount Magennis,
which he thought was a Scottish name.
And then he considered whether Martin McGuinness
was related to these, and had a Scottish name.
It sounded right, so I went with it.
I mused about other nationalists with Scottish/planter names, like
Gerry Adams, and talked a bit about fixating on male lines.
But in fact, it is not right.
Viscount Magennis is an Irish name.
The conclusion is in fact the opposite.
Rather than Martin McGuinness having a Scottish name,
unionist
Ken Maginnis
has an old Irish name.
For fun, I tried to find
how early the surname occurs in Ireland.
The oldest I found is Richard Humphrey, listed at Swords, Co.Dublin, in 1277.
We have no idea if he is a relation, of course.
Box of loose Gibbon papers (letters etc.) now entirely scanned.
AI animation of Blennerhassett Cashel (died 1915).
If only I could have asked him who his grandparents were.
2020
O'Mara are from Clonmel
For decades, we did not know who the father of old
James O'Mara
was.
In 2020 I proved his father was Peter O'Mara of Clonmel.
Before O'Mara came to Limerick, they were in Clonmel, not Toomevara.
The father and the 3 sons lived in 4 different places:
Please donate to support this site.
I have spent a great deal of time and money on this research.
Research involves travel and many expenses.
Some research "things to do"
are not done for years, because I do not have the money to do them.
Please Donate Here
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