My experience with a County Meath parish priest: I had all of the correct info including the birth dates and parents' names and mailed with a fifty dollar donation in October 2000. Never hear a blessed thing. In the meantime my husband was successful in contacting the second cousins on the farm in Meath. He then went to visit the cousins July 2001 who took him to the priest. The elderly priest said when asked about my inquiry, "Oh, yes. I remember that one. I get so many but have no time to look". He then reached over and found my letter with the check and wanted to return it to my husband (who declined the check). The priest went on to say that my husband could look at the books because the cousins were still parishioners. I have to say for the most part while there in Ireland, the priests were very generous in allowing us to look at the original books. We always made sure it was at the priest's convenience and never at dinner (1-2 PM). We always called. Nora Hopkins FitzGerald Searching for Fahey/Hogan/Keane/Hopkins in Chicago Hopkins - Castlebar, Co. Mayo/New York City Searching in County Down for Grant/McManus/Morgan/Woods I w-mailed the Irish parish as I found their e-mail address on their web site to ask for the correct name/address to send a letter to reauest genealogical information and the amount of the usual donation for this service. I have never received an answer. Someone told me that it could take 1 year or more. If you find out the whys and wherefores please let me know. -----Original Message----- From: Mautrav@aol.com [mailto:Mautrav@aol.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 5:04 PM To: IRISH-AMERICAN-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [Irish-American] Writing to Parish Priest Evelyn, I should have said "maybe the check should be offered initially as a donation on receipt of info, rather than sending the check with the original letter. Maybe my experience was an exception. Maureen N

On 4/15/04 9:46 PM, "Irishcolleen45@aol.com" <Irishcolleen45@aol.com> wrote: > The elderly priest said when asked about my inquiry, "Oh, yes. > I remember that one. I get so many but have no time to look". I think that was the point. The priest's primary responsibility is the care of souls, not genealogical research. It's frustrating at times, because the only records may be in the parish books, and we may be miles away, but at the final count, it's not the priest's job to spend hours looking up old records for those who enquire. So many parishes have little or no clerical help, and even finding priests for all the posts can be hard at times, that we need to be sensitive to the fact that a harried rector may have no time to deal with what seems so urgent to those of us trying to trace our ancestors. -- We will not forget! www.remember-9-11.com www.ciarancummings.com