Susan Daily <cullivans@gmail.com> said: [in regards to http://tiara.ie/061298.htm] >Both of the links on the Tiara page are old - one does redirect, but >the other does not. Can you explain about how the letters were found? >Did your family have a connection to Northern Ireland? A lot of my >Irish ancestors settled in Middlesex County. Glens of Antrim Historical Society is now at http://www.antrimhistory.net/ Public Records Office of Northern Ireland now at http://www.proni.gov.uk/ The manner in which the letters of my family were found is one that I recommend highly. I would call it "random poking" as there is no way I would have ever found these letters if I was looking for them. It was during my second research trip to Belfast. On a previous trip I had spent time at the PRONI researching the location of my great-grandmother, Elizabeth McAteer's birthplace in Cushendall, County Antrim. I was lucky in that the landlord at the time of her birth was a minor, his parents both deceased and the estate was managed by trustees in Chancery Court, which meant the rent receipts and other records were there at the PRONI. Imagine my surprise when I visited the village and discovered descendants of my great-grandmother's brother were quite thick on the ground. On none of my other Irish branches had I found living relations in Ireland. My second visit to Northern Ireland began with a week-long program put on by the Ulster Historical Foundation. One of the first field trips was to the PRONI and the place was packed with researchers. Adopting a "been there, done that" attitude, I began randomly pulling books off the shelf and browsing the computer catalog. I noticed some items related to Cushendall, including the account books and ledgers of a McAllister family store in Cushendall. Thinking perhaps my McAteer ancestors may have had an account at the store I put in a request for the manuscripts, and as an afterthought requested something called "Miscellaneous Papers of the McAllister Family of Cushendall". The account books turned out to be worthless. All of the information was in a code known only to the shopkeeper. Not even the taxman could figure out who owed what or how much Mr. McAllister was making. The other item turned out to be a very thick manila envelope. I looked at the clock. They were closing in fifteen minutes and we would all be on the bus back to our accommodations at the college. I figured what the heck, I'd take a look. Inside was a pile of old papers, letters, Mass cards, postcards, photographs, pressed flowers, a couple of books and a clay pipe. Imagine my surprise when the third piece of paper I unfolded turned out to have the details of Elizabeth McAteer's baptism, information that matched and supplemented what I already had. Who were these people, I wondered, that they would have such a keepsake in their papers. But I was out of time. The next day was a field trip to the Ulster-American Folk Park, a sort of Irish Sturbridge Village, but with a Library of genealogical material, located in Omagh, county Tyrone. Luckily for me, a friend from Belfast had taken me there for a visit the Sunday before the UHF conference began, so I was free to go over to the PRONI and spend the day going through the McAllister papers. It turns out, a sister of my great-grandmother had married a McAllister in the village, not it turns out, the one who had the store. These McAllisters had one son and one daughter, neither of whom married. When the daughter died, the last of the family, the contents of the tiny house were auctioned off. This was in the 1930s at a time when the PRONI was still trying to acquire anything they could to build an archive along with what was transferred to Belfast after the partition of 1922. The auctioneer swept the contents of the dresser drawer into a bag and gave it to the PRONI, where it sat for sixty years or more waiting for me to find it. Included in the two dozen or so letters were ones from my great-grandmother's brother who had emigrated to Australia. He was one of my mother's stories she was told about an uncle in Australia who had a gold mine. Nobody knew what became of this brother or his family but here I had letters with a return address. I wrote to the address saying anyone related to this family please write to me and that led to a correspondence and subsequent meeting with the cousins from Australia, whose ancestor made his money in the gold rush and bought land. Their grandmother had drawn up a family tree that said my great-grandmother had married "a Higgins from Glenravel". Up to this point I had no idea where in County Antrim my Higgins ancestors were from, but now I was directed to Glenravel which was only a few miles from Cushendall. And that matched up with a reference in a letter from a friend in the States to my great- grandmother while she was on a visit to the old country, asking "and have you gone on the visit to Glenravel yet?" meaning have you been to see your in-laws. My mother's grandparents had been married in Somerville, Mass., but may have known each other before they emigrated, their hometowns being so close to each other. I have since spent several visits in Glenravel and have met some Higgins who are almost certainly cousins though we can't confirm it due to a gap in the parish records. So, as you can see, serendipity can play a large hand in genealogy. If I had been focussed on my research at the PRONI, I would probably have been laboring through God only knows what tedious tomes. It seems like when I kick back and let the unseen hands guide me, is when I make the important discoveries. Like the fateful cup of coffee that led me to my Ahern origins in County Cork. But that's another story. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dennis Ahern | The Higgins Family of Glenravel, Antrim Acton, Massachusetts | http://world.std.com/~ahern/higgins.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -