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The Genealogists' Tale
40 years sorting out the Sullivans, Sheas and others on the Beara
An accordian might seem an unusual tool for a genealogist. But when
Riobard O'Dwyer started researching family-trees some 40 years ago on
the Beara Peninsula, he found that some traditional Irish music could
help draw out genealogical information from local elders.
 Now, four decades later, it seems likely that Mr. O'Dwyer knows more
about family histories of this rugged southwest corner of Ireland than
anybody else on earth. Many of the Sullivans, Harringtons, and other
Beara descendents here in America are aware of his skill, which is why
you'll find his name popping up in internet genealogy boards they
frequent.
The early part of Mr. O'Dwyer's resume is lively. Besides
appearing on Radio Eireann with his accordian in his young days, he won
the All-Ireland Senior Triple Jump Championship (or "Hop, Step and
Jump" competition) a record 7 times. He got involved in genealogy in
1963, while teaching school in Eyeries parish. During a history lesson
on the great Irish famine, he decided to look into how his students'
ancestors had "suffered so much between the famine and the landlords"
in this time (1845-1850). The accordian worked wonders when he showed
up to try and get older people to give him "oral records" about
families in the area.
Hard To Believe
But the project also introduced him to the daunting limitations of old
Irish Church documents. He found that hundreds of baptisms were
omitted, some boys were given girls' names (and vice versa),
grandparents and godparents were listed as the parents of children, a
man was put down as the mother of a child. That was just the start. One
man was listed as having been buried a month before he died, several
children listed as born twice, several baptised before they were born
and twins born as much as two months apart ("we must have had some very
prolonged pregnancies in those days" he notes). Particularly
interesting was a man listed as being married in New York 72 years
before he was born in Ireland. Following his school project, he began
to take on research jobs for local families. Mr. O'Dwyer began the
first of thousands of family trees he's now completed. Along the way,
he's seen some emotional moments unfold, when American visitors come
face to face with living relatives - whom they may not have been aware
existed - as a result of his work. A favorite job was tracing the
ancestry of the last US Ambassador to Ireland (and former governor of
Wyoming) Mike Sullivan. The Ambassador's great grandfather, a copper
miner, had emigrated from the township of Cahirkeem (Eyeries Parish) to
the Upper Michigan Peninsula. Though he married in Michigan in 1866,
and the first few of the children were born there, the family did not
remain in Michigan. Along with other former Beara copper miners in the
area, they were led to a farming homestead in Holt County, Nebraska by
General John O'Neill (for whom O'Neill, Nebraska was ultimately named).
Their new home became known as the "Michigan Settlement," and the
miners - with surnames like Sullivan, Harrington, Cronin, Hanley,
O'Dwyer and Murphy - became known as "Michiganders." Mr. O'Dwyer's
ability to track the Ambassador's great grandfather from the Beara to
Michigan and Nebraska ultimately resulted in Mr. Sullivan visiting the
Beara. He came "sporting his ten-gallon hat" O'Dwyer says, to open a
walking and cycling route in Cahirkeem named for his ancestor, and to
officially open work on the new Allihies Mining Museum.
Why do so many of us want to know about our ancestors? The "short
answer," Mr. O'Dwyer says, is "How do we get the feeling for who we are
and the pride in who we are, unless we know where we came from? You
look at the St. Patrick's Day celebrations all over the world. Therein
lies a big part of your answer." He enjoys looking into history, but
has no illusions about life in past centuries, speaking of "ancestors
who were forced to emigrate in the sailing ships and 'coffin ships'
through the terrible storms of the Atlantic to try and make a better
living in those terrible far-off days."
Branch Names
Mr. O'Dwyer's advice can help the do-it-yourselfer, or it can help you
create a file that will make a hired genealogist's work a lot easier.
In most parts of Ireland you research, you'll quickly encounter the
problem of multiple families with the same surnames. "There are
approximately 80 different Sullivan/O'Sullivan branch-names in the
Beara Peninsula," O'Dwyer says, "and if you weren't aware of what they
were, you may as well be searching through the Amazon Jungle for your
O'Sullivan." A tool that's helped him trace many families is the
"branch name," a concept foreign to most Americans. In areas where a
name like Sullivan was particularly dominant, families were often
distinguished by branch names based on the occupation of a senior
member. If a man was a land-steward, "reachtaire" in gaelic, his
descendents would be known as "Rochtirres." Decendents of a forge
owner, "cearta" in gaelic, would be known as Ceartans. Parish priests
often put these branch names into church records instead of the real
surname. As a result, it's often possible today for a genealogist to
distinguish members of the Sullivan Rochtirres, for instance, from the
Sullivan Ceartans. Location, Location, Location
Another key piece of information - an ancestor's true point of origin -
can be surprisingly tough to obtain. Mr. O'Dwyer receives numerous
letters with vague statements like "My grandfather Patrick O'Sullivan
threw stones into Bantry Bay," that give him little to work on. There
are about 800 townlands around the bay. The only town (as distinct from
the villages) on the Beara Peninsula is Castletownbere, a fishing port
(and once a Naval base) well-known outside of Ireland. People from all
over the peninsula frequently identified themselves as being from
Castletownbere, never stating which of the many townships and parishes
in the area they actually originated from. To make things even more
complicated - numerous records in America name an Irish immigrant as
coming from "County Cork," when he might have been from a completely
different county. Why? Because Cobh, formerly known as Queenstown (in
County Cork) was a major port of embarcation for trans-Atlantic ships.
Arriving in the US, people often stated that they had, quite literally,
come over from County Cork. Necessary Steps
Before hiring a family researcher, it's important to do some homework.
"Here is what is vitally necessary," Mr. O'Dwyer says, "for a
successful genealogical inquiry."
- Name and approximate date of birth of the ancestor.
- Christian name of the father.
- Maiden name of the mother.
- Name of the ancestral parish, and, if possible the townland within the parish.
- Maiden name of the ancestor's wife (any details on her parents are also helpful).
- Where in the US the ancestor went.
- Names and approximate dates of birth of ancestor's siblings, with any marriage information about them.
- In many cases a sibling may have stayed in Ireland and settled on the home
farm, or nearby - information on who he/she married can be valuable.
For a good list of heritage centres that can help with your research in
Ireland, Mr. O'Dwyer recommends the second quarter 2002 issue of "Irish
Roots" magazine, available from publisher Tony McCarthy at
editor@irishrootsmagazine.com (a yearly subscription costs $20).
More Difficult Today
In spite of numerous attempts to codify and reorganize old Parish
Church records, Mr. O'Dwyer warns that they're actually tougher to work
with now than when he started out 40 years ago. In those days, there
were alot of very old people on the peninsula with a deep knowledge of
area families, whom he could go to and double check the written
records. Now these old people are all gone. Unfortunately, he doubts
anyone ever "double checked" records in other parts of Ireland the way
he has done with his local records. Another problem is the tendency of
modern transcribers to simply carry forward the errors in old
documents. "The old church records, especially the baptismal records,
are littered with mistakes. Those mistakes are
being transcribed from Latin into English, or perhaps into Gaelic in
Irish-speaking areas." The danger lies in accepting the information in
these new records as gospel. Verifying your records is even more
important today as a result.
At times, Mr, O'Dwyer says, he's handed unrealistic requests. Some
people have turned up on his doorstep, having done little or no
research on their own, asking if they can be introduced to a relative,
some John O'Shea or "the inevitable Patrick O'Sullivan," during a brief
visit to the area. "A lot of time can be needlessly wasted," he says,
"trying to perform miracles on such occasions."
Stick With It
For all of Mr. O'Dwyer's diligence, some of his best moments have
required a bit of luck. When putting together his first genealogy book
30 years ago, he left out over 1200 families about whom nothing, beyond
the names and dates of baptism, was known. But he kept his hand-written
data on them, just in case a connection might pop up out of the blue
later on. One day, an American woman turned up who was clearly
descended from one of these "missing" families. Having kept the records
made it possible for Mr. O'Dwyer to draw a direct connection to her
Irish ancestry, and quickly trace both sides of her family in the Beara
Peninsula, turning up many ancestors she'd never been aware of. Two of
her great, great, great grandfathers, as it happened, were born in the
same year: 1796. "It was a very happy lady who returned to the United
States with her Family-Tree that she had almost despaired of finding"
O'Dwyer recalls, adding: "The important thing to bear in mind for
people out there trying to trace ancestors is never give up. Stick with
it. Success comes to those who persevere." Where Riobard O'Dwyer works:
Mr. O'Dwyer, who has lectured on his work in places like Salt Lake
City, Butte, Boston, Tampa and the Irish Genealogical Congress,
researches only on ancestries of the the Beara Peninsula parishes of
Adrigole, Allihies (Copper Mines Parish, including Dursey Island), Bere
Island, Castletownbere, Eyeries and Glengarriff, all of which lie in
County Cork. The only part of County Kerry he does work on is the
Bonane District closer to Kenmare. He lives in Eyeries Village, County
Cork. Email: riobardodwyer@eircom.net
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