Online talks to Descendant Communities are free of charge.
Research area: African American families hidden in Irish slaveholder records in South Carolina.
Biography
I am a London-born Irish woman. I completed a B.A. in history & sociology in 1982 (University College Cork) I returned to London in my twenties and qualified as a counsellor & psychotherapist. I came home to Ireland before the birth of my eldest daughter. When tragedy struck our family in 2004 I decided to build my family tree and then took a DNA test. As a result of this process I discovered that I have at least two hundred African American cousins. There is no oral history in my family about these cousins. I resolved to find our common ancestor. (At this point anyone who is familiar with African American research is smiling wryly.) Years into the research and no closer to my goal, I realised I had amassed an amount of information concerning the Irish people never spoken of in my schooling, Irish slaveholders. I wanted to share this research in hopes that it would help others to find their families. I was awarded an M.A. (first class honours) Public History & Cultural Heritage (University College Limerick) in 2021 and immediately launched the digital public history project Enslavement to citizenship. It is the first digital public history project to identify Irish slaveholders in South Carolina and in so doing begin to identify the families they enslaved. The legacy of slavery is long and never more apparent than when a descendant seeks to discover their family history. The wanton destruction of family ties by the sale of human beings affects every person who seeks to find family who were enslaved. So if you have Irish ethnicity, a family name of Irish origin, or have ancestors enslaved by an Irish family I would love to share what I have learned with you. It gives me great joy when researchers have discovered family through the project and to be one of a growing number of people contributing to this kind of research worldwide. You can contact me at [email protected] if you would like me to speak to your group.
Research area: African American families hidden in Irish slaveholder records in South Carolina.
Biography
I am a London-born Irish woman. I completed a B.A. in history & sociology in 1982 (University College Cork) I returned to London in my twenties and qualified as a counsellor & psychotherapist. I came home to Ireland before the birth of my eldest daughter. When tragedy struck our family in 2004 I decided to build my family tree and then took a DNA test. As a result of this process I discovered that I have at least two hundred African American cousins. There is no oral history in my family about these cousins. I resolved to find our common ancestor. (At this point anyone who is familiar with African American research is smiling wryly.) Years into the research and no closer to my goal, I realised I had amassed an amount of information concerning the Irish people never spoken of in my schooling, Irish slaveholders. I wanted to share this research in hopes that it would help others to find their families. I was awarded an M.A. (first class honours) Public History & Cultural Heritage (University College Limerick) in 2021 and immediately launched the digital public history project Enslavement to citizenship. It is the first digital public history project to identify Irish slaveholders in South Carolina and in so doing begin to identify the families they enslaved. The legacy of slavery is long and never more apparent than when a descendant seeks to discover their family history. The wanton destruction of family ties by the sale of human beings affects every person who seeks to find family who were enslaved. So if you have Irish ethnicity, a family name of Irish origin, or have ancestors enslaved by an Irish family I would love to share what I have learned with you. It gives me great joy when researchers have discovered family through the project and to be one of a growing number of people contributing to this kind of research worldwide. You can contact me at [email protected] if you would like me to speak to your group.