Last Sunday night, episode four
of the sixth season of Who Do You Think
You Are? featured actor Sean Hayes. For the last few months it was common
knowledge online that Sean's Hayes line went back to the Ballylongford area of
Co. Kerry. Nonetheless, seeing the genealogical journey unfold is just as
important as finding out where in Ireland his ancestors came from.
The first steps to take when descendants of Irish emigrants begin genealogy research is to see what can be gleaned from
family members and then conduct research in the country of immigration. After getting
a few bits of information from his brother, Sean travels to Chicago. Here he is
shown his grandfather's death certificate along with interesting documents that
show his admission to hospital before he died. It is on these documents that
Sean learns the name of his great-grandfather, Patrick, along with very sad
information about his grandfather's final months. After finding Patrick and his
family in the 1930 census, Sean is able to get Patrick's naturalization
records. As the declaration of intention to naturalize dates from after 26 September 1906—in
the case of this document, 11 February 1918—it asks where the applicant was
born. This is the document that provides the connection to Ballylongford (to
read more about the value to Irish genealogy research of the online index for
these Cook County Illinois records, click here to read my post from July 2014).
Research is conducted in Ireland
for the rest of the show and the information from U.S. documentation fits
together beautifully with that found in Irish records. A great example of this
is Patrick Hayes' height as begin 6' 1'' on both his Chicago declaration of intention
to naturalize document and Irish prison records. Many of the documents from
Ireland shown on the show in the large dusty ledgers are from the Petty Session
Court Registers and Prison Registers, both of which are available on Findmypast.com (here
and here). Indexes for the Prison Registers are available to search for free on Familysearch.
A couple of good genealogy tips
and lessons are highlighted. Sean first goes to the Card Catalog section before
selecting a federal census database while doing one piece of research on the
website of show sponsor Ancestry.com. The Card Catalog is a great place to
start your research as it allows you to see what record databases are available
to consult. A 1901 census document from Ireland is also shown and since Patrick
Hayes was in prison at the time, he is shown by his initials 'P H' on the
document, as those in institutions when the census was taken only had their
initials recorded. Click here to view the original document (inmate number 12).
One very mild criticism is that
the University of Limerick historian who is guiding Sean through the Irish records indicates that
"this is the end of the road" when Sean asks if any more information
can be found about a particular ancestor. While information about that person
might not be available, it might have been nice to show some entries from
parish registers that would have brought the story back a little further. The
Petty Session Court records mention the family as living in the townland of
Kilcolgan Lower. Church records for this part of Kerry are free to search on Irishgenealogy.ie
and begin in 1823 for the Ballylongford Catholic parish.[1]
However, it is understandable that further information such as this would not
fit with the theme of the episode.
Throughout the show we see the
tragic cycle of generational alcoholism and dysfunction. In his Irish Times column this week, John
Grenham discusses the healing and closure that can occur through genealogy
research. What makes this one of the better WDYTYA? episodes is that by
following the genealogy records, Sean Hayes gets to find out the cause of the
despair for his great-great grandfather, which is sadly repeated in his family
down the next three generations to his own father.
[1]
The townland of Kilcolgan Lower is not actually in the Catholic parish of
Ballylongford but finding ancestors listed as living in a townland that is not
strictly within the borders of a parish is very common.
Thanks very much for your review of the Sean Hayes episode of WDYTYA, Joe.
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed the show's focus on Irish heritage, although it portrayed a sad generations-old pattern of family heartbreak. I liked the way that the episode highlighted many of the records I am familiar with thanks to my own search for Irish roots.
I, too, was disappointed in the historian's comment that "this is the end of the road". Though it was probably intended to mean that "this is the end of the road for this WDYTYA episode's search" for Sean Hayes' paternal line, it may have been misleading to some viewers.
Thanks again for this review and for all that you do for Irish genealogy!