Maybe it was the trip to Ireland several months ago. Maybe it’s the fact that it appears I am now the designated family source that the nieces and nephews are being sent to for ancestry information.
In any case, I’m not swabbing any cheeks but I am enjoying browsing old records. What have I learned? For one thing, when I was a kid we didn’t know anyone else named McEnroe (at least not until John burst onto the tennis scene), so we thought it was a rare name. Not so, turns out that there are many, many of them.
Also turns out that you can’t really count on people to have accurately reported their ages and birthplaces, or spelled their names, with any consistency. And that those Irish Catholics, whether in Ireland or in the U.S., really had quite a short list of names they chose from. Maybe that’s how Delia becomes a nickname for Bridget.
Makes for better late night scrolling than some social media platforms I could name.