Hi! My name is Joan Fitzgerald and I created this blog as a way to write about my family history research. I was raised to be proud of my Irish heritage, but my mother would also say that we had no relatives. I didn’t think too much about it as a child because I had grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I had family.

Interest in my family history came about a few years ago when my Aunt Margie showed me an extensive history of the Hurley family and other Irish immigrants who settled in Waupaca County, Wisconsin. I also grew up in this area. I dabbled a little in genealogy research at that time but did not get very far.

As family members began to visit Ireland, I decided in 2008 that it was my turn to find out why visitors to the “Emerald Isle” came home “singing the praises of Ireland.” I visited again in 2017. I feel at “home” in Ireland and that these are my people from which my family’s values, traditions and stories came.

In 2018 I sent a DNA sample to Ancestry.com and it showed that I am 100% of Irish descent. I don’t know if this analysis is scientifically possible, but I have traced both my parents’ lines back to Ireland. Searching for family history can be fun, exhausting, frustrating and even addictive. And now I am hooked!

The lines I am researching are Fitzgerald, Flannery, Carew, Crain, Casey, Dinneen, Behan and Brahan; all having origins in Ireland. I hope you come follow me on my journey and if you have any of these surnames in your family tree, please feel free to contact me.