The following is an invited guest post by Jim Purcell drawing attention to the Green Room website, one I'd not heard of previously.
A few years back, in an effort to research
my Irish roots, I found myself floundering around in my family tree on
Ancestry.com. Frustrated with the many hints leading to facts that may or may
not have had any relationship to my ancestors, I was linking to any possible
family relations, regardless of validity. Not a great way to do genealogy, but
sometimes one hits on a fortuitous outcome.
On one of these outings along a branch of
my family that wasn’t part of my family, I happened upon a very friendly cousin
(who wasn’t a cousin). In our zeal, we linked each other through a “common
ancestor”, Patrick Purcell. Alas, her Patrick and mine were two different
people. Nevertheless, Colleen pointed me to a resource that has proved to be
more satisfying that even finding that elusive 4th or 5th
great grandparent – The Green Room on YourIrishHeritage.com!
About 5 years ago, Mike Collins, a Corkman,
began sending (for free) a “Letter From Ireland” every Sunday to subscribers
interested in their Irish heritage. The letters run the gamut from descriptions
of Irish history, to Celtic culture, to investigations of the homelands from
whence we came. Perhaps you have heard of him and the site
www.youririshheritage.com? Anxiously awaiting his newsletter every Sunday are
thousands of subscribers across the world, myself included.
An offshoot of that is The Green Room, available by paid subscription to those of us who
want to dig more deeply into our roots. The Green Room exists to provide a home
to we descendants of the Irish diaspora, as we share in the journey to discover
not only the facts of our Irish roots, but the stories, the history, and
culture that each of our ancestors experienced in their lifetimes. The forum
brings our family trees to life and connects us with “family” from New Zealand
and Australia, to the European and American continents, and, of course, Ireland
itself.
While Mike is not technically a
genealogist, he has provided hundreds of us with a forum to share our
experiences, assist each other in research, link us to resources that we would
be unlikely to find on our own, and provide us with historical and cultural
perspectives that help us understand the lives of our ancestors. The Green Room
membership includes free access to John Grenham’s excellent site,
www.johngrenham.com, and Jayne McGarvey, a professional genealogist, is a
member who provides we amateurs with significant guidance. Stories from members
who have lived through The Troubles, from those who’ve stepped across the thresholds
of their ancestors to meet distant cousins still living in the family
homesteads, Mike and Carina traveling to the homelands of our ancestors to
document the past and the present, and countless other opportunities to share,
and laugh, and cry – that’s The Green
Room.
If you are interested in learning more,
you can go to www.youririshheritage.com, LISTEN to Letters From Ireland on a podcast,
or WATCH videos of the
places Mike and Carina travel to on Youtube.
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