It is hard to say why I undertook the task of researching my family’s lineage. I suppose I would trace the inspiration to a proposal my mother made to me two years ago. She suggested that I select some place in the world that I would like to go and that we could experience and enjoy together. I’ve never been much of a world traveler, so I took the opportunity to indulge in a little self-traveling. I’ve always known that my name was Irish and that I look Irish, but to seek out the true depth of Irish in myself through the history of my family would somehow quantify it. So I chose to see Ireland, but before I went, I had to do my homework. Both turned out to be a trip so much more than geographic. It was a little history, a little politics, and a lot of DNA.

The truth of the matter is, no one ever knows what he or she is getting into when they undertake such a task. Not only must you spend untold hours laboriously scrolling through miles of microfilm, but you must enlist the aid of every possible resource imaginable. The advent of the Internet has made the process of finding individuals with your same interest easier, but the possibilities of any one interaction leading to a significant find is slim. The Internet is useful for background research, but almost useless for specific genealogical data. New data is being put online every day, but one must simply browse for an hour through microfilms of ship’s manifests for New York in the 1850’s to realize how little data is available in cyberspace.

The most useful resource has been the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ (the Mormons) Family History Centers. The process they use is archaic at best, for very little information has been computerized, but the depth of data they’ve photographed, categorized, and made is staggering. They are also the most helpful people you would ever want to meet.

I’ve organized and written this document to be not just a listing of people and places, but a means for understanding the people behind the names. What were their lives like? Why did they live where they lived and do what they did? What were the social, political, and environmental forces that made them who they were and, by extension, who we are now? For this, I’ve included as much contextual historical information as I felt pertinent and informative.

I hope that you will pass this document down to your children and add to it as they grow and make more Gormans.