My father always insisted that he was Irish. He and his brothers and sisters all had typical Irish names (he said). Dad loved everything Irish, especially the music so about twenty years ago I decided to try and find out if he was really Irish. I first traced his father's line, no Irish, then his mother's side, again no Irish connections. Having gone back as far as 1700 in a direct line and finding no Irish connection I hesitantly told him the bad news, he was not of Irish descent. He was adamant that he was, I was eqally adamant that he was not.
Then, a few years ago, I was contacted by a person researching my father's family name. Turned out that the contact was a second or third cousin but not living in our area. I told him about my father's fantasy about being Irish, and the contact said that my father was correct. I pointed out that I had records to back up my statements. My long lost cousin then informed me that one of our ancestors had lied about his place of birth, (1800's) he was born in Ireland. With this new information I searched again. It was true, we were of Irish stock, no idea whereabouts as the record just say "Place of birth Ireland".
Sadly my father had passed away before I could tell him he was correct.
