I have been working on my family genealogy intermittently for several years, but a few years ago I made great strides after I was found by some previously unknown cousins. Since then, the cousins keep rolling in! What a great “hobby” – finding your family.

As I have discovered more evidence of my family’s immigrations and documentation of their lives, I have become entranced by the idea that while we live in different times we often travel similar paths.

While I may write about technical tools and techniques here, my initial intention for this blog is to document my travels through time as I discover my family’s footprints.

I am an information systems and security professional by trade. Now that I, certifiably, have the genealogy bug I have found that many of my technical skills normally used for finding unprotected data in order to secure it can be quite valuable when researching one’s family.

You can find more detail of my professional exploits here. If you are so inclined, you can follow my often inane thoughts on The Twitter as well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Finally, I have named the blog Currach, after a phrase from John O’Donohue’s Beannacht (Blessings):

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

You can find more about his poem here or read about the naming of this blog here in my first post. (You really should click on that, you know.)

[audio:http://download.publicradio.org/podcast/speakingoffaith/odonohue_poems/odonohue_03_beannacht.mp3]
Listen to Beannacht recited by John O’Donohue

If you would like to contact me, you can use the form on my Contact Page, or send me an email at:
currach at johnjtierney dot com (You’ll have to piece that one together.)