Family Genealogy Research Trip

Nicole Brewer Start Date: Nov 6, 2022 - End Date: Mar 5, 2023

My Travel Story

by: Nicole Brewer Start Date: Nov 6, 2022 - End Date: Mar 5, 2023
Hello! Thank you for visiting my page and considering funding this research trip.

Who is traveling?
My name is Nicole and I want to take my mom (pictured) back to Ireland to continue researching our family history. She's informally the "Family Genealogist" for her side of the family. Over the last two decades, she has accumulated several storage bins full of family papers and notes. She has contributed to several family tree sites and her favorite thing to do in her limited free time is to work on expanding her tree.
I have my master's degree in library science with a concentration in archives studies. I use my skills to help my mom find resources and depositories to further her search. I also love helping with this family project (although I feel like "project" is too small of a word) and have learned so many cool things. For example, one of my relatives was part of an organization that eventually became the IRA and tried to invade Canada!

Why are funds needed?
Well, to put it simply, neither of us earns much money. My mom is the secretary for a school district's math coordinator and also works part-time with parks and recreation teaching kids to play sports. I am a public librarian with weird hours that prevent me from finding steady part-time income. I'm actually still paying off our trip from March 2019.

Why should you fund our trip?
Money has always been a stressor in our lives. For once, I would like to plan this trip without having to worry about pinching pennies or cutting out locations to travel to because we didn't have the time and money. I want to take my mom to the archives in Cork and not spend a few hours researching, but several days or however long we need. I want to return back to Ross Castle, which my great aunt wrote about in her travel notes as one of our ancestral homes, and spend days in Killarney searching through parish records and historical society documents, instead of just an hour taking the tour of the castle. Unlike last time, I don't want to come back home this time and wish he had had more time and could have gone to more archives and told ourselves we'll get there next time. Because what if there isn't a next time?

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