Emily Fagan, right, meets up with a long-lost relative, Liam, in Ireland.Courtesy of family
When we saw him, the resemblance was unmistakable. My grandpa’s nose, my mom’s eyes – it was a face I felt like I’d known my whole life. But Liam, the 70-year-old man in front of us, was a stranger: my grandfather’s long-lost first cousin twice removed, born and raised an ocean away from our family, in Ireland.
Ancestry travel is on the upswing
In Ireland, I learned what life was like for my kin. (But sleeping in a castle was more fun)
My mom and I took our trip to Ireland not on a quest to find long-lost relatives, but on a whim spurred by cheap flights. Although we knew both sides of our family claimed Irish roots, we weren’t familiar with any living relatives still there. Through a bit of luck, we came home with a restored family connection that had been all but lost for 117 years.
Before we got on the plane, I’d raised my eyebrows at my grandfather’s Facebook interactions with a man who claimed to be his long-lost cousin from Ireland – related through their grandfathers, before my branch of the family Americanized their last name upon arriving in New York.
While my mom was also suspicious, on her father’s insistence, she reached out to this cousin on a whim halfway through our trip. We were heading to Galway anyway.
But when we met Liam, there were no doubts: with his deep laugh and familiar features, he had to be for real. As the town crier of Galway, he made it his mission to show us a warm welcome, and gave us tour of the city’s pubs and cathedrals, shared its little-known history, such as the historic city walls hidden in a shopping centre. On the final leg of our walking tour, Liam took us to a street lined with storefronts adorned with our family’s un-Americanized last name, all buildings owned by our distant relatives.
Over a pint in his local pub, Liam shared details and stories about his life. The only story he didn’t tell was one behind my great-great-grandfather’s departure from Ireland: Liam claimed all he knew was that the family believed their New York-bound relative never married or had kids. We, of course, knew a different end to that story and filled him in.
Before meeting Liam, I had never considered travelling to places from my family’s past, but uncovering the unexpected has changed everything. Recently, my mom got a tip through a genealogy website about the region in France where her grandmother’s family came from.
She sent me a text right away, “Ready for our next trip?”