“In Memory of Valentine Ryan, Born in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, Feb. 23, 1810, Died Feb. 22, 1881. Erected by his son Patrick Ryan”: Irish Roots of Ryan Family, Grant County, Arkansas (2)

April 15, 2018

In my first posting in this series, I began telling you how, after years of searching, I eventually located the specific place in County Kilkenny, Ireland, from which my Ryan ancestors emigrated to America in 1852-3. My family had long known that Valentine  Ryan and his wife Bridget, my great-great-grandparents, brought their family from County Kilkenny … More “In Memory of Valentine Ryan, Born in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, Feb. 23, 1810, Died Feb. 22, 1881. Erected by his son Patrick Ryan”: Irish Roots of Ryan Family, Grant County, Arkansas (2)

“In Memory of Valentine Ryan, Born in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, Feb. 23, 1810, Died Feb. 22, 1881. Erected by his son Patrick Ryan”: Irish Roots of Ryan Family, Grant County, Arkansas (1)

April 12, 2018

In two previous postings in my series about Patrick Ryan (here and here), I’ve shared a few pieces of information about Pat’s Irish roots. As I told you in those postings (the first link has a copy of his baptismal record), his parents were Valentine Ryan (1810-1881) and Bridget Tobin (1818-1873), who married 21 September 1836 in … More “In Memory of Valentine Ryan, Born in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, Feb. 23, 1810, Died Feb. 22, 1881. Erected by his son Patrick Ryan”: Irish Roots of Ryan Family, Grant County, Arkansas (1)

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (9)

April 11, 2018

This will be my final posting in this series about Patrick Ryan (1846-1893) and his Civil War pension file. If you’re just discovering this blog, you may want to read the whole series of which this is the final piece. What I want to do now is provide some footnotes to  previous postings in the … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (9)

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (8)

April 7, 2018

I’m floundering a bit as I try to draw to a close this series of postings about Pat and Delilah Rinehart Ryan and their pension applications for Pat’s Civil War service and injuries. The problem is that the deeper I reach into the treasure trove of information this file contains, the more connections I’m spotting … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (8)

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (6)

March 25, 2018

As I ended my last posting about the Civil War pension claims filed by Patrick Ryan and his widow Delilah Rinehart Ryan in Grant County, Arkansas, I mentioned that one of the threads tying together the network of families represented in these combined pension files is that men from several of these families were Union … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (6)

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (5)

March 23, 2018

I’d like to begin winding down my series of postings about the Civil War pension files of Patrick Ryan and his wife Delilah Rinehart Ryan of Grant County, Arkansas, by tying up some loose ends I’ve left dangling in my four previous postings about these genealogically rich documents. As I do so, I’m fully aware … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (5)

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (4)

March 20, 2018

You obtain an unexpected new treasure trove chock full of genealogical goodies, as I did last year when, at long last, I thought to look for a Union service record for my grandmother’s uncle Pat Ryan and discovered he and his widow Delilah Rinehart Ryan had filed pension applications for his Civil War service. You … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (4)

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (3)

March 17, 2018

And now to that missing eye: though I have not spelled this out, it has probably become obvious to you if you’ve read the first two installments in this series that it is, in part, an extended essay about the importance of family stories in genealogical research. It’s a foray into understanding how family stories … More Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (3)