I've now finished transcribing Dr John's history of the US family, and included as many as possible of the individuals he has referenced, as well as all those which my various correspondents  have been good enough to send to me. The head count now exceeds 1650 - I started out with just about 100. Mighty oaks from little acorns grow !!

I think I'll leave any further changes for a while until I get my second wind. Meantime, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere have a good summer; if not, and you're one of the few that made it to Australia, why don't you contact me ?

For all our American cousins

At last I've found time to include more of the US family history from Dr JJ McGroarty - I hope you find it informative.  There's still at least another chapter to go.

While proof-reading this history I came upon a number of individuals whom I hadn't identified before, and I'm working to include them in the various lists.

"Thank you" to all those who have been contacting me - I'm struggling to get your info updated also. I hope to be back soon with all these entries.

A very, very belated Happy New Year to you all and my apologies for it being so.

I'm amazed to find that I haven't done an update on the site for nearly a year - time flies. In the meantime, I haven't been idle. I've had very useful input from a number of people which has helped to expand the Scottish connection a bit. I've also had helpful info and advice from Kathleen Bacom which has added a little to her branch, but, most usefully, has led me to alter the table layout a bit; I hope that you will find that the change is an improvement.

I've taken the plunge and integrated my branch (formerly family #72) into the larger tree of family #1. There's not a lot of evidence for this but some of the connections were credible and I decided to follow a hunch. I know it's against the rules but who is there to contradict me !!

I  also have an additional amount of textual data to add, but time does not permit at the moment. I hope to be back with it soon.

Some extra historical material added - we've got a Saint in the family !!! (Well, nearly).

It sure isn't me.

See under Historical Stuff.

Due to other commitments, I didn't make it to Donegal as I had hoped - someday soon maybe.

Got more info from John R (Alaska) and also from John (Dublin), which I have now inserted as Historical Stuff.

Found some of my internal links weren't working - hope they are now fixed.

Current head-count is 1090. Keep 'em coming!

Changed the page layout and increased the type size, hoping to make it more legible, especially for "old wrinklies" like me. Managed to tie in a few connections and get rid of some duplicates. Had an interesting contact from John Regis McG, 80 years old and living in Alaska - the McGroartys get around !! Going to Donegal at the end of February to meet Mickey Mullen and pick his brains. Will probably leave the site alone (i.e. NO MORE FIDDLING ABOUT, or so my wife says) until after then.

I didn't get around to wishing everybody a Happy Christmas - but all the best for a good year ahead.

It looks like I may have reached the magic 1000 McGroartys or at least pretty close.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can somebody help me connect my family #72 to the rest of the McGroarty world!!!!

I have now updated the family listings as promised and have added an alphabetical table of forenames. This is cross-indexed to the family listings for easier reference. The page which used to be called "101 McGroartys" has now been promoted to "1001" - maybe I'm getting a bit ambitious.

Got quite a few more names and some connections from Dr JJ McGroarty's work.

Pages 2 etc., to follow as soon as I can get time.

Added a new page with the first instalment of Dr JJ McGroarty's writings which contain a fascinating letter from Fr John MacGroarty (sic) from Donegal written in 1928. Adds a lot to the historical family background. Lots more to come!!

Colin McGroarty added my details to his website "McGroarty.org" and suddenly I started to get a few hits from USA - maybe coincidence.

One contact, Jonathan Glassow, has sent me a load of good stuff that requires a bit of work before I can publish it here.

I'm hoping to update the site with it soon (???)

I've now gathered up info on another 300-odd names. The total is now 711 and rising. I keep hoping it's like a lottery - if I get enough entries I'm bound to win something. Pity it's not working !

Just realised that I was not showing Year of Birth on a large number of records. Now fixed. A lot of them are guesswork based on dates of marriage or on birthdates of children where these are known.

On complaining to the RIC Museum about the format problems with GGF's service record, they e-mailed me a different version which I have now posted to the site. Sometimes it pays to complain !!

Found a Royal Irish Constabulary web-site and paid for a search for GGFs records. Confirmed my GGF's dates of service and a few other details on a (printable) certificate, but info is very sparse and poor value for £15 ($25). Can't get the document to upload to this web-site as it is either in a weird format or is copy protected in some way.

Added another 40-odd names to the database and got a few extra dates and things.

Returned to Donegal for a weekend visit in March 2006, visited 3 cemeteries and photographed/recorded a number of headstones. Amazingly, a number simply gave the names of those interred without any details of dates or relationships -  why did I think that this was going to be easy? Still, it's a good excuse for a weekend break.
Met Neil McG who owns McGroarty Electrics. Nice friendly guy, but didn't seem to be very excited about the family history and wasn't able to help much. I had believed that his Grandfather and mine might have been brothers, but it seems more likely now that they were cousins - still can't prove it.