Ireland 2005
In 2005 we finally got to make our trip to Ireland. Probably from as far back as I could remember I always dreamed of going to Ireland. That is a long time. I am now 55 and a half and I finally got there. My girlfriend and myself had planned this trip for most of the last 3 years. I was going back to my ancestral home. Although I had done a lot of work on my ancestry the very last thing I had on my mind as we left for Ireland was the thought that I would find a living relative. The very last thing. We were going to go to the Doherty reunion and just enjoy ourselves. Deb is German, but she was as anxious as I was to find out what we could and to just enjoy it. My Irish heritage at least here in the Reading area had just about died in 1921 when my great-grandmother Ellen Dougherty died. Her daughter my grandmother Mary Dougherty had married James Antosy my grandfather who was Slovak and from then on I always knew I was Irish, we always celebrated St. Patrick's day like many other Americans do, but I never really understood my heritage beyond that, or for that matter never heard it talked about. It was just something we didn't spend too much time on, I was considered Slovak and that is what I really though is all is was till I grew up a little and started asking questions. My parents visited Ireland back in the 70's, but I think they did that just to be able to say that they had visited Ireland, not that they were looking for relatives or anything like that, they were just American tourist on holiday. In late 1999 though everything started to change for me for one major reasons. I joined the Ancient Order of Hibernians, St. Brendan's Division. The division that had been started at the church I had been baptized and spent 9 years going to school there St. Peters on 5th Street. I believe and always have believed St. Peters is the most beautiful church I have ever been in, and the church where most of my family had been involved with for over 100 years, in fact longer than that. I think it was just time to find some things out. Probably the first thing I did was talk to my Aunt Ciss, who had old pictures of my family. I didn't even know who they were except of course I did know who John Antosy was, again my grandfather, although I had never seen him he was dead before I was born, and of course my grandmother Mary Dougherty who lived for a little bit of time after I was born, dying in 1958 when I was 9 but there were other pictures and these people I had no idea who they were. They were my great-grandparents Michael Dougherty and Ellen Dougherty, again I had no idea who they were or what they had to do with me, but after talking to my aunt I realized this was my Irish heritage and now I had a starting point from which to begin. When you are a member of the Ancient Order obviously your Irish heritage is more of a bigger issue, so I didn't want to be left out in the cold, so I started to study. I started by going to the Berks County Historical Society and there I found the records for St. Peters Parish which I was really surprised that it was there but very happy to find it. In the records I found that my great-grandfather Michael Dougherty had been a god-father at least 6 different times from the time he came to the United States in April of 1870 (actually his first god-father job wasn't till 1872), but then he was a god-father 5 more times from 1872 till 1886 when the records ended. From there I found out when he died and went to the Reading Library and used their microfilm system. The Reading Eagle and now defunct Reading Times are on microfilm back to about 1888 or so and I found it. There I found out Michael Dougherty was the treasurer of the AOH in Reading for over 30 years and that he died in 1919, exactly one year to the date that he found out his son James had died in France during WWI. Then I found his marriage license which tells you many things. There I found out Michael's parents John Doherty and Elizabeth Wynne, and also my Great Grandmother Ellen who's parents were Andrew and Margaret Kirk. When I did the research on the babies Michael had been a godfather for all the names came from Leitrim. That helped me to realize that many other people from the Reading area came from Leitrim. For some reason many of the Irish who came from Leitrim lived on the east coast of the United States especially places like New York and Pennsylvania. Back at the Historical Society I started going through the City Directories which in Reading go back to about 1840 or so, so you can check out where different people lived at. The Irish community at least the part my great-grandparents lived at was in South Reading in the are of S. 6th St., Bingaman St. Minor St. and into East Reading, so I could see some of those same names that had been baptized where they lived. I also knew from my aunt that we were related to the Loughlin's. My aunt had gone to school with a girl named Marie Loughlin and Marie used to call my aunt cousin, so I tracked Marie down and she told me that my Grandmother always told her that she and my aunt were cousins. Fine, but that didn't help my presently because my grandmother died in 1958, but it did give me a clue and after further searching I found a passenger list which both Micheal Dougherty and Michael Loughlin were on when they came to the United States from Ireland, and I knew the port they left from Moville. That told me that we were related. I found other things about my relations in Reading, but for the most part I was finished here at least looking for Michael Dougherty, so the next stop had to be Ireland, it had to be.