This site is my attempt to share my research and facilitate contact between cousins across the world. My family tree is published at http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ . Search for a database called: miserablecurs

Why did I start this research?

In the 1980s, after completing my education, I returned home and lived with my parents for half a year before embarking on my professional career. A nice way of saying I was penniless and jobless and my folks took me back in.  At that time my dad told me of his efforts to gather information and documentation about his natural parents, especially his mother. He had written to churches across Liverpool and obtained his parents' wedding license and the baptismal certificates for himself and his brother. His brother and both parents died around the time of his birth in 1918. Raised by his paternal aunt and her husband, he came to the US as a child.  He knew little of his mother or her family named Fingleton in Ireland. I joined his effort and we wrote to many Fingletons we found in UK and Ireland phone books. He even established a correspondence with a widow Fingleton, who later guided my parents on their cherished trip to Ireland. Despite visiting churches to review their baptismal records, he was never able to find a trace of his mother's family.  A few years later, as a special Christmas present for my dad following his long post- motor vehicle accident hospitalization in 1988, I commissioned a genealogist to find his Fingletons. Not only did we get the details of his mom's 9 siblings but as a bonus he was put in touch with a first cousin, whose correspondence and shared photographs provided warmth to the story.

Over twenty years after I had shared my dad's search for his roots, I stumbled upon internet resources that seemed to make possible what was impossible back then.  Soon I was hooked. "Cousins" and other researchers have been great sources, but I have most enjoyed my own discoveries. I hope others enjoy my research as well.