I cannot believe that I forgot to write about this before, but I found out the most extraordinary thing on Friday, thanks to Gael, that if you have a parent born in Ireland, you can get Irish citizenship.

Of course, the problem is that I know that my father's mother was Irish, but when I stopped and thought, I don't know for a fact if she was born there or here. I called my mother, and she had no idea, but she suggested that I write to my cousin, Mary Ellen.

As I have said before, Mary Ellen and I are the example of how spread out our family is, since my father was by far the youngest in his family, his oldest sister was old enough to be his mother, and I am by far the youngest in my family, Daddy being 48 when I was born, this means that I have a first cousin in her sixties. That's Mary Ellen. I think that her daughter is a good deal older than I am as well.

Anyway, she would be the one most likely to have information on our grandmother, Ellen Hughes Connolly Zuckert. Maybe her birth certificate, or even just knowing when and where she was born, anything like that would be most helpful, since trying to track down an Irish woman named Ellen Hughes who was born either in Ireland or the US, was slightly older than my grandfather, who was born in 1886, but was young enough to give birth in 1915, would be a bitch.

Anyway, if it turns out that she was born in Ireland, then I am golden, and even if she doesn't have the birth certificate, all I need is a place and a date of birth and I'm certain that I can get a copy. I'd have to get a copy anyway, as it has to be officially stamped and so on, as well as a copy of my grandparents' marriage certificate and my father's birth certificate, but both of those would be obtainable in New York City, as that was where they were married and where he was born. A date would help, of course, but I think that the name Zuckert is unusual enough that I wouldn't have to have it exactly.

It would be so cool to have dual citizenship! It would be so boss to be able to travel in Europe with a European passport! God, I hope this works out, I hope she was really born in Ireland.

I spent a large portion of the day looking up my family online, which yielded not much besides my father, although I tend to think that most people named Zuckert are likely to be related to me, Ellen wasn't to be found. She's not in the Social Security Death Index, which means either that nobody claimed death benefits or that she died before 1951, which I think is likely, since I know that she was dead when my father and mother got married in 1958.

It really was fascinating. I never have been interested by genealogy, or understood why anyone spent a whole pile of time doing a family tree, but just spending the one day thinking about this woman who is one quarter of me and without whom I would not exist, it got me thinking that I really would like to know who she was. She is me, I am a Hughes as well as a Holland, a Meerbergen and a Zuckert, and it's shameful that I know nothing about her.

Even if she wasn't born in Ireland, even if I can't get anything out of this, I want to find out about her anyway.

Today's horoscope:
Taking financial stock is a good idea. Balance the checkbook, review a budget, consider expenses, or look over retirement and investment plans.

One year ago today:
MOLLY
But I'd better not hit you on the head with the table, because one, I'll probably have children then, and two, where will they eat?!

* Yesterday / Index / This Month / Tomorrow *

E-Mail / In the Belly of the Hedgehog

Graphics by the universal Saundra!

This page was written by hand. My hand. Only pussies use HTML editors.
Last Updated Sat 31 August 20:15:09 2002