Most everyone at some time or another has become curious about their predecessors, but few do anything about it. With the passage of time, the chances of determining exact and detailed lineage become more remote and the descendants become more numerous and obscure through the interlacing with other families with varying backgrounds.

The briefest scanning of history indicates that no part of the inhabited earth was ever free from countless invasions, settlements, counter invasions and dominations to the point where it is difficult to conceive of any pure strain of humanity existing and that the so called "melting pot" has been boil­ing since the creation of man.

There is no doubt that the Emerald Isle has been inhabited since the last glaciers left those shores and man's ability to chronicle the life and times of those peoples has been reduced to just a fragment of time in its overall his­tory. Since the Milesians were the least likely to have gotten their names from the residents of Ireland who were being invaded, they were designated as the true ancestors of the Irish, though the people who already occupied Ireland must have had some standing in the matter. In ancient times, Ireland, as well as Scotland and England, assumed a language that came to be identified as Gaelic, Celtic, and Erse.

While Ireland always seems to be included on the agenda of the numerous invaders, England was the prime target and the "invasions" of Ireland consisted of no more than periodic "raids" by the closer associated factions such as the Norsemen, Normans, etc. Even the Romans did not extend their supply lines to engulf Ireland or North Scotland. Wars seemed to have been inspired more over concern for real estate than high flown principles. The main purpose of the invasions was not so much towards colonization as it was to gain wealth for the home front. Even with the Romans, the prime purpose of occupying the south of England was to gain access to the tin deposits of Wales to improve their weapons and tools. Even Patrick, who became the patron saint of Ireland, was in no way Irish and had been, in fact, born of Roman parentage during the latter years of the Roman occupation in south England.

It was the Vikings who built the first cities in Ireland, including Dublin, Cork and others and it was the Vikings who divided Ireland into counties, town­ships and districts to become the first attempt at organized government. All of this had a definite influence on the character and bloodlines of the inhabitants of Ireland. The true Irish were mere savages from way back and conducted them­selves, as such, into modern times.

History is written up through numerous and varied interpretations taken from available facts and evidence. It has been altered and embellished to suit the political scene of the time and has been saturated with imagination to pad it out to such an extent as to be unable to distinguish fact from fiction but which, for the lack of any more precise record, we are taught to accept as gospel. The account, herein, will not be much different. The names, places and dates are all authentic to the best of our knowledge, while the narrative will be taken from scraps of information recounting what was known of the everyday lives of those included. It will be filled in based on written accounts by others as to events and modes of life typical to the related periods.

During the search for information it was surprising the number of people who professed to be writing up histories of their immediate families of the same name. No attempt is made to infringe on those who feel they have patent rights to their efforts in research and the results obtained nor is there or will there be any claim to the patent on the material and information disclosed in this account. The basic information and everything discussed herein, as vital statis­tics and historical events, are a matter of public record.

No one can claim any patent rights on the public record of any individual, and as to the circumstances of their private lives, this is purely the writer's style and concept which would be very coincidental if not impossible to duplicate without consultation.

It is only in recent years that exact dates, names and places of residence have been required of us in our daily confrontation with Social Security, re­tirement, voting privileges, job procurement and a host of other matters. Our ancestors, who preceded us prior to the advent of such necessities, were somewhat lax in producing such basic evidence in precise form and therefore there have been omissions in documents which leave minor conflicts in trying to pin them down. In many instances the scribes and recorders had to rely on phonetics since there was much illiteracy. Nevertheless, these are all real people and dates and places have been confirmed to the extent that, for the most part, all were legitimate and not existing in more than one place at the same time.