Genealogy Road Trips - 52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy Week #10

Week 10 – Genealogy Road Trips: No two genealogy road trips are the same but they’re always fun and meaningful. Describe a memorable trip in your past. Where did you go? What did you find (or not find)? Did you meet any new cousins? What did the trip mean to you and your family?

I haven't been on too many genealogy road trips, but one I was really fortunate to take was my first trip to Ireland in 1990. My father and I were very interested in where our Creeden family came from, but all that had been passed down was "County Cork". We arrived in Dublin and took a tour of Trinity College. There was a large volume of surname information in a library there and my father copied the Creedon entry. I believe this was from "More Irish Families" by Edward MacLysaght.

One possible clue on my Creeden origins is that my father thought he remembered his grandfather mentioning Macroom. Since this turns out to be one of the places that the Creedon name is most common, I've always kept that in the back of my mind while searching. We saw the Creedon name several times in County Cork. There was a Creedon shop right before we got to Blarney Castle and a big red truck passed us with "Creedon's" painted on the sides and back of it. I wish we knew more about our exact origins, but it was exciting to at least be in the part of the world where my Creeden family came from.

My uncle in front of Macroom Castle

Grounds of Blarney Castle

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.