I had never hear of the word genealogy until 12 years ago and spelt it wrong for a bit. At my grandfather's 90th birthday party he gave me his birth certificate and asked if I could find his family with my computer. All he knew was that he was one of eight children and his parent's died by the time he was 2 1/2.

Being the youngest child, he was raised by his eldest brother Edward. My grandfather always felt like he didn't know the entire story of his family and decided he wanted to before he died. So I was under a deadline as he had just found out his kidneys were failing.

So I started banging my head against walls just trying to find out where to find records (this was before Ancestry commercials). A very nice lady from NEHGS helped with two pieces of advice. The first was to check under Leary and O'Leary for records as registrars make mistakes. The second piece of advice was that in Boston the 1st child can come any time but the second one takes 9 months.

I dug into their records as well as census records from Ancestry. And the women at NEHGS was correct. My grandfather's great-great grandfather was named Bartholomew Leary and he had eight children. Half were registered as Leary and half as O'Leary. Also, I found him on census record as Bart, Bar, Barth and Leary or O'Leary.

My grandfather's grandfather married his grandmother 5 months before his father was born. My grandfather's father married his mother two months before his eldest sister Margaret was born and his eldest sister Margaret has a child born out of wedlock and did not marry until five months before her second child was born. I also found out that my grandfather had four brother who were born and died before he was born.

My grandfather was a man of few words so I wrote him a family history geared toward him with clip art and pictures. I sent the family history to my grandfather overnight mail so he would get it exactly on his 81st birthday. My grandmother called to yell at me as she said he read the first page (my dedication to him), got up from the table, and locked himself in his room for 3 hours.

When he finally came out of his room he called me to tell me that the family history was the best present he had every gotten. I thought about all the great gifts we had gotten my Nana and Grandpa over the years and asked him why this was the best gift. He told me it was because I gave him his family.

After that I was hooked. I was working in corporate America and realized I would never get that response from a client or broker so I left and started my company which has one employee. I love the fact that I work for myself. I was also living in Chicago at the time and realized I could work anywhere, so I moved to Florida where my parent's had retired.

I specialize in New England Research, Irish Citizenship by Descent, Irish research in general, Slovak research and now the states of Alabama and Florida. My Irish surnames are Leary/Joyce/Loughlin/Moylan. I am half Irish. On my mother's side my surnames are Grinvalsky/Zaharek/Tomala/Koval. I am half Slovak.

My grandfather lived to see pictures of his first great-child. He died the next day at the age of 92. For bio's and pictures of my Irish grandparent's you can look up Arthur Joseph Leary and Mary Agnes (Joyce) Leary who are buried at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne as my grandfather served in the Navy during WWII.

I had never hear of the word genealogy until 12 years ago and spelt it wrong for a bit. At my grandfather's 90th birthday party he gave me his birth certificate and asked if I could find his family with my computer. All he knew was that he was one of eight children and his parent's died by the time he was 2 1/2.

Being the youngest child, he was raised by his eldest brother Edward. My grandfather always felt like he didn't know the entire story of his family and decided he wanted to before he died. So I was under a deadline as he had just found out his kidneys were failing.

So I started banging my head against walls just trying to find out where to find records (this was before Ancestry commercials). A very nice lady from NEHGS helped with two pieces of advice. The first was to check under Leary and O'Leary for records as registrars make mistakes. The second piece of advice was that in Boston the 1st child can come any time but the second one takes 9 months.

I dug into their records as well as census records from Ancestry. And the women at NEHGS was correct. My grandfather's great-great grandfather was named Bartholomew Leary and he had eight children. Half were registered as Leary and half as O'Leary. Also, I found him on census record as Bart, Bar, Barth and Leary or O'Leary.

My grandfather's grandfather married his grandmother 5 months before his father was born. My grandfather's father married his mother two months before his eldest sister Margaret was born and his eldest sister Margaret has a child born out of wedlock and did not marry until five months before her second child was born. I also found out that my grandfather had four brother who were born and died before he was born.

My grandfather was a man of few words so I wrote him a family history geared toward him with clip art and pictures. I sent the family history to my grandfather overnight mail so he would get it exactly on his 81st birthday. My grandmother called to yell at me as she said he read the first page (my dedication to him), got up from the table, and locked himself in his room for 3 hours.

When he finally came out of his room he called me to tell me that the family history was the best present he had every gotten. I thought about all the great gifts we had gotten my Nana and Grandpa over the years and asked him why this was the best gift. He told me it was because I gave him his family.

After that I was hooked. I was working in corporate America and realized I would never get that response from a client or broker so I left and started my company which has one employee. I love the fact that I work for myself. I was also living in Chicago at the time and realized I could work anywhere, so I moved to Florida where my parent's had retired.

I specialize in New England Research, Irish Citizenship by Descent, Irish research in general, Slovak research and now the states of Alabama and Florida. My Irish surnames are Leary/Joyce/Loughlin/Moylan. I am half Irish. On my mother's side my surnames are Grinvalsky/Zaharek/Tomala/Koval. I am half Slovak.

My grandfather lived to see pictures of his first great-child. He died the next day at the age of 92. For bio's and pictures of my Irish grandparent's you can look up Arthur Joseph Leary and Mary Agnes (Joyce) Leary who are buried at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne as my grandfather served in the Navy during WWII.