The Tough ONES!

My mothers maiden name is Lenihan so that is one of my lines that I was most interested and most excited about starting. I never in a million years would have thought that it would be the hardest.

The Lenihan's were one of the first lines I started. I asked my mother for all the information that she could remember (which was not a whole lot) and I went from there. She knew her father, his siblings and her grandmother. She told me that this side of the family was not brought up that much when she was a kid. So, I went with what I had. I started on the internet. I found a few things but nothing that would take me back that far. I looked in newspaper records, used as many different websites as I could find and nothing. I tried and tried and nothing would work. So I gave up.

A few months later I decided to go out to the cemetery to take some pictures of headstones. On a whim I asked the receptionest at Crown Hill if she would look up a name for me. She did. JOHN LENIHAN was buried at Crown Hill. She told me where the plot was and proceeded to go check it out. It was amazing what I found. My grandfather (JOHN) his father (michael) Mother (Margaret) 2 of his 3 sisters and his brother were all in the same plot. I knew nothing of any of these people.

That gave me a great re-starting place for my Lenihan line. I was so excited, spent the next day on the computer without a break and found lots of good new information.

Don't give up, work on something else for awhile. You NEVER know how you will get your next lead. Keep your eyes and ears open. It will happen, it just might take awhile.