A new beginning.
Working to grow this.
Issue #1.
Really hoping that this method will work. It’s not social media but honestly, I’m just frustrated trying new ones out hoping that it will work, but I suppose this is always better than nothing, right?
So, to business! I figured this may be a good thing to include. Scrolling through feeds be it on Twitter or Facebook - I tend to see people share that they’ve made a breakthrough or a new cousin contacted them. I would just feel a bit sad after reading it as something like that never happened to me. That was until last night! On my Ancestry profile, I always ask for people who stumble across my tree to email me if they think they are related to me. I kept meaning to get rid of that as I never got anything but as I was checking my email last night, I saw one that caught my attention. I had almost thought it was a spam email but nope. It was the great-granddaughter of my 2x great-grandaunt, making this person my 3rd cousin 1x removed. I couldn’t believe my luck! So, if you’re still waiting for a reply to that message you sent to someone on Ancestry — stay hopeful. You never know what might happen.
That’s the genealogy section of this over.
Now, for the mother and baby home research segment. I was able to announce that a ton of new content had been added to the Project Infant website. You can read the update below.
As well, on February 1st — there were amendments suggested to the proposed redress scheme for compensation for survivors of mother and baby homes. The current limitation is that someone had to have spent at least six months in a mother and baby home to be entitled to redress meaning about 24,000 survivors are excluded because they were there for less than six months. The amendments that were suggested to extend the redress scheme to all survivors had been denied.
I won’t lie, I was pretty disappointed (other descriptors do come to mind however they involve quite a bit of colourful language so I shall leave that out…)
Now — 24,000 survivors are going to be excluded. I shared my thoughts on Twitter but I’ll repeat them here. None of those children asked to be born in a place stained with shame from the community and family. My relative “Beth” is one of these survivors who is being excluded. This decision made by the government will echo in people’s minds for years to come.
Not to mention in a transcript of a debate in the Oireachtas, Tánaiste Mícheal Martin says that:
“No scheme can ever right the wrong done to a baby who was separated from his or her mother.”
— Tánaiste Mícheal Martin, Oireachtas Debate, February 2nd, 2022
He then goes on to claim that:
“The Birth Information and Tracing Bill has probably been the most radical legislation to come before us in the past year.”
— Tánaiste Mícheal Martin, Oireachtas Debate, February 2nd, 2022
Now, don’t get me wrong — the introduction of the Bill was huge. But it took forever to happen. And all it means is they’re finally giving adoptees the right to access their own information. Something so fundamentally basic but it took *years* to happen. “Beth” has also applied to the birthinfo.ie site to try and get her early life information. Something she should have gotten years ago.
My aim is that one day, I hope my work researching these mothers and infants reaches TDs to make them realise, ignoring the past is not the right thing to do. So many people want answers and I want to help and try to give them, through my research using death records, newspapers and more. I’m not expecting it to happen but I can hope, after all - I didn’t think I’d have a cousin reaching out to me! So, crazier things have happened. And if you’ve read down this far, thank you. I don’t try to sound political in things as I know it can be a divider but with something as big as this, it’s very hard to not sound political. If you feel this post needs to be heard by more, click the red button below. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next issue!