The bible was larger than I expected when my mother pulled it out of a drawer in my grandmother’s sitting room. The exact origins of the bible are unknown to me, but I know that it was once in the possession of my great aunt Dorothy, who decided to type out (on a typewriter) an abridged version of my grandfather’s family history. The pages containing this family history lie neatly folded in the bible’s front cover. 

          The pages within the bible trace my family back to Athlone, in central Ireland, in the early 19th century. From there my family immigrated to the United States before the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852), and moved out west to San Francisco, California. My great-grandfather, working as a civil engineer, eventually moved back east to settle down on Long Island, New York, where he raised my grandfather. While I had heard stories of our family’s movement before from my mother, after gazing upon the pages, I realized that this was the first time I had seen our history so vividly. I was so used to feeling distant from the people that came before me, but I felt that these pages somehow brought these people closer to me, simply through reading their names and birth dates. I always felt limited by the distance between myself and my family’s history. But now, with the discovery of these pages, I feel a little closer to it. 

– Liam Kieran

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more