RootsTech 2027 registration is open

Registration is now open for RootsTech 2027, the world's largest family history conference. RootsTech will be at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, 4-6 March 2027. Online registration is free! In person registration is $99 for a three day pass or $69 a day for individual days. While I wasn't selected as a speaker for RootsTech, I'll be going in person.

From past experience and knowing how schedules for large events come together, it will be a few months before the session schedule is released. Even if you follow online, there's always a ton of great talks and new information. For those going in person (see my posts from RootsTech 2025, here and here), RootsTech is an amazing event. 

What's in a Name

A helpful new video on YouTube from the International Institute of Genealogical Studies titled Irish Research: What's in a Name by Samantha John. The video is 22 minutes long, and provides some practical guidance on dealing with name changes across Irish, English and Latin in researching families in Ireland. I'm finding these tips really useful as I continue the dive through the Irish records on my branches in Roscommon and Longford. 

DNA in the news: History by a Hair

There's a new book out today on the DNA analysis of Thomas Jefferson's hair, definitively linking him to the children of his slave, Sally Hemings. The book is called History by a Hair, from Smithsonian scholar Richard Kurin. See this article in the New Yorker (21 Sept 2026) titled the Lost Descendants of Thomas Jefferson, and this one from NPR today.

The connection between Jefferson and Hemings is not new, going back to when Jefferson was alive. I am interested in the genetics, DNA analysis, and the subject is timely and fascinating.  

From the Rockville Charitable Loans, 1840

Ancestry. Rockville Charitable Loans. Ireland. 1840.

The image above comes from the Ireland, Sustainability Loan Fund, 1812-1868 file (Rockville Security Notebook 1838-1842). Either this shows my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget Gannon, borrowing 3 pounds in September 1840, or her aunt Bridget Hanley Gannon. The first security is Daniel Dominic Gannon, Bridget's father (or if this is for Bridget Hanley Gannon, her brother-in-law). Bridget would have been 16 then. A young, unmarried woman could borrow in her name during this time, but the loan needed to be for an income generating purpose, such as buying a spinning wheel, flax, wool, or hens or a pig to raise for market.

If the borrower was Bridget Hanley Gannon, she was a sister of Maria Hanley (my 4th-great-grandmother), who married Daniel's brother Michael Gannon in Roscommon on 25 February 1824.

The Rockville Charitable Loans was one of many Irish loan funds established to provide micro-credit loans. Roscommon is one of the key counties covered by the fund. 

According to the Internet, £3 in 1840 could have bought the following:

• A milk cow
• A pig
• A few sheep
• Raw wool, flax for spinning and weaving to sell
• Rent on a small plot of land
• Passage to North America

Daniel appears in the Rockville loan notebook as a security grantor throughout this 1837-1845 period, and received several loans himself.

I do not know which year Bridget arrived in America, or her port of entry. This advertisement from 1841 shows a £3 fare for steerage from Liverpool to New York.

Drogehda Argus, 3 Apr 1841.

Mary Polly and George

I previously wrote about Mary Polly Free, daughter of Nicholas Free, who married George Miller in Adair County, Kentucky on 22 November 1819. George and Polly moved to Illinois, and can be seen in the 1840 and 1850 US Census in Menard County, north of Springfield in the central part of the state.

Ancestry. 1850 US Census. Menard County, IL.

George died about October 1857, and Polly can be seen as the executor of his estate in the Menard County records via FamilySearch Full Text Search.

FamilySearch. Menard County, IL. 24 Nov 1857.

Polly appears in the 1860 and 1870 US Census in Menard County, and there are several records on the family in Menard County records on FamilySearch. According to this entry on Findagrave, Mary Polly Free Miller died on 22 August 1878 in Menard County and is buried in the family cemetery.

Our DNA matches from the Miller line descend from three of Polly's sons - Alfred, Robert and Lemuel. I am not certain if Polly was a full or half sister of William, but these DNA matches are quite small.

I believe Polly, Milly and George Free were children from an earlier marriage of Nicholas Free, half-siblings with William.