Twisted Roots

The Algeos of Hollymount Some family lines travel farther than the distance measured on a map. They cross borders, change countries, acquire land, alter their social standing, and sometimes emerge generations later looking very different from the family that began the journey. The Algeos are one of those families. Their trail leads us through Scotland and the Ulster Plantation before arriving at Hollymount near Manorhamilton in County Leitrim. But behind that migration lies a

Two Roads to One Family Name Some genealogical mysteries begin with a missing record. This one begins with two possible histories. By the eighteenth century, William and Robert Cain appear within an Irish world shaped by migration, commerce, conquest, changing languages, and centuries of movement across the Irish Sea. But where did their Cain name come from? That question has opened two very different paths into the past. One leads toward the Anglo-Norman administration of me

Pious Refugees & Border Outlaws Imagine two families arriving in the same corner of Ireland carrying histories that could hardly have been more different. One came from a world shaped by religious conviction, skilled craftsmanship, literacy, and exile. The other emerged from a violent borderland where survival depended upon kinship, livestock, weapons, and knowing whom you could trust. The first were French Huguenots. The second were the Border Reivers of England and Scotland