Interviews

Kevin, Kenny, PhD

Irish Studies Professor, NYU

Dr. Kenny is a professor of History and Irish Studies at NYU. He is an expert on Irish emigration to the United States. He received his MA from University of Edinburgh in 1987 and his PhD from Columbia University in 1994. He is a member of the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, American Conference on Irish Studies, and serves as Vice President of the American Immigration and Ethnic History Society. He is the author of many books, including: New Directions in Irish-American History (2003), Ireland and the British Empire: The Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series (2004), Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (1998), The American Irish: A History (2000), The Irish: Towards the USA (2006), Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction (2013) and more.

Tom Duncan

Certified Genealogist, The Attic Genealogy Research

Tom Duncan is a certified genealogist in Parker Colorado. He is the founder of The Attic Genealogy Research company, is a graduate of Michigan State University, and received a Genealogical Research Certificate from Boston University. He started The Attic in 2011 and has been working full-time helping families unlock their own histories since that time.

For my genealogical research, I hired Tom to help me find historical records, perform fact-checking, provide context for my own findings, and more. He’s the one who has lent legitimacy to this project, and has been a tremendous help by deciphering cryptic clues in birth records, shipping manifests, census records, and more. Before I went to Pennsylvania, I met with Tom to help plan out the locations I should visit, the questions I should ask, and the data I should try to collect.

Ronald Duane Stauffer

My Father

My Dad, Ron, is the second of the three Ron Stauffers in my family. He is the first Stauffer (that I know of) who put any serious efforts towards researching our family tree. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, he spent a lot of time finding records of the Stauffer family in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. He collected newspaper clippings, old letters, records from public libraries, and more, and kept them all in a folder which he eventually passed on to me to continue working on. For this project, I reviewed everything he had given me related to our Irish ancestry and used that to help me track down that side of the family. For example, his photocopy of the inside jacket of a bible owned by my great-grandmother is what gave me the clues I needed for finding the cemetery in Mount Carmel.

Ruth Stauffer

My Sister

Ruth is the sixth child in my immediate family, and is one of my four sisters. She accompanied me on my trip to Pennsylvania, and helped me by making phone calls to churches and cemeteries, helped me take pictures, and wrote down ideas as we brainstormed the best way to plan this trip.