Five letters are already waiting in Brooklyn. Two Irish families, the Dowlings and the Plunketts, and two marriages I still can’t locate: William Dowling and Ellen McAuliffe, and Peter Plunkett and Julia Smith. Somewhere in the parish records of five Brooklyn Catholic institutions, one of those entries might finally name the Irish parish, townland, or county my ancestors left behind.

In less than two weeks I’ll be walking through the doors of St. James Cathedral, Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph–St. Teresa of Avila, Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the Diocese of Brooklyn Archives, hoping the parish records inside answer a question I’ve been chasing for years. This post walks through what I’m searching for, why marriages matter more than baptisms, and what I’m hoping to find before I ever set foot on the plane.