On a cold clear day in late November, as the sun was setting, I drew at the Upper Falls Heritage Park in Norwich, Connecticut by the remains of an old mill building. Norwich was a town of water-powered industry and in the last century, my great-great grandfather lived here.
A few weeks ago, I had no idea that he had come to America. I thought he and his wife Mary were the ones who were left behind in Ireland. There were a lot of things I didn’t know. It turns out that my family tree was just a small branch hanging over a high wall. There was much more tree to found. Norwich, it turns out, had Lynches galore – all mine – so many that it’s quite confusing. Immigrants follow other immigrants and John Patrick Lynch and his family came to America in the early 1880’s to join his brothers and other extended family who had emigrated years earlier. They had survived the Potato Famine, but left rural Ireland to work factory jobs in Southeastern Connecticut. The area is filled with people from their old hometown.
John P. Lynch died here, in 1897 in a house that’s gone now – by these falls on the Yantic River. He died of malaria. John and Mary so identified with where they left behind that it was carved on their gravestone: “Native of Cahersiveen, County Kerry, Ireland.” All these old stories are new to me.
Visiting the Relatives 