How To Get The Where, Who and When

A lot of people say that the Kansas City Irish Fest is just music and beer. Well I say a lot of people are stupid, stupid dopes. Because Irish Fest is so much more than that. I'll give you a for instance. Let's say that you're last name is McRib or O'Brother or something that is obviously of Irish origin but you don't know anything about your family history. You know what you should do? Come to Irish Fest, that's what. Because at Irish Fest one of the hundreds of other things you'll find that are neither music nor beer is the brilliant Barbara McTeague Scanlon and her Genealogy area.

Barb knows how to find all the family history you never knew existed. Armed with just the few meager facts you bring with you–parent's names, grandparents' names, their home towns, whatever–Barbara will track down those ghostly ancestors and scare them out into the light. Was your great-great-grandpappy a thatch-roofed farmer from the hills of Donegal? Did your great-great-great-granny leave Derry to become a nanny for the New York's gilded age rich and famous and then steal their silverware? Did your grandfather fight in 1916? How the hell should I know? But that's why I'm not in charge of genealogy and Barb is. If that information is out there, and I bet it is, she'll help you find it.

This year Barb is even making things easier, or at least more comfortable for you to track down those pesky ancestors. She's moving to the great indoors, to the Crown Center atrium near the Ward Irish Music Archive exhibit, where you'll be able to do your research in air conditioned comfort and without fighting the loud music from the Miller Lite Stage.

So you've got 122 days* to gather up whatever info you can to bring down to Irish Fest with you. The more you have, the deeper Barb can dig, but even if all you have is your good name, she'll still give you some interesting history of your family. Because, as I said back in the first paragraph, she's brilliant.

* A typical gestation period of a pink little piglet, if you were wondering.