What's in an Irish Name: Novel Research

Interviews and blog posts for “Novel Research” are focused on

interesting topics that participants have researched before or while

composing a written work - whether fact, fiction, or family history.

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My ancestors from Tipperary, Ireland have the name McKeough. The family, including my gggrandmother Margaret, emigrated from Ireland to Canada and later settled in eastern Wisconsin. Generations later, I heard my relatives pronounce the name as "McKey". While delving into the Irish branch of my family tree, I researched the purpose of beginning a name with the prefix Mac, Mc, or O, I learned the following:

 

In ancient Ireland the population was much smaller than it is today and the mass movement of people was uncommon. Therefore, for a person to be known only by one name was usual. This single name system began to break down during the eleventh century as the population grew and there was a need for a further means of identification. The solution was to adopt a prefix such as Mac (Mc is an abbreviation) or Ó.

 

Mac means "son of" whilst Ó means "grandson of".

Idyllic Irish Farmland

 

In the years before my ancestors left Ireland, many rural families in Ireland lived in single-room cabins made of mud and without windows or chimneys. People often lived together in communal clusters called clachans (a small settlement or hamlet) spread out among the beautiful countryside. Up to a dozen persons might occupy a cabin, sleeping in straw on the bare ground, sharing space with the family's pig and chickens.

In the 1840s, my ancestors moved from Ireland to Lower Canada, later known as Quebec. No records of movement for free emigrants to Canada were required until 1865. (The USA required these records since 1773.)

 

Engaging in genealogical research and then writing a novel based on the information garnered from the research - SHARDS OF MEMORY Oral History in a Heartbeat - is my idea of an exciting pastime. It's not climbing Mount Everest, or kiteboarding on O'ahu (no, that's not me on the water!) but the "high" is still there.

Kiteboarding (or kitesurfing) with Mōkapu Peninsula in background

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What names of relatives or locations have you researched in your family tree?

SHARDS OF MEMORY

Oral History In A Heartbeat

is available at Amazon.com in print and ebook

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Developing Traits For a Novel Character

After years of gradually-increasing issues with my right hip, and a slow progression from osteopenia to osteoporosis, I had a total hip replacement in 2018. My years-long experience (often referred to as "aging"😉) was the catalyst for the through-line of my genealogical novel, SHARDS OF MEMORY - Oral History In A Heartbeat.

Even flowers have personality traits

In my case, adjustments prior to surgery included a lessened pace in activities and a shift in diet. This may have slowed the pace of loss, but whether as much or more than medication would have I don't know. The ultimate result was surgery.

The novel's character, a young child injured in a car accident, experiences prolonged hardships due to a damaged leg. Noticeable public traits of the child include a sensitive nature, shyness, reticence, and quiet demeanor. 

The through-line of the story illustrates an emotional growth as the child adjusts to adverse circumstances. Assisting with this growth are the four grandparents who entertain the child with ongoing tales of ancestors' lives in their homelands and their immigration to America.

My situation was temporary, and dissimilar in cause to that of the novel's character - ageing verses accident. The condition did, however, give me insight into the emotional impact of a long-term physical disability. 

The standard advice for authors working on novels is to "write what you know." In this case, I wrote about what I knew and then embellished accordingly.

Excerpt from SHARDS OF MEMORY: 

Art’s thoughts of late drifted to stories about ancestral lands he heard as a kid. According to his mother, tales about the old country provided a bridge of acceptance for new generations. But Art’s interest in past events paled in light of concern for his grandchildren’s future. This proved especially true of Gahlen who suffered physical and emotional scars of present day.

The accident had occurred several months after the child’s third birthday. Acute pain in the mangled right leg faded over time, to everyone’s relief. And Gahlen’s sunny disposition encouraged others to accept the tragedy as the will of a higher power.

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What personal experience have you used to flesh out a character in your writing?

Happy 100th Birthday Anniversary to Mom

Charles and Anna Plohar Maigatter

One hundred years ago today, at 11:57 pm, my material grandmother, Anna Plohar Maigatter, gave birth to her fifth child and third daughter, Evelyn. Anna and her husband Charles lived in a small town along the northeastern Wisconsin shores of Lake Michigan. They had grown up outside of a farming village even farther north along the shoreline, both raised by parents and grandparents who emigrated from 'the old country' decades before.

The month my mother, Evelyn, was born featured such newsworthy headlines as:

Boston Braves no-hitters

General Pershing troops march into Mexico

Mary Pickford - first female film star to get $1M contract

Boeing aircraft flies for 1st time

Boy Scouts of America forms

Democratic convention - Wilson campaigns on slogan "he kept out of the war"

and Theodore Roosevelt declines nomination of the Progressive Party

Voters in East Cleveland approve(s) women suffrage 

 

Mom and Dad were both born in 1916. The intervening years took them from birth, through schooling, marriage, family life, experiencing the growth of a nation, retirement, and aging in the era of the internet. What transpired over those decades is worth more than a cursory glance, not only in terms of family genealogy and world events, but in the moments of daily lives that brought the country and its citizens from a life of austerity appreciated to one of privileged prosperity.    

 

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W is for WALLONIA TO WISCONSIN #AtoZChallenge



For this year's challenge, my theme is The Fun in Writing. Each of my 26 posts for April is aimed at
illustrating fun parts of an author's day. A writer doesn't only write.
Creating a story or an essay requires research, revision, editing, and lots and lots of coffee and chocolate.


W is for Wallonia to Wisconsin

Wallonia is the name for the French Belgian area of the country, the southern part. The northern part is Flemish, and in the very center is the capital, Brussels. The Kingdom of Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French, and German. A number of non-official, minority languages and dialects are spoken as well. English is widely spoken throughout Belgium as a second or third language.

 

My father's ancestors moved from Mehaigne, Belgium to Mishicot, Wisconsin in 1856. In 2007, I took a trip to Belgium to visit relatives and experience the country of my heritage. 

 

For a virtual tour of this beautiful country, please visit the blog site that I had so much fun compiling after the trip, and will use as research material for future stories. Featured are Brussels, Gent, Bruges, and all the little historical towns of my ancestors; plus the swans, beer, chocolate, and Mannekin Pis: 

 

http://belgianbaugniet.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

Just south of Namur in the Ardennes village of Profondeville is the gracious Villa Gracia. The owner, Gisele, arranged a room for us for three nights in the hotel originally built as the secondary home of Belgium Army General Gracia.

 

 

 

Lacemaking in Brussels

 

 

 

Rooftops in Bruges (Brugge) built with stair-like roofs for easy exit in case of emergency

 

 

 

 



Q is for QUEBEC (LOWER CANADA) #AtoZChallenge

For this year's challenge, my theme is The Fun in Writing. Each of my 26 posts for April is aimed at
illustrating fun parts of an author's day. A writer doesn't only write.
Creating a story or an essay requires research, revision, editing, and lots and lots of coffee and chocolate.



Q is for QUEBEC (LOWER CANADA)

Over the past five years, I've been working on a genealogical novel that covers the homelands of my ancestors. During NaNoWriMo 2015, I added fifty thousand words to the mix (making me a NaNoWriMo WINNER! Yeah, me.) The weekly gathering place for the month of November was a movable feast. For the Sunday sessions, I experienced a new brewery in Waikiki, aptly named Waikiki Brewing Company . . . another reason I have so much fun writing!

 

Several of my ancestors immigrated to Quebec, which at the time was known as Lower Canada. Some of the ancestors emigrated from France, others from Ireland. A couple of these folks, one a descendant of emigrants from LaRochelle, France; the other a direct emigrant from Tipperary County, Ireland; met up in Wisconsin where they said, "I Do." The 1860 census lists them as Philis (Felix) and Margaret Plant with three children; directly below them are listed his parents, Francois and Phillis (Felicity) along with young Philis, Felix's first child. (From the names, you see why genealogy research gets confusing.)

Long before their marriage took place in Wisconsin, though, the French LaPlante folks who settled in Quebec had to break rocky ground for planting, and cut down trees to build shelter. No Walmart greeted them with shelves overflowing with hammers and protein drinks and fresh vegetables. These settlers were on their own to "make their own" with whatever they brought from the homeland. 

The Irish McKeough family escaped a cholera epidemic, along with an agricultural crisis that became known as the great potato famine. Immigrants traveled across stormy seas in cramped conditions before arriving in Lower Canada with only the meager belongings they were able to carry with them.

Quebec is known for its fur trade business, especially beaver pelts when the fur became the fashion statement of Europe during the 1800s. Also noteworthy is that the province of Quebec is famous for its thousands of lakes, formed during the deglaciation period beginning about 15,000 years ago.

 

[PDF] Voyageurs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

 

 

 

E is for EASTERN EUROPEAN ANCESTORS #IWSG #AtoZChallenge

For this year's challenge, my theme is The Fun in Writing. Each of my 26 posts for April is aimed at illustrating fun parts of an author's day. A writer doesn't only write.
Creating a story or an essay requires research, revision, editing, and lots of coffee and chocolate.

This is also Insecure Writer's Support Group Day. #IWSG

What I have learned over the years from the A to Z Challenge is that composing 26 blog posts with a theme each April has done wonders for reducing my insecurity about having the ability to produce coherent sentences. (Apparently, it has done nothing to help me reduce my rambling sentences!)

E is for Eastern European Ancestors

This is the first of four Wednesday A-to-Z posts related to my research for a novel based on my ancestors: sixteen great-great grandparents who shared the experience of emigrating from (out of) Eastern Europe (and ultimately immigrating (in)to the United States.)

Those of you who have researched any of your family history know the exciting experience of discovering a new relative or a "lost" ancestor. Since the advent of internet ancestry sites, such as Ancestry.com, finding elusive elements of your family tree is exceptionally easier than when I first began my research.

The detective work involved, though, was possibly more fun back when the search involved greater effort than typing in a name and clicking on a "search" key.

Some of branches of my family tree originated in the Eastern European countries of Bohemia, Prussia, and Bavaria. Accomplishing my research in those areas required heavy dependence on library books and the internet. Closer to home, my sister and I took a "cemetery" tour I had mapped out, traveling around the Wisconsin countryside to all of the known locations where relatives were reportedly interred.

Every encounter of successfully discovering another ancestor's cemetery tombstone is an energizing event.

But writing stories about life in Eastern Europe during the early 1800s,

based on my earlier research, is equally exhilarating!

 

Here is a page from my cemetery research files:

Maternal Great-Great Grandparents, Caroline Heider & Gustave Maigatter
In 1866, Gustave immigrated with his parents from Magdeburg, an important Prussian fortress until 1912:
most of the city was destroyed in World War II (1939-1945).

The Asymmetrical Branches of a Family Tree

The spreading branches and leaves on the limb of a family tree look a bit like this accompanying print of a cherry tree branch. Nothing about a cherry tree's branches or the branches of a family tree are perfectly symmetrical or coordinated.

For over ten years, genealogical research has been an important avocation for me.

Yesterday, in my interview with A.F Stewart (see her blog site: afstewart interviews gailmbaugniet ) I mentioned creating a family of characters for Pepper Bibeau, my novel’s protagonist. This enabled me to develop Pepper’s back-story while providing a full cast of characters to draw from for this and future novels in the series.

Using information from the vital records I had compiled over a ten-year period, I also wrote this short family history for my great, great grandparents who emigrated from French Belgium.

A FAMILY HISTORY TO PRESERVE MEMORIES, HOPES, AND DREAMS

Much has been written of the emigration of Belgian citizens and the hardships they endured to make a better life for their families.

Clement and Augustine had been married for fourteen years and had three young sons when they made the voyage by ship across the Atlantic Ocean in 1856. They left behind many loved ones: relatives, friends, and neighbors. Although Clement’s mother, Elizabeth, had died three years before the journey, his father, Andre, was still alive at the age of 82. Their youngest son, Frederic Joseph, was only eight months old when they sailed out of Antwerp. Before they were able to make a return trip to their homeland, Clement’s father died in 1858 and his sister, Marie Catherine, died in 1861.

Through these difficult times, Clement and Augustine found reasons to rejoice. The boys remained healthy and were able to labor alongside their father on the heavily wooded farmland located near the East Twin River, acreage Clement purchased in a quiet farming town in eastern Wisconsin.

In 1867, Clement and Augustine celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. Within ten years, all of their sons were married, their youngest on the final day of 1877. Their celebrations included neighboring farm families who owned land adjacent to or near their homestead. Eventually, most of the neighbors became branches of the family tree as grandchildren married.

When Augustine died in 1890, she was interred in the burial ground behind the local church. Clement died two years later and was buried beside her. Their 17th grandchild, Arthur Thomas, was born the following year, 1893, in the same small town where Clement and Augustine settled decades earlier.

Least we forget the hardships they endured and the opportunities their actions offered to us, their descendents, it is important to record our family’s history. May their memories, along with their hopes and dreams, live in us and continue to inspire the constant striving for betterment imbued in the zealous Belgian spirit.

For pictures and articles about my visit to Belgium in 2007, visit this link: genealogy trip, Belgium, 2007