Welcome to the zoo, Tank! Thanks Judy for sharing his picture. I can't believe you have 3 dogs! We have the 3 felines but they take up a whole bunch less space than those dogs must. He is cute, though. And welcome back to the online world too Judy.

Happy Birthday Jess tomorrow, Taylor on Friday and, of course, Jim on Saturday. October is a pretty big month for us, isn't it?

Last week I mentioned I hadn't done much Irish research lately but I have more news (and ancestors) to share with you. I have had 3 pieces of really good genealogical luck in this last week or so. Here you see an excerpt from the 1865 Massachusetts state census. These state census records are difficult to use because they aren't indexed and neither are most of them available online. But these have recently come online, although they are not yet indexed. I just took a chance and dove in to take a look page by page to see what I could find--and here's the Costello family just waiting for me to find them.

Prior to finding this last night, I only knew of one child from this family and this record shows me two additional children new to me! Great fun for me. Martin and Julia Costello are our 3rd great grandparents. Their daughter Mary is already married to John Bentley at the time of this census. It's still a thrill to find new information even if I'm about the only one really thrilled!

It was pure luck that I found them just by browsing but when you're hot, you're hot and I found the Ryans too! No real surprises there but it's good to find them as well. I also had a great Italian discovery last week so I'm feeling like I should go buy a lottery ticket.