During the 19th century, countless Irish people fleeing hardship and famine were forced to make their home amid the back alleys of London's slums. Desperately poor, they lodged in overcrowded, dilapidated and frequently filthy dwellings with little to live off but hope.
This is the world that Helen McKee's ancestors faced when they emigrated from Ireland in the 1830s. Helen lives in Egham in Surrey, and teaches medieval languages at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has been interested in family history since she was a teenager.
“I was delighted when Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) released a tranche of Roman Catholic records from the Diocese of Westminster in 2017,” she explains. “These revealed the exact area where my 3x great grandfather Patrick Curtain was born, which was Castleisland in County Kerry.
EMBASSY WEDDING
“In 1840, Patrick married Ellen Latch at the Roman Catholic Sardinian
