Published On: February 29th, 2020|

The Hechinger Report – Tara García Mathewson

“Reagan was one of 30 lucky high schoolers to enroll in a popular English elective focused on genealogy, offered at the school for the last five years. Over the course of the semester-long class, students research their own family histories, tracing one line back as far as they can through birth, death and marriage records, Census records, and church records, primarily. Tracing her father’s father’s line, Reagan discovered her family came to the United States in 1849 with a flood of other Irish immigrants escaping the potato famine. She found the location of her last relative’s grave in central Ireland, where the family lived. And next month, she will visit that grave with her father and grandmother on an extracurricular pilgrimage, inspired by the class.” (more)