A living family archive

Family is everything.

A continuing project to gather, verify and share the history of the Byrne family — names, places, photographs and the stories behind them.

Explore the family tree Meet the people

People 142 profiles Places 38 locations Stories 27 articles

Recently added

New to the archive this month

Mary Catherine Byrne

1887 – 1962

Born in County Mayo; emigrated to Liverpool, 1909.

Thomas J. Byrne

1854 – 1921

Carpenter; family records list eight children.

Eliza Whelan

1901 – 1989

Maternal line; long-running correspondence preserved.

Explore

Ways into the archive

Members Directory

Browse every documented relative across the tree.

Family Timeline

Births, marriages, migrations — set against the wider history.

Relatives Discovery

See how any two people in the tree are connected.

Galleries

Photographs, letters and scanned documents by decade.

“ Family is not an important thing. It's everything. — Michael J. Fox

Photographs

Open the galleries

Family tree

Four generations, and counting

The tree currently traces the Byrne line back to early-19th-century Connacht, with branches into Whelan, Maguire and McHale families. Every person card links to source documents — birth certificates, parish records, ship manifests — so anyone can check the working.

Open the full tree

From the journal

Stories behind the records

May 2026 · 8 min read

From Mayo to Merseyside: tracing the 1909 crossing

April 2026 · 5 min read

Reading a 19th-century parish register

March 2026 · 6 min read

Three generations of carpenters in one workshop

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