Upcoming Events

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Upcoming Events & Meetings

Our meetings are hybrid, combining in—person and Zoom participation.

In-person location: Freeport Memorial Library, Freeport, Long Island, N.Y.

Via Zoom: For members who prefer remote participation.

Meeting Schedule

10:00 a.m. Refreshments, Meet and Greet, Ask the Experts

10:45 a.m. Announcements/Webinar Begins

11:00 a.m. Lecture

October 25, 2025

The Great Hunger

with ELIZABETH STACK

Between 1846 and 1851, about a million people in Ireland died of famine-related causes. Most deaths were due to diseases like typhus rather than starvation per se, although diseases like dysentery and scurvy are related to lack of food.

Elizabeth Stack will discuss conditions leading up to the failure of the potato crop and the devastating consequences for the population of Ireland. She will examine the response of the British government and the landlords, as well as testimonies from eyewitnesses. American charity in Ireland and the mass migration, including life on board the so-called coffin ships, will also be covered.

Elizabeth Stack, Ph.D., is the former executive director of the American Irish Historical Society in Manhattan and former executive director of the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, New York. At Fordham University, she taught Irish and Irish American history and was associate director of Fordham’s Institute of Irish Studies.
She is a frequent guest on podcasts and radio shows about Irish America.

November 15, 2025

The Shape-Shifting Nature of Old Irish Surnames

with IRENE MORGAN

Your brick wall could be a modern-day blind spot in surname pronunciation or spelling. Old Irish surnames are living, breathing entities that shape-shifted and evolved across generations. Discover how to navigate mysterious spelling variants and aliases to trace elusive family names all the way back to Ireland.

Irene Morgan, a native Irish speaker, is the resident genealogy writer for Ireland Reaching Out and founder of Irish Quest. She spoke to the Forum in January about Irish forenames and nicknames.

December 14, 2025

Christmas Luncheon

Sunday, December 14, 2025
Irish Coffee Pub
East Islip, NY

Irish vocalist/guitarist Victor Cunneen will entertain the gathering, performing Irish as well as seasonal music. Cunneen, a native of Midleton, Co. Cork, was greatly influenced by the folk ballad boom of the early 1960s, particularly by the playing of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He has performed throughout Ireland and many European countries, and in Egypt, the U.S., and Canada.

COMING IN 2026

Saturday, January 17, 2026

Researching with Census Records

with KERRI TANNENBAUM

Unlock your family’s past by digging into census records. We’ll explore the fundamentals of using census records, including federal, state, and other censuses. You’ll learn how census records have evolved over time, how to locate and interpret the
records, and how to use the information to build your family tree and trace ancestors across multiple generations.

Forum member and professional genealogist Kerri Tannenbaum is a graduate of Boston University’s Certificate Program in Genealogical Research and the ProGen Peer Study Groups. A recipient of many awards from the National Genealogical Society, she serves as contributing editor of the Forum Newsletter. She also runs her own genealogy company, Family Dot Connector.

Saturday, February 21, 2026

The 1926 Irish Census

with NOEL CAROLAN
(via Zoom from Ireland)

On April 18, the 1926 Irish census, the first enumeration conducted by the Irish Free State, will be released by the National Archives of Ireland. To prepare us for this event, Dr. Noel Carolan will highlight the unique insights that the 1926 census will provide into Irish families and their neighbors, employers, and living conditions. The talk will outline the stark political and economic contexts of the census, the information it contains, how it was collected, and what we will discover, free of charge, when the census becomes available. Dr. Carolan will provide a set of digital handouts with selected online links and resources to help you kickstart your family history research in the eight weeks before the census release.

Dr. Carolan is a historian with a focus on national, local, and family history. His Ph.D. dissertation dealt with the political history of Ireland’s food supply from 1895 to 1923 and resulted in his delivery of conference papers in Ireland, Northern Ireland, the U.K., and the Czech Republic. For decades, he has been an active member of Raheny Heritage Society in Dublin, which divides its interest between local history and family history.

Saturday, March 21, 2026

The Orphan Trains

with FRANK McKENNA

The orphan train program was a welfare program that transported infants and children from crowded Eastern cities of the U.S. to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest and upstate New York. The program operated between 1854 and 1929 and relocated approximately 200,000 children. The co-founders of the movement claimed that these children were orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless; in fact, most were the children of new immigrants, many of them Irish, poor, and destitute. Although there were criticisms of the program—including ineffective screening of caretakers, insufficient follow-ups on placements, and the view that many of the children were used strictly as farm labor—some of the placed children grew up in loving homes.

Frank McKenna, a former president and current director of the Forum, is also one of its charter members. The director of the Seaford Public Library in Seaford, NY, he has worked in the public library field for over 30 years. His late great-aunt Margaret (McKenna) Loftus-Taylor was a rider on a baby train.