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I am Patrick Fitzgerald, the fifth generation of my family in America. Uncovering my family’s roots has changed me in ways I didn’t expect. I stand a little taller now, aware that I’m carried by the strength of those who came before me — strength I hadn’t fully understood until recently.

My family came from Ireland in the 1850s, a harsh and unforgiving time. It was the second wave of the Great Hunger — the potato famine and the economic collapse that followed. John and Mary Ring, my ancestors, must have sat together and reckoned with the hard truth of their situation. They knew the odds were against them, and that staying meant risking everything. Forced from the land they rented, they were left with no choice but to decide quickly how to protect their family. And so, like so many before them, they left Ireland for America, beginning a chapter neither could have imagined.