The Grove Files are where I celebrate my geeky love of history, research, and detective work while learning to apply sound genealogical practices. The aim is to keep the diligence of genealogy while letting in the mess of history—the gaps, conflicts, tragedies, and, of course, the odysseys. Using historical sources, maps, digital tools, archives, and other resources, I follow the clues to piece together the fragmented stories of my family, beginning with my father’s mother’s people, whose roots lay in and around Belfast and Lough Neagh, in the part of Ireland that became Northern Ireland in 1921.