This is the story of the Lally family between 1818 and 1848. It could just as easily be your story if you have ancestors who were among over a million people who left the beautiful and tragic land of Ireland in the 1840s. This family lived in the Loughrea area, County Galway, Ireland, and their story is similar to that of so many Irish families as they struggled against the odds, were overwhelmed by the tragedy of the Great Famine, and were forced to leave their beloved homeland. This book explores how the Irish lived at this time, how they thought, and the reasons for their situation in Ireland. It brings together the many strands of Irish society and the economics, politics, and philosophy that dominated their lives. It describes the terrible journeys that members of the family undertook to reach England, America, Canada, and Australia.

The popularity of amateur genealogy and family history has soared in recent times. Genealogy, Psychology and Identity explores this popular international pastime and offers reasons why it informs our sense of who we are, and our place in both contemporary culture and historical context. We will never know any of the people we discover from our histories in person, but for several reasons we recognize that their lives shaped ours. Paula Nicolson draws on her experiences tracing her own family history to show how people can connect with archival material, using documents and texts to expand their knowledge and understanding of the psychosocial experiences of their ancestors. Key approaches to identity and relationships lend clues to our own lives but also to what psychosocial factors run across generations. Attachment and abandonment, trusting, being let down, becoming independent, migration, health and money, all resonate with the psychological experiences that define the outlooks, personalities and the ways that those who came before us related to others. Nicolson highlights the importance of genealogy in the development of identity and the therapeutic potential of family history in cultivating well-being that will be of interest to those researching their own family tree, genealogists and counsellors, as well as students and researchers in social psychology and social history.