For Janelle Asselin, it started with 10 pages of family records, tales of ancestors that spanned Ireland, Canada and the United States.

After a decade of research, she eventually found that John O’Rourke, her second great-grandfather, was not actually the ancestor who emigrated from Ireland as the family lore said. That was actually his father.

So it goes in the world of genealogy, specifically Irish ancestry, where starts and stops are common as official records were burned during wartime, forged due to families hiding their religious affiliations, and also lost during the regular and unrelenting passage of time.

The Ulster Historical Foundation will be coming to Minnesota as part of their national lecture series in order to help those just starting to unearth their Irish and Scottish ancestry, and also those years deep into discovering fourth cousins and relatives decades in the past.

“It is always interesting to dive deeper into the family history. It’s a wonderful way to connect with those roots and get the help to connect directly with those roots,” Asselin said. She serves as the marketing chair of Irish Genealogical Society International, the group that worked to bring the Northern Ireland-based Ulster Historical Foundation to the Twin Cities.

“The Irish records can be really daunting because there is so much about the history of Ireland itself that can be hard to track down,” Asselin said. “The Ulster Foundation will fill in some of those blanks for people who maybe don’t know where to start, or what records might be available.”

Irish Genealogical Society International Co-President Walt Rothwell said the Ulster Historical Foundation tours the U.S. every few years, and is seen as a premier authority in terms of Irish genealogy research.

On March 11, the program will involve sessions related to “Irish Heritage Day 2025,” and researching ancestors and family history in Ireland. On March 12, the program will consist of one-to-one research consultations.

Rothwell also hopes that armchair genealogy researchers realize that the Minnesota Genealogy Society in Mendota Heights offers services for many other cultures other than Irish. The center has a reference library that is open to the public for a fee, $10 per day.

Donna Jones, co-president of Irish Genealogical Society International, said finding out the relatives and places is only the beginning; once that is established the true history starts to unfold.

“It’s not just names and dates. It’s more the context of their lives, and answering, ‘What were their lives like?’” Jones said. “I think it’s just fascinating.”

If you go

What: Interested in finding out more about your heritage and relatives? The Ulster Historical Foundation, seen as one of the premier Irish research groups, will offer Irish and Scottish genealogy workshops on Tuesday, March 11 and Wednesday, March 12.

Where: Irish Genealogical Society International will host “Irish Heritage Day 2025: Researching Ancestors and Family History in Ireland” on Tuesday, March 11, at Lost Spur Golf and Event Center, 2750 Sibley Memorial Highway, in Eagan.

Cost: In person $100 non-members, $85 IGSI members. Virtual on Zoom costs $55 for non-members, $45 IGSI members.

Also: One-on-one research consultations are set for Wednesday, March 12, at the Minnesota Genealogy Center, located at 1385 Mendota Heights Rd., Suite 100, in Mendota Heights. Cost: $60 per 30 minute consultation.

Questions? For more information, call 651-330-9312 or visit ulsterhistoricalfoundation.com/portfolio/lecture-tour-2025.

Interested in local history, too? Sign up for our free, weekly newsletter, “From the Archives,” by following the prompts at twincities.com/newsletters.

Related Articles

St. Paul’s Irish on Grand to close after 35 years

A first-time visit to Ireland inspired by family roots and a love for donkeys

How a brazen murder in downtown St. Paul upended the city’s liquor trade 100 years ago

Photo gallery: Throwback Thursday

A developer’s efforts to add a series of single-story buildings along the outer edges of the Highland Bridge development have been rebuffed by a tie vote of the St. Paul City Council.

The Ryan Cos. recently sought zoning variances to add four squat buildings along Ford Parkway, each of them no more than 12 to 18 feet tall, on parcels of land where city zoning calls for a minimum of 40 feet. Variance requests for building height and floor area ratio were denied in January by the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals after some members likened the proposal to a strip mall, thrusting the issue before the city council.

Council Member Saura Jost, who represents Highland Park, urged her fellow council members on Wednesday to vote in favor of the Ryan Cos.’ two appeals of the BZA decision, noting that “almost all projects at Highland Bridge have approved variances from the zoning code.”

Deadlock

The council then voted on Jost’s motions, deadlocking 3-3 on each of the company’s requests for zoning variances on the two land parcels. Council Members Anika Bowie and Cheniqua Johnson joined Jost in voting yes, and Council President Rebecca Noecker and HwaJeong Kim joined Nelsie Yang in voting no.

Given the tie, the motions did not pass. Council members noted that the vote could be reconsidered next week if a council member changed their vote.

Spanning more than 122 acres, the former home of the Ford Motor Co. assembly plant in Highland Park has been developed into hundreds of housing units, commercial offices, multiple playgrounds and a Lunds & Byerlys grocery store, but residential construction has slowed.

Representatives of the Ryan Cos. have expressed concern that filling an additional series of sizable commercial or mixed-use buildings will be difficult given an economic climate marked by high interest rates, a difficult lending environment, sluggish city population growth, remote work and the city’s rent-control ordinance.

For and against

Just prior to the vote, Jost said the Board of Zoning Appeals had erred in identifying Ford Parkway at Cretin Avenue as a “neighborhood node,” or a potential transit and development hotspot, when it’s not listed as such in the city’s Comprehensive Plan. She also noted the Ryan Cos. had expressed concern about navigating Ford Parkway’s steep slope, shallow bedrock and perched water, as well as pedestrian easements that cut across the lot diagonally, which had been a city priority.

“Buildings ultimately bear on the soil below them,” Jost said. “These are challenges not created by the landowner, but by the land. And as I mentioned before, they impact the entirety of the design.”

A Twin Cities developer unimpressed with the concept plans told the BZA — and the city council, during a public hearing last week — that construction challenges around slopes and bedrock are common and not insurmountable. While the Ryan Cos. had not provided a geo-technical analysis to prove their point, neither had he, Jost noted.

“I strongly disagree with a local developer being an expert when it comes to sub-surface soil conditions,” she said. “They’re not expert design professionals.”

Taking the opposite tack, Yang said the BZA had relied on credible testimony from a developer with experience in the field, and she could not support the company’s appeals. “I did not find an error in the decision-making,” she said.

Related Articles

Ryan Cos. appeals denial of Highland Bridge one-story storefronts

Ryan Cos. to appeal negative zoning decision at St. Paul’s Highland Bridge

St. Paul Board of Zoning Appeals blocks Highland Bridge ‘strip mall’ proposal 4-2

St. Paul: At Highland Bridge, Ryan Cos. seeks less height, density along Ford Parkway

St. Paul free mental health clinic reached more than 100 visits since opening in October

By JOSH FUNK, Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Agriculture Department is scrambling to rehire several workers who were involved in the government’s response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak that has devastated egg and poultry farms over the past three years.

The workers were among the thousands of federal employees eliminated on the recommendations of billionaire Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency that is working to carry out Trump’s promise to streamline and reshape the federal government.

Republican Rep. Don Bacon said the administration should be more careful in how it carries out the cuts.

“While President Trump is fulfilling his promise to shed light on waste, fraud, and abuse in government, DOGE needs to measure twice and cut once. Downsizing decisions must be narrowly tailored to preserve critical missions,” said Bacon, who represents a swing district in Nebraska.

Related Articles

Trump and Musk say they like working together and will keep it at. Will it last?

DOGE notches courtroom wins as Elon Musk crusades to slash federal government

Trump administration orders halt to NYC toll meant to fight traffic and fund mass transit

Jobs cut at the FAA helped support air safety, a union says

Senate GOP budget bill back on track hours after Trump threw it into turmoil

The bird flu outbreak has prompted the slaughter of roughly 160 million birds to help control the virus since the outbreak began in 2022. Most of the birds killed were egg-laying chickens, so that has driven egg prices up to a record high of $4.95 per dozen on average. The federal government has spent nearly $2 billion on the response, including nearly $1.2 billion in payments to farmers to compensate them for their lost birds.

A USDA spokesperson said the department “continues to prioritize the response to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)” and several key jobs like veterinarians, animal health technicians and other emergency response personnel involved in the effort were protected from the cuts. But some employees of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service were eliminated.

“Although several APHIS positions supporting HPAI were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters,” the department spokesperson said.

Politico and NBC News reported that the jobs that were eliminated were part of an office that helps over see the national network of labs USDA relies on to confirm cases of bird flu and other animal diseases. It wasn’t immediately clear how many workers the department might be trying to rehire and whether any of them worked at the main USDA lab in Ames, Iowa.

Trump administration officials said this week that the USDA might change its approach to the bird flu outbreak, so that maybe entire flocks wouldn’t have to be slaughtered when the disease is found, but they have yet to offer many details of their plan.