Pat Sydlo-Arshan spent decades wondering about her Irish heritage, carrying fragments of family stories and newspaper clippings about relatives she'd never meet. At 73, she finally walked through the door of her great-grandfather's cottage in County Roscommon, Ireland — a home her family has maintained for over 200 years.
"Americans always know they're from somewhere else," the Port St. Lucie resident told TCPalm. "All these people are ones you've heard of in your head, but you would never imagine meeting them."
The journey to find her Irish family began with a DNA test and a message on Ancestry.com. A family genealogist in Ireland contacted Pat with news that would change her life. The genealogist's husband's uncle was a strong DNA match to Pat.
Her family's story, like many Irish immigrant tales, began during the aftermath of the Great Famine. In 1890, Pat's great-grandfather, Patrick, left the family cottage for America. As the eldest child, he carried his family's hopes and savings across the Atlantic, settling with wife Margaret in New York, where they remained active in Irish causes, sending money back to support those he'd left behind.
But the family's American story took a tragic turn. Pat's grandfather, Martin, who was Patrick's son, was killed in a train accident before Pat's mother was born. The tragedy left her mother disconnected from her paternal relatives; their stories preserved for Pat only in microfilmed newspapers she would later discover in the Bayonne Public Library in New Jersey.
In November, Pat took a three-week journey to Ireland, to reconnect these severed family ties. Her first stop was Roscommon, where her ancestors' cottage still stands. In Galway, she spent a day with her newfound cousin and his wife, who arrived bearing photographs of relatives long passed.
"They brought an entire bucket of pictures," Pat recalls, "showing me all the people I could never meet. They told me stories about them, told me who they were." The day ended in true Irish fashion — at a local pub with hot whiskies, creating new memories to replace the ones lost to time.
The journey's emotional peak came in Dublin, where the genealogist's family welcomed Pat with a special Thanksgiving dinner, thinking she'd missed the American holiday. "We were all sitting around saying this should be a movie," Pat laughed, suggesting Irish actress Saoirse Ronan could play her younger self.
For Pat, a retired English teacher who once briefly considered staying in Ireland during a trip 45 years ago, this homecoming held special significance. "I'm 73 years old and went all this while, always wondering about them," she reflects. "And someone gave me this gift of: these are your people."
Her family legacy now stretches from Ireland to America and even Australia, with cousins scattered across continents, all connected by DNA and a shared heritage. Pat's journey represents more than just a family reunion — it's a testament to the enduring bonds of ancestry and the power of modern technology to bridge centuries-old separations.
"They just love their heritage so much, they're so open and warm and friendly," Pat says of her Irish relatives. "I feel like I don't deserve that. I feel so lucky." Then, with a smile, she adds, "I guess you could say it's the luck of the Irish!"
